Choose one of the themes in the book that we identified and discussed in class (this should be in your notes) and decide which one you believe is the primary theme of The Great Gatsby. Explain why you think this is the primary theme and provide three pieces of textual evidence to support your position.

I believe the American Dream is an unsustainable ideal that gives false hope and artificial happiness is the theme of the book. That theme is the one I wrote in class so I may be a bit bias towards mine instead of the others but I will explain why I think it is the one I chose. The American Dream was something that was not always formally brought up in The Great Gatsby but it was often something that was referenced and when it was referenced it never seemed as if it was being described as a good thing. When the American Dream was brought up or referenced it was talked about as a sort of deceiving thing or something people can't rely on to be a good thing. The reason I put unsustainable is because The Great Gatsby made me believe the American Dream wasn't something you could live forever and that was shown a lot when Gatsby died. The green light, as we talked about in class, was a symbol for the American Dream so on the last page when Fitzgerald wrote, " Gatsby believe in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us." If the green light was a symbol for the American Dream then Fitzgerald was saying the American Dream every year moved farther and farther away which made it less achievable even though Gatsby still believed in it. Also Fitzgerald wrote, "For Daisy was young and her artificial world was redolent of orchids and pleasant." Since Daisy was living the American Dream basically Fitzgerald was saying that Daisy's world was not real and everything she thought to be so good was not actually.