Oral Presentation Outline

The Great Gatsy

Decline of The Great American Dream

Fitzgerald portrays an era of decay, both in moral and social values,

displayed as cynicism, unrestrained greed, and the hedonistic pursuit of
material excess.
The famously reckless and opulent jazz parties of the time showed the
corruption of the American Dream as the unquenched desire for money
and pleasure superseded the more noble societal values of equality and
liberty.
One literary device he uses to depict the American Dream is motif; one motif
is geography as represented by East and West Egg. West Egg is where the
"new rich" live, those who have made a lot of money by being
entrepreneurial (or criminal) in the years after World War I ended.
On the other hand, East Egg is filled with those who have always had
money. While they do look like they have class, dignity, and manners (things
lacking in West-Eggers), they are no better in their excesses than their newly
rich neighbors. Tom and Daisy both have affairs, Jordan Baker is a cheat,
Daisy kills a woman and lets someone else take the blame. The vast lake
sybolizes the vast separation between the classes, even if they intermingle
at times.
This is shown by: They were careless people, Tom and Daisy--they
smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money
of their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let
other people clean up the mess they had made.

On its face The Great Gatsby is a story about thwarted love between a
man and a woman, but the theme is about the great American dream and
how people are trying to achieve it.

The pursuit of social status and material gain inevitably led to the
destruction of the American Dream.
Gatsby was born into a poor family and he only thought of being rich and
achieving the great American dream. An unmistakable symbol used to
depict the American Dream is the green light at the end of Daisy's dock in
East Egg. It is Gatsby's inspiration --the unattainable dream. When he was
poor, Daisy could not marry him, so he worked hard and achieved the height
of the American Dream. He literally recreated himself from virtually nothing,
he made a lot of money yet could not achieve everything.
I decided to call to him. Miss Baker had mentioned him at dinner, and that
would do for an introduction. But I didn't call to him, for he gave a sudden
intimation that he was content to be alonehe stretched out his arms
toward the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him, I could
have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seawardand
distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away,
that might have been the end of a dock. When I looked once more for
Gatsby he had vanished, and I was alone again in the unquiet darkness.
"Her voice is full of money," he said suddenly.
That was it. I'd never understood before. It was full of money that was the
inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals' song
of it high in a white palace the king's daughter, the golden girl
According to me in his mind Daisy was also a prize as good as the great
American dream
This novel most of all shows how the great American dream declined.
"Meyer Wolfsheim? No, he's a gambler." Gatsby hesitated, then added
coolly: "He's the man who fixed the World's Series back in 1919."
"Fixed the World's Series?" I repeated. [] "Why isn't he in jail?"
"They can't get him, old sport. He's a smart man.

Meyer Wolfsheim fixed the World Series, an enormous crime that Nick
thinks is like "a burglar blowing a safe." But the burglar gets caught;
Wolfsheim uses his wealth and underworld connections to stay squeaky
clean. Apparently you don't have to be high class to benefit from your
wealth.

Gatsby is one version of Americathe resourceful, athletic, restless young

nation striving to make itself better. The problem is, America as Nick sees it
isn't like that anymore. It's beaten down, like George Wilson; or it's rich and
careless, like Tom. The poor will never have what the wealthy do, no matter
how much effort and change is made. Gatsby is a prime example of this. He
will always be James Gatz inside.
The biggest way in which the decline of this great American dream is
shown is through the valley of ashes. The Valley of Ashes is like a no mans
land situated at the heart of the American society. The phrase, shrink away
implies that people are trying to ignore that place, as if it does not exist.
Occasionally a line of gray cars crawl along an invisible track. The grey
cars refer to the industrial dump trucks that arrive every day to dump the
industrial waste; the description of these dump trucks is just like somber
cars at a funeral. The Valley of Ashes is presented as a literal and
metaphorical dumping ground which also shows signs of corruption and
adulteration in the Great American Dream.
I couldn't forgive him or like him, but I saw that what he had done was, to
him, entirely justified. It was all very careless and confused. They were
careless people, Tom and Daisy they smashed up things and creatures
and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or
whatever it was that kept them together and let other people clean up the
mess they had made
This just shows how crimes committed by rich people never equal to those
committed by poor people. That is how corrupt the great American dream
is.

In Conclusion, I would like to say that this novel is basically about thwarted
love between a man and a woman but its based on the theme of the great
American dream and furthermore shows how corrupt it is and how corrupt
that has made society. In turn creating a difference between the rich and
the poor people, not only materialistically but morally.