rest characteristic of the American Dream: everlasting hope. His burning desire to win Daisy's love symbolizes the basis of the old dream: an ethereal goal and a never-ending search for the opportunity to reach that goal. Gatsby is first seen late at night, "standing with his hands in his pockets" and supposedly "out to determine what share [is] his of our local heavens" (pg 25). Nick watches Gatsby's movements and comments: "-he [stretches] out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and as far as I [am] from him I [can swear] he [is] trembling. Involuntarily I [glance] seaward-and [distinguish] nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might [be] the end of the dock." (pg 25) Gatsby's goal gives him a purpose in life and sets him apart from the rest of the upper class. He is constantly striving to reach Daisy, from the moment he is seen reaching towards her house in East Egg to the final days of his life, patiently waiting outside Daisy's house for hours when she has already decided to abandon her affair with him. Gatsby is distinguished as a man who retains some of the purest traits of the old dream, but loses them by attempting to reach his goals by wearing the dream's modern face. Fitzgerald attributes the depravity of the modern dream to wealth, privilege, and the void of humanity that those aspects create. Money is clearly identified as the central proponent of the dream's destruction; it becomes easily ...
