What is the American Dream?

       In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald denies the existence of the American Dream, and in a way he is right. The American Dream is not the ideal that we make it out to be but rather, as Fitzgerald points out, an illusion of happiness. Both Gatsby and Dexter focus their American Dream on women, and both come very close to attaining their goal but ultimately fail. In the mean time, they turn their hopes into an unattainable obsession. Fitzgerald describes Gatsby's obsession as  "..But because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself in it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart." Gatsby's American Dream has manifested itself in the form of an elaborate and seductive illusion of grandeur. He is so set on his illusion that he is unable to accept that Daisy ever loved another man. Even when it is clear Daisy loves him, thus achieving his goal, his thirst for the American Dream prevents him from being happy. The American Dream has become his representation of a perfect life, and Gatsby needs to acquire it even if it is impossible and this haunts him, blinding him to his own successes.  Dexter is also unable to see his successes as Dexter states that he is bored as he is playing golf with Mr. T.A. Hedrick. However, when Dexter was a child, he used to fantasize about beating him. Dexter's dream has absorbed him so thoroughly that Dexter is unable to truly enjoy life just as Gatsby's obsession with Daisy prevents him from actually enjoying himself as preoccupies himself with this obsession. Dexter also makes his American Dream into an obsession and he actually deludes himself into thinking that he wants Judy Jones as Fitzgerald states  "It did not take him many hours to decide that he had wanted Judy Jones ever since he was a proud desirous little boy." Even though Judy Jones tortures them, Dexter and her other suitors still hang around with the ludicrous hope that Jones will reciprocate and the extent of this is so extreme that Dexter actually thinks that he has wanted her most of his life. For both Gatsby and Dexter, the American Dream is not just an ideal to strive to, but also an impossible dream that haunts their existence.