F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the honest and moral narrator, Nick Caraway to portray the many immoral people and their corruption of the American Dream in The Great Gatsby. Many of the characters in The Great Gatsby are materialistic, as they try to satisfy their materialism by doing immoral things. Nick, who is slow to judge, shows the reader the significant contrast between his ‘American Dream’ and how the other characters have corrupted ‘American Dream’.
Nick is one of the many characters in this novel, yet is the only decent, reasonTABLE character who has not corrupted the ‘American dream’. He is the only honest man with integrity, and he knows it. “l am one of the few honest people I have ever known” (Fitzgerald, 60). He is the only non judgmental person in the story, and he hasn’t lost touch with his moral values. “Nick insists that he deplores Gatsby appalling sentimentality. This isn’t a reasoned judgment. Nick disapproves because he cannot yet affirm” (Samuels, 80).
Even though Nick had just heard about all of the negative things that Gatsby has done, and about his character, he still hasn’t judged him. Since Nick has such a neutral attitude towards people when he meets hem, you the reader, can see the facts, and the characters that have corrupted the ‘American Dream’. Jay Gatsby, is like many of the characters in the novel. He is corrupt, materialistic, and judgmental. He has lived his life in the pursuit Of power, wealth, and love.
He grew up poor, but now is living the ‘American Dream’. However, he accomplished his goal of being rich, by participating in organized crime, including distributing illegal alcohol and trading in stolen securities. This is a perfect example Of how Gatsby has corrupted the ‘American Dream’. He had fallen in love with Daisy Buchanan, another corrupt character, before e went to fight in World War I in 1917. While he was gone, Daisy married Tom Buchanan, just because he was rich. “Her voice is full Of money” (Fitzgerald 120).
Gatsby thinks that now he is rich, Daisy will marry him. “She only married you because I was poor and she was tired of waiting for me” (Fitzgerald 122). It is obvious that Gatsby thinks that money can buy happiness. “Gatsby represents everything that Nick has an unaffected scorn for” (Samuels 81 ). Nick and Gatsby are complete opposites, on their view of obtaining the American Dream. Nick does it honestly, while Gatsby was a bootlegger, and e gambler, participating in illegal things.
