Everyone can achieve wealth and success if they just work hard enough, or at least that’s what the American Dream promises the American society of the 1920’s. In the book ‘The Great Gatsby’ written by F. Scott Fitzgerald it is drawn to our attention that the dream of a perfect life is not as achievable as it seems. Fitzgerald represents the illusions and corruptness of the American Dream through his use of the settings. At a first glance, East Egg, West Egg and The Valley of Ashes are all greatly different to each other but as you read further into the story you realise that they are more similar than it seems, with the same corruptness about them.
Fitzgerald portrays the false achievement of the American Dream through East Egg. People in East Egg are wealthy. They are seen to have the perfect lives and can do anything they want. They are seen to be living the American Dream. This is not really what they are living. People in West Egg have always been wealthy for their whole lives and have always lived rich, full, comfortable lives. They have not really achieved the American Dream because they did not have to work for their money, they have always had money. In the book, it is shown what the people in the East are like when Tom Buchanan says, “‘Oh I’ll stay in the East, don’t you worry,’ … ‘I’d be a god damned fool to live anywhere else.'” This shows us that the people in the East think they are better than everyone else because they have and always have had more money than everyone else and they haven’t earned it illegally. East Egg is portrayed as an elegant, pristine, perfect place when it is said “the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered across the water.” East Egg is a representation of the false achievement of the American Dream because the point of the dream is to inspire people that if you work hard enough you can achieve a rich, full life like the people in East Egg, but they didn’t have to work to achieve it so they are inspiring false hope.
West Eggs residents are flamboyant, lively people. They like to spend their money in big ways and show it off to others. Fitzgerald uses West Egg to represent achieving the American Dream corruptly. If you work hard enough you should be able to achieve the American Dream, but it is not that easy. West Eggers represent the fact that it is unattainable without some form of corruption. As stated by Tom Buchanan, “‘Everyone in West Egg is a bootlegger.'” Bootlegging is the illegal selling of alcohol. Tom is implying that everyone in West Egg has gained their money through illegal sales of alcohol, proving that even they had to break the law to gain what is seen as a fair and equal chance at life. Tom also says that “‘a lot of these newly rich people are just big bootleggers, you know.'” This also backs up the fact that people in West Egg gain their money through corrupt and illegal business because the people who live in West Egg represent new money. West Egg falsely represents the American Dream because they do not achieve their money honestly or legally. They also inspire false hope for those with less because they did not attain their money through working hard and morally.
The American Dream means equal opportunity for everyone to become rich. In the book, we see that this is not true. The elite rich become richer while the poor don’t make any progress and never leave the Valley of Ashes. The American Dream fails those who it was created to inspire hope for. The people of the Valley of Ashes cannot escape the cycle of poverty without the help of others outside the cycle. They are stuck in a never ending circle of nothingness. The Valley of Ashes is described as “a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the form of houses and chimneys and rising smoke.” This explains to us that the Valley of Ashes is just a dirty dumping ground that it and anyone who lives there will never amount to much. The American Dream promises that if you work hard enough, you can achieve wealth and riches. No matter how hard the citizens of the Valley of Ashes work, they can never achieve what they believe to be the American Dream because they cannot escape the poverty cycle. Workers in the Valley of Ashes do not earn a lot so even the smallest amount of business can excite them if it means a little bit of income. This is show when “… a damp gleam of hope sprang into his light blue eyes.” George is hopeful that someone has come for him to fix something and it means a little bit of money for him so the hope of that is evident in his eyes. The Valley of Ashes is a representation of how the American Dream fails those who it was inspired to create hope for. This is because the American Dream is supposed to inspire hope for American citizens who are poor and it makes them believe that they can achieve anything if they work hard. The Valley of Ashes shows that this is not possible because if you are poor, you will remain poor no matter how hard you work unless you have outside help or break the law.
Fitzgerald uses his novel The Great Gatsby to blow this myth of the American Dream out of the water. He uses the settings of East Egg, West Egg and the Valley of Ashes to expose the true reality behind the fairytale of living a perfect life. He uses these settings and the characters that live there to show us that the American Dream is all about chasing after something that is an illusion and always wanting something more than what we have. Fitzgerald proves to us that there is no such thing as achieving the perfect life and those who are seen to have it never achieved it themselves. They always either reach it by corruptness or being born into it.
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