The novel, The Great Gatsby, can be found lying on the best selling shelve in nearly every bookstore alongside the finest writers of the twenty-first century. Throughout the novel Fitzgerald caricatures the American dream and displays many symbols relating to modern day life, which has attracted many readers. F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby shows that material wealth can have a corrupting effect. He enhances this philosophy through the characters of Gatsby, Myrtle, and Daisy.

Within the first few chapters of the novel it becomes unambiguously evident that Gatsby has been corrupted by material wealth. After much confusion and mystery over Gatsby's significant prosperity a reporter from New York reveals the truth behind Gatsby's affairs. " I suppose he'd had the name ready for a long time, even then. His parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people-his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents at all...