The False Reality of the American Dream in the Great GatsbyThe Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a novel that focuses on the ideas of the American. Dream and social class in the 1920s. In the novel, the residents of West Egg and East Egg are upper-class people who have earned money either through inheritance or through hard work and who have had many opportunities to make their American dream a reality. The residents of the Valley of Ashes are lower class people who have little or no money and must work their entire lives to make ends meet. Even if both social classes aspire to the same thing, the American dream, neither of them will ever truly achieve it. Fitzgerald uses vast contrast in the settings of East Egg, West Egg, and The Valley of Ashes to display the recurring theme of a predefined social class and to expose the false reality that the American dream presents about society. Scott Fitzgerald uses the people of East Egg and West Egg to show the false reality that is the American dream and how it can never be achieved because the human race will always want more. East Egg and West Egg are full of rich and successful people. The people of East Egg earned their money through inheritance and hold a very high class position and behave as such. The people of West Egg however have earned their money and hold a high class position, but they are still considered inferior to those in East Egg. One of West Egg's residents, Jay Gatsby, went from being very poor to having more money than he knew what to do with thanks to alcohol and organized crime. Gatsby, like everyone else, has a dream, and his dream is to be a man among the gods and Daisy, a resident of East Egg who he fell in love with...... middle of paper... ...ott Fitzgerald exposes the false reality that the American dream presents to society through the immense variation in context and corresponding wealth, as seen in West Egg, East Egg, and the Valley of Ashes. While the people of East Egg inherited money, those of West Egg acquired it through their idea of ​​the American dream, which has serious repercussions for the lower class. The Valley of Ashes is a desolate wasteland where many lower-class citizens live; the result is that “the rich get richer and the poor have children” (Fitzgerald 95). For most people, the American dream will always remain a distant dream. Fitzgerald's interpretation of the American dream and its distorted reality is not only an exceptional novel, but accurately echoes the similarities of current American society. Works Cited Fitzgerald, F. Scott. New York: Scribner, 1925. Print.