Dream Corruption in The Great GatsbyThe American Dream describes an attitude of hope and faith that looks forward to the fulfillment of human wishes and desires. These wishes were expressed in Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence of 1776, which stated: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This search for freedom and happiness actually dates back to the very beginning of American civilization, to the time of the first settlers. The first settlers were all religious refugees driven to the New World by persecution. For these people, America represented a new life of freedom, carrying the promise of spiritual and material happiness. For colonists who were not so religiously inclined, America remained a land of fairyland, a land of great possibilities. Thus were born the first thirteen colonies, amid the religious and materialistic hopes of the first settlers. Material prosperity and progress kept pace with religious and spiritual goals because Puritans and Quakers approved of industry and material progress. For while physical pleasures were evil, hard work and achievement were seen as indicators of inner goodness. When the Eastern Seaboard, including the Thirteen Colonies, became overpopulated, settlers began to move west. The opening of the Central and Western states has increased the sense of hope and faith. And this vision beyond the immediate present, this belief in the future, has become a national characteristic that may partly explain the rapidity of American progress in many fields of endeavor. The democratic system, first expressed in Jefferson's Declaration of Independence in 1776, can be attributed to this fundamental attitude of hope and trust. The American dream, however, is originally linked to a desire for spiritual and material improvement. What happened was that, from a number of points, the material aspect of the dream was realized too easily and too quickly, with the result that it quickly overtook and even obliterated the first spiritual ideals. Thus arose a state of material well-being but devoid of spiritual life or purpose. So that when Fitzgerald produced Gatsby, modeled no doubt on the writer's own faith in life, he seemed to have created a character who represented one of the first Americans in whom the Dream was still very much alive...