Although on the outside The Great Gatsby seems like a love story that embraces American ideals, it acts more like a satire. Throughout the book the author shows the wealthy and extravagant lives of rich people at the time. Their exaggerated life style and their desire to be rich are used to comment on the negative aspects of the ideals of the 1920s.
While talking to Nick, Jordan describes Daisy’s past by saying “Daisy was popular in Chicago, as you know. They moved with a fast crowd, all of them young and rich and wild, but she came out with an absolutely perfect reputation […] Perhaps Daisy never went in for amour at all- and yet there’s something in that voice of her’s” (pg. 77). This quote shows how highly social status was valued at the time. Jordan, Daisy’s fiend, praises her for being popular and having a good reputation. She also speculates on whether or not Daisy actually married for love or for money. The American dream at the time was that anybody could go from rich to Poor and break the social barriers. The book, however, emphasizes the importance of social classes and how money and power are major factors in a person’s success. Through this, F. Scott Fitzgerald is trying to show that money plays a large role in the lives of people at the time.
The book also criticizes the American dream by indirectly showing that it is the wealthy that are successful. Tom, Jordan, Daisy, and Nick all come from wealthy families. The only odd one out is Gatsby, and he doesn’t exactly have a happy ending. The book uses these people who have had money in their families for generations, to show that,
contrary to the American dream and ideals at the time, social status and a reputation are needed to be successful.
At the end of the novel it is revealed that Gatsby earned all of his money in order to impress Daisy. He "bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay" (pg. 78). However, even with all the money he earned and the extravagant life he lived, he was unable to win Daisy over. Gatsby thought that he had to be rich inorder to impress Daisy. F. Scott Fitzgerald uses this to show that people in that time thought that money could buy them anything. In this case, it could not. Even though Gatsby appears to have everything, he is still unhappy in the end because he is not with Daisy. Through out the story, F. Scott Fitzgerald is using this "love story" to show that, contrary to what people believed at the time, money cannot buy happieness.