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Compare Jay Gatsby and George Wilson, and show how they exemplify the corruption of the American Dream in The Great Gatsby.

Jay Gatsby and George Wilson are both striving for the American Dream: the idea that any American, through hard work and perseverance, can attain prosperity.  Neither one is successful in achieving the dream, however, and this fact helps to explain how the dream is a fictitious, even corrupt, one in this novel.  


Jay Gatsby has long desired to be rich, to run in the same circles as Daisy and Tom Buchanan.  However, unable to acquire this status honestly, through scrupulous hard work and legal means, he has resorted to illegal activities to earn his money.  Gatsby is a "bootlegger": someone who profits from the illegal production, distribution, and sale of alcoholic beverages during the era of American Prohibition.  He has made his money illegally, and this tarnishes it, producing only a corrupt version of the American Dream at best.  Gatsby has not achieved the dream; he only seems to have done so.


George Wilson, on the other hand, seems desperately poor regardless of how hard he works.  Living in the "valley of ashes," and running his garage, Wilson practically begs Tom to sell him the car that might turn him a bit of profit, and Tom puts him off again and again.  Wilson has tried to achieve the American Dream in the way someone is supposed to, and it seems an impossible task in a number of ways.


Thus, despite their dramatically different appearances, Gatsby and Wilson are very much the same: both men have tried to achieve the American Dream and found it to be impossible, a corrupt dream that is only that -- a dream.

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