The Great Gatsby explores how the American Dream is corrupted by the relentless pursuit of wealth. In the novel, Jay Gatsby is a poor farm boy who rises to wealth and power trough the illegal sale of alcohol and bootlegging during the Prohibition. Gatsby buys a mansion on the fashionable Long Island coast and holds luxurious parties hoping to attract the eye of his former love, Daisy Buchanan, who is married to Tom, a powerful and wealthy man of their circle. Despite his wealth, Gatsby remains out of place in their world of inherited wealth; his drive and ambition to win Daisy points to an obsessiveness to acquire the lifestyle and social standing he has always longed for. Ultimately, Gatsby’s attempt to reclaim his past by achieving the American Dream results in his demise as he is murdered by George Wilson, whose wife Myrtle - an earlier love of Gatsby’s- had been killed in the accident caused by Daisy earlier in the novel. The novel demonstrates how Gatsby’s ideal of the American Dream is corrupted by the inability of anything to fill the void within. Gatsby’s pursuit of material wealth corrupts his dream, as well as the dream of anyone else who pursues it without any consideration for consequences or values. It also shows how real success cannot be superficial or fleeting, and that real success must be earned and pursued honorably, or it won’t bring lasting fulfillment. Instead, the pursuit of “the American Dream” of success and prosperity can corrupt and destroy the morality of the individual.