【文章內(nèi)容簡介】 recently e east. Gatsby became rich through bootlegging and other criminal activities with the help of a corrupt elderly Jewish millionaire, Dan Cody, Gatsby, however, has never stopped loving Daisy and has taken the house in West Egg to be near her. Through Nick, Daisy’s cousin, he finds a way to meet her again and arranges fabulous entertainments to gain the favor of her until he is overjoyed to feel that he has Daisy back again. Daisy’s husband has a shady affair with Myrtle Wilson, the loose and sensual wife of a garage man. When Wilson has finally bee suspicious of her fidelity and has begun to bully her, in panic she runs out into the highway, and is killed by a car in which Daisy is driving. Gatsby manages to protect Daisy, and Tom, with whom she effects reconciliation, inflicts the bloodiest revenge upon her lover by telling Wilson Gatsby is the murder of his wife. In consequence, Wilson shoots off Gatsby and then himself. The only person to go to the funeral besides Nick is Gatsby’s father, Henry Gatz, who arrives from Minnesota, for Gatsby’s entire acquaintances desert him and the party guests vanish.2. Social causes that lead to Gatsby’s tragedy The Degeneration of American Dream Many critics blame the death of Gatsby on the American Dream, for the dream makes people lust for more and pursue a luxurious life which is beyond their capacity.When the aspirations fall through, they themselves go to pieces. There is no doubt that Gatsby is swaying between the American Dream and the reality. The early American Dream，however, had a positive meaning from the very beginning. The American Dream is a national ethos of the United States in which freedom includes a promise of the possibility of prosperity and success. In the American Dream, first expressed by James Truslow Adams (1931), in his book, Epic of America that life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement regardless of social class or circumstances of birth. The idea of the American Dream is rooted in the second sentence of the United States Declaration of Independence which states that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights including Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. So the ethos once simply indicated the ability, through participation in the society and economy, for everyone to achieve prosperity. It is the opportunity to make individual choices without the prior restrictions that limit people according to their class, caste, religion, race, or ethnicity. The early American Dream could be a great inspiration for ordinary people like Jay Gatsby, who was to make a difference in his life. And that was much easier in early America because the original dream regards especially the availability of lowcost land for farm ownership. The new immigrants can easily get a large proportion of the vast but less populated land in early America. The economy then focused on agriculture a lot and it was almost selfevident that the possessing of land meant fortune and success. After decades of years, however, the land has been divided and occupied by a few people. The American dream starts to drift from the way it once claimed ,“all men are created equal”. The rest only works for these landowners to earn their bread. Those farm people works as hard as they could, but few people can really walk out of their field, let alone being rich. As a consequence, the poor but ambitious farmers begin to do evil stuff for the sake of living a better life.Gatsby’s parents is just shiftless and unsuccessful farm people. So for Gatsby, the road to success is much bumpy. He is an ambitious man. He had planned to obtain success even when he was just a boy. He believes in the original American Dream and tries to attain success by doing what his great ancestors would probably do: working out everyday to polish his figures, reading as much as possible to improve his mind. He believes that he is able to start from scratch like Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln and so on. For over a year, he had been beating his way along the south shore of Lake Superior as a clamdigger and a salmonfisher or in any other capacity that brought him food and bed. He was still a sincere and honest man at that time. But this kind of job would not give him a hand to climb up. Thus he gave up the right way and turned to evil.His evil deeds began the day he met Dan Cody, whose yacht dropped anchor on Lake Superior. Rumors about his antecedents spread since then: Gatsby killed Dan Cody and inherited a big fortune from him。 He lied to people that he graduated from Oxford。 He and Wolfsheim sold alcohol over the counter in drug stores. As the old saying goes, “one reaps what he sows.” Gatsby will have to pay for what he has done.What’s more, the degenerated American Dream has widen the gap between rich and poor. People are jealous at what the rich has got: fancy mansions, beautiful cars, parties and alcohols every weekend. Life is so rich and colorful that average people start to dream a life like this. Gatsby is adding to the pattern of his fancies every night. To young Gatz, resting on his oars and looking up at the railed deck, the yacht represents all the beauty and glamour in the world. So his American Dream has bee the pursuit of material prosperity. In order to step into the upper class and bee the real rich man, he starts to lie about his family background so he could enjoy the respect from others. He once told Nick caraway, “I am the son of some wealthy people in the Middle Eastall dead now. I was brought up in America but educated at Oxford, because all my ancestors have been educated there for many years. It is a family tradition.” (P65) He changed his name from James Gatz at the age of seventeen to Jay Gatsby. He may thought it worked well, but his tragedy was doomed the moment he told lies to others. The Strict