Hands on the WheelThe freedom to flourish has always been the fuel of the average American citizen and their drive to succeed. In other words, Americans are still striving to achieve the much-revered American dream. What is the American dream? David Kamp describes the American Dream as “the idea rooted in the United States Declaration of Independence which proclaimed that “all men are created equal” and that they are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,” including “life, liberty and pursuit”. happiness." (Kamp). The dream is deeply rooted in American society and the mere mention of it ignites a passionate fire in the hearts of American citizens around the world. The idea behind the dream is that if an individual has enough willpower, she has a good chance of achieving wealth and the freedom and happiness that comes with it. Essentially, it offers the opportunity to flourish spiritually and materially. It promises success at the cost of. hard work and perseverance.this idea of ​​achieving success through hard work and perseverance has been twisted into an idea that exploits greed and recklessness and The Great Gatsby is a great affirmation of this. Fitzgerald mocks the progressive corruption of hard work and perseverance in the American dream by using the motif of driving and incorporating it with ideas of greed and recklessness. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald associates driving. to greed and recklessness by revealing Jordan Baker's selfish motive in driving and Daisy's recklessness in driving. He uses the specific incident of when Daisy kills Myrtle to portray neglect. After a heated argument, I bet... middle of paper ... on the disappearance of true hard work and how it slowly turned into greed through the example of Jordan Baker. Jordan Baker is continually described as the "modern woman" throughout the novel, insinuating that she is a representation of the general population of the 1920s. She is obviously a successful woman who has become wealthy because she is a professional golfer. The greed she describes in this scene suggests that she used the ideal of greed instead of working hard to succeed. Her drive to achieve what she wants at the expense of others is what makes her successful. This shows how flawed his personal American dream, and by extension the general American dream of the 1920s, is. Works Cited “David Kamp”. Vanity fair. Np, April 2009. Web. April 1, 2014. Fitzgerald, F. Scott and Matthew J. Bruccoli. The Great Gatsby. New York, NY: Scribner, 1996. Print