The True Heir of the American Dream- Marius Bewley

Summary: Although many think F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Great Gatsby" is about living the American dream, the underlying message is the corruption of the dream. Gatsby is the midpoitn between illusion and reality. Everyone knows and has a sense of who Gatsby is. When it comes down to it, both Daisy and Gatsby are overrated and two dimensional characters. Daisy's only purpose is being nothing more than another disappointment to Gatsby. Gatsby is naive for liking her because she is just as destructive as Tom is. The reason Daisy and Tom are together is because they are a mirror image of each other, two destructive people. Although "The Great Gatsby" shines some light on the good parts of the American dream, all in all, it is a harsh criticism of it.

Analysis: We agree with Bewley--to an extent. His ideas get to be a little too extreme. "The Great Gatsby" is about the corruption of the dream but Gatsby isn't a mythic character or an impersonal character. The article digs deeper into the book, especially in terms of Daisy. All Daisy ends up doing is disappointing Gatsby, and she really is a lot like Tom. Daisy represents a dream that is dead and gone, something Gatsby had a little too much faith in, only to disappoint him.

Works Cited
Fitzgerald, Francis Scott. The Great Gatsby. 1925. New York: Scribner Paperback
Fiction, 1992.

Beweley, Marius. "The True Heir of the American Dream." Fitzgeral'ds Criticism
of America. N.p.: n.p., n.d. 96-105.

Roya Shariat
Jenny Zaki