The Great Gatsby

“The Great Gatsby” is a great book by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I believe the book had a very interesting story that I really enjoyed. Most of all I enjoyed the character, Gatsby, the known yet unknown man that is the main character of this book. Gatsby is a man who was after the American dream, and he has seemed to be achieving it by showing his great wealth and having many parties to get more people to know about him. But he also was achieving the American dream in am abnormal way, like bootlegging and lying about his life.
You can tell that Gatsby is after the American dream by the number of parties he has to show off himself and get more popular. Nick himself displays how many parties he has in a very good way. “I believe that on the first night I went to Gatsby’s house I was one of the few guests who were actually invited. People were not invited – they went there” (F. Scott Fitzgerald, p. 41). I thought it was funny how he said “actually invited”. It’s just kind of odd to think of a party just kind of happening. But what most people may not know is that he doesn’t only throw these parties just to get more friends, but he does them for another part of the American dream, getting a wife. He throws these parties for a woman named Daisy that he’s deeply in love with. These parties show he has friends and many of them, showing people he is close of even at the American dream.
Another way that you can tell Gatsby is after the American dream is by his wealth. He has a lot of money and he is not afraid to show it off. There are times in the book where he wants to pay for thing or offers things to people that is kind of condescending. One instance when he does this is when he is talking to nick and offering him money for getting daisy to come visit him. He says this, “Why, I thought – why, look here, old sport, you don’t make much money, do you?” (p. 82). This shows that he assumes that nick is not super well off. Or just kind of showing that he is showing how rich he is. It also shows that he likes to show how much money he has by offering it for a seemingly arbitrary reason. But this wealth shows that he has part of the American dream.
All of these parts of the American dream show that the American dream is his goal, but how he has achieved these goals was different from what was believed. First of all he pretty much lies about his whole life. "James Gatz – that was really, or at least legally, his name" (p. 98). Once you lie about your name, that pretty much it. Your name is a deep part of who you are. Along with that he lied about his life before. He says a lot about going to Oxford University, and he never did. He actually lived a lot of his life living on a boat with a really rich guy. Also, after that man died Gatsby tried to get his part of the dream of wealth, but he got it by bootlegging. So no matter what he was going for, he was going for it in a shady way by illegal activities and lying about himself.
Gatsby was a man after the American dream with all his parties and wealth, but he got that dream more by lying about his life and selling alcohol. I guess a lot of people wanted to be a part of the American dream, and they did whatever they could. Gatsby was an extremely interesting person to read about, and throughout the book you learn more and more crazy stuff about him and his life.