"Disillusion, The New Illusion"
             In The Great Gatsby, WWI had previously ended a few years earlier in 1918, Nick was among the generation of Americans coming home from a brutal carnage that would make early twentieth century American seem like an empty hyprocracy. Gatsby's dream of loving Daisy was ruined by the respective social statuses, and ends up resorting to crime in order to make enough money to impress her. The differences in opinion between the East and West Eggers are disillusions as new money challenges old money. Fitzgerald portrays the 1920's as an era of disillusionment, evidenced in its overcharging cynicism, greed, empty pursuit of pleasure, and its decayed social and moral values
             As Nick, and the rest of his generation came home, they were in the midst of a dizzying rise of the stock market in the aftermath of the war, which led to a sudden sustained increase in the national wealth and a newfound materialism as people began to spend and consume at unprecedented levels. In the first chapter, Nick comments on Tom's incredible wealth by saying; "For instance he had brought down a string of polo ponies from Lake Forrest. It was hard to realize that a man in my own generation was wealthy enough to do that" (10). Here Fitzgerald is showing Nick speaking about his relative Tom, as he graciously spends money on pleasure for himself. Whereas Nick, on the other hand, sells bonds only to make a minimal wag, lives in a small hole in the wall, and attempts to live his life to the fullest emotionally, not with the presence of material items.
             Gatsby above all wishes for his idealized relationship with Daisy to come true, which she neither deserves nor qualifies. In the 1920s depicted in the novel, however, easy money and relaxed social values shatter this illusion over the course of Gatsby's five years worth of anticipation and waiting. Unfortunately, to attain his goal G
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