Great Gatsby – Essay Organizer
Introduction –
	Attention-grabbing opening: Throughout the world, we see social classes at the center of the way humans interact with one another, more specifically, we see social classes reflect the American dream right here in the United States.
	Plot summary: In The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald, the main character, Jay Gatsby experiences the complete American dream. This dream includes parties, friends, and all things lively, which he has earned his success through undesirable ways. This buys him into the elite social class, in which characters are affected by money and their own greed, ultimately leading to their downfalls.
	Contextual information: With the time period being the early 1920’s, social classes were still very alive and distinguishable. The American dream was reflected by the social classes due to differentiation and separation amongst people throughout these classes.
	Thesis statement: Scott Fitzgerald utilizes the themes of social classes and the American dream throughout The Great Gatsby by introducing social wealth and tangible wealth, by reinforcing symbolism with the American dream, and by illustrating how the American dream lead to corruption of the characters.


Sub-Topic 1 -
Point 1: "And I like large parties. They're so intimate. At small parties there isn't any privacy"
	The luxurious and wealthy lifestyle is highlighted in the extravagant parties. There are so many people at the parties that they feel a large sense of privacy. This privacy is paradoxical in a way, but leaves the reader observing the statement. The lifestyle that they live has them craving privacy, but wanting the affection of others. Jordan says this to highlight the lifestyle.
Point 2: The Carraways are something of a clan, and we have a tradition that we're descended from the Dukes of Buccleuch, but the actual founder of my line was my grandfather's brother, who came here in fifty-one, sent a substitute to the Civil War, and started the wholesale hardware business that my father carries on to-day. (1.5)
Nick is talking about his family, and the wealth they have achieved from a hardware business. He states his nobility as a form of social wealth, and his business and his success as tangible wealth he has achieved through working to reach the extravagant American dream. He recognizes his hard work to achieve this wealth.
Point 3: ―I found out what your‘ ‗drug-stores‘ were…He and this Wolfsheim bought up a lot of side-street drug-stores here and in Chicago and sold grain alcohol over the counter. That‘s one of his little stunts. I picked him for a bootlegger the first time I saw him, and I wasn‘t far wrong…That drug-store business was just small change…but you‘ve got something on now that Walter‘s afraid to tell me about‖ (133-134, 134).
Fitzgerald highlights what the characters will do to achieve the wealth that they dream of. He uses this craving of wealth and emergence of greed to develop the characters which are affected by it. During this particular example, he is talking about the bootlegging that criminals made a lot of money off of. He illustrates the illegal methods to illustrate the depths of the acts.


Sub-topic 3:
Point 1: She vanished into her rich house, into her rich, full life, leaving Gatsby – nothing. He felt married to her, that was all‖ (149, 149).
	Corruption of the American dream is highlighted throughout The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald highlights Jay’s sadness throughout, although he has everything he could possibly want (material and tangible wise). He is lacking when it comes to actually having the one person he really wants: Daisy. The rich house that is described is part of the American dream that is heavily enforced.
Point 2: ―I see now that this has been a story of the West, after all – Tom and Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan and I, were all Westerners, and perhaps we possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life‖ (176, 177).
	Although many of the main characters have achieved the American dream, they are missing something. They are all corrupt due to them feeling the need to impress others or going out of their way and letting their greed overcome them. Eventually, characters eased towards their own insanity, and their unadaptable luxurious lifestyle that was contaminated with corruption was illustrated throughout.
Point 3: ―They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made…‖ (179, 180)
	This lone quote highlights the corruption that many characters engaged in throughout the story. Tom and Daisy’s character development is shown, and their negative effects on people is stated. As soon as something bad happened, they ran to their money and their lifestyle of the American dream to recover and for relief. This can be seen in other characters too.


Sub-Topic 2 -
Point 1: “The only crazy I was was when I married him. I knew right away I made a mistake. He borrowed somebody’s best suit to get married in, and never told me about it, and the man came after it one say when he was out…” (Fitzgerald, 37)
	Part of the American dream is money. Williams uses symbolism of the American dream by focusing on the suit as a source of money. The suit symbolizes the dream that Tom is living, due to his money, which is an essential part of the American dream.
Point 2: “I’m glad it’s a girl. And I hope she’ll be a fool – that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful fool.” (Fitzgerald, 22)
	She is reinforcing the symbolism of the American dream. Part of the American dream is to live a simple and easy life, one consisting of money. She is highlighting the easy life that a pretty women can live if she marries a man with money, rather than a man for actual love.
Point 3: “We both looked down at the grass – there was a sharp line where my ragged lawn ended and the darker, well-kept expanse of his began. I suspected he meant my grass.” (Fitzgerald, 80)
	Fitzgerald uses Gatsby’s character to show the symbolism in the American dream and the struggle of achieving this dream. He snaps the characters to reality in that a comparison is shown to signify the “perfect” American dream.





Conclusion:
	Throughout the story, the reader is faced with the effects of social classes and how various groups/social classes live their lives. Fitzgerald focuses on the American dream to illustrate the effects it has on the characters in the story. In The Great Gatsby, the characters face their development by Fitzgerald introducing social wealth and tangible wealth, by reinforcing symbolism with the American dream, and by illustrating how the American dream lead to corruption of the characters.