In the novel, The Great Gatsby, by F Scott Fitzgerald, the wealthiest people want to be wealthier and achieve The American Dream. People use others to get ahead and lie to keep secrets hidden, and deceit to get what they want. The use of deceit and lying completely obliterate and corrupt the American Dream.
People might use others to get ahead to fulfill their dream using deceit; which is not the proper way to fulfill the American Dream. Gatsby wants to make a positive impression on Nick, since he wants to take advantage of him to get to Daisy once again, “His smile understood you just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you just as you would like to believe in yourself and assured you that it had precisely the impression of
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Gatsby is telling Nick all about his past to attempt to bond, but all of the information is false, “He hurried the phrase, ‘educated at Oxford” as if it had bothered him before. And with this doubt, his whole statement fell to pieces” (66). Gatsby boasts to Nick that he had gone to Oxford, but Nick notices that he seems a little bit nervous as he boasts about his education, as if he were, as Jordan said, lying about his past. He feels the need to lie about his successful education to brag about his completion of the American Dream, which he actually corrupted for himself. Gatsby had his future set out for him in his own mind, “Jay Gatsby sprang from his platonic conception of himself. [...] He invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year old boy would like to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end” (104). Gatsby creamed himself, his image, his reputation, and his plan to win Daisy back. He deceived others to gain the wealth he has, and his dream now is to win over Daisy from Tom. Gatsby wants the highest of American Dreams; a decent house, a large wealth status, and a perfect wife. However, through his ways of achieving these, he deceives countless amounts of people and his history is based on