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American Dream


Even then, once Tom pleads with her to stay, Daisy quickly capitulates and ultimately leaves Gatsby for a life of comfort and security. The Buchanans are the ultimate examples of wealth and prosperity, the epitome of the rich life of the American Dream, yet their lives are empty, unfulfilled, and without purpose. .
             Though Myrtle Wilson makes an attempt to escape her own class and pursue happiness with the richer set, her efforts ultimately produce no results and she dies, a victim of the very group she sought to join. Myrtle tries to join Tom's class by entering into an affair with him and taking on his way of living, but in doing so she becomes vulgar and corrupt like the rich. She loses all sense of morality and is scornful of people of her own class. Her constant clothing changes signify her dissatisfaction with her life - she changes personalities every time she changes her dress: "with the influence of the dress her whole personality had also undergone a change. The intense vitality was converted into impressive hauteur"(pg. 35). She treats the elevator boy in her apartment building with disdain: "Myrtle raised her eyebrows in despair at the shiftlessness of the lower orders. 'These people! You have to keep after them all the time.'"(pg. 36). Though American democracy is based on the concept of equality among people, social discrimination does still exist, and the divisions between classes cannot be overcome. Myrtle strives for a new life for herself, yet she is corrupted by the supposedly 'better' group and finally falls victim to it. .
             Jay Gatsby's idealistic view of Daisy Buchanan creates a conflict for him once he is confronted by the reality. Over the course of five years, Gatsby has built Daisy up in his mind to be the perfect woman, someone that the actual Daisy could never measure up to: "no amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart"(pg.


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