Question

You’re happy to know that The Great Gatsby was chosen for this month’s reading. As you start reading the book, you’re searching for passages that speak about the theme of the American Dream. You’ve written down four interesting quotes so far.

Which of the following quotes from the book would best suit your theme of the American Dream?

"They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and . . . then retreated back into their money . . . and let other people clean up the mess they had made."

"In my younger and more vulnerable years, my father gave me some advice… 'Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,' he told me, 'just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.'"
"All I kept thinking about, over and over, was 'You can't live forever; you can't live forever.'"
"Life is much more successfully looked at from a single window.".

Answer 1

The first quote:

"They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and . . . then retreated back into their money . . . and let other people clean up the mess they had made."

Why: It directly critiques how wealth protects the privileged from consequences and moral responsibility—the central corruption of the American Dream in the novel. Gatsby pursues success and the dream of winning Daisy, but the novel shows that material wealth and social status do not guarantee virtue or fulfillment; instead, money enables carelessness and injustice. (The second quote about advantages also touches on class and unequal opportunity, but the first is the most explicit statement about how wealth perverts the dream.)