Gatsby and His American Dreams

             In The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, many themes are enclosed; the most notable of these themes is related to the American Dream. The American Dream is based on the idea that any person, no matter what they are, can become successful in life by his or her hard work. The dream also embodies the idea of a self-sufficient person, an entrepreneur making it successful for themselves. The Great Gatsby is about what happened to the American Dream during the 1920s, an era when the dream had been corrupted by the relentless pursuit of wealth. In this novel, the pursuit of the American Dream and the pursuit of a romantic dream are the ultimate causes of the downfall of the book's title character, Jay Gatsby.
             Throughout the story, Jay Gatsby avoids telling the truth of his hard, unglamorous childhood. He does this to keep his superficial image of himself and to save himself from the embarrassment of being in a state of poverty during his youth. Jay Gatsby's real name is James Gatz and he is from the very unexciting North Dakota. He changed his name to Jay Gatsby when he was seventeen years old, which was the beginning of his version of the American Dream. Though concealed for most of the story, Gatsby's embarrassing childhood is a major source of determination in his attempt to achieve the American Dream. During Gatsby's early adulthood, he joined the army. He first met Daisy when he was at Camp Taylor and he and some other officers stopped by her house. He initially loved Daisy because of her extraordinary house and because many other men had been with her already. One evening in October, during 1917, Gatsby fell in love with Daisy Fay, and in turn she fell in love with G!
             atsby. "Daisy was the first 'nice' girl he had ever known". Their love was an uneasy one at first for Gatsby to comprehend because he wasn't rich by any standards and he felt that he wasn't worthy of Daisy&...

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