Corruption In The Great Gatsby Quotes

The lawn and drive had been crowded with the faces of those who guessed at his corruption - and he had stood on those steps, concealing his incorruptible dream, as he waved them good-by.

It’s Fitzgerald’s thin-but-durable urge to affirm that finally makes Gatsby worthy of being our Great American Novel. Its soaring conclusion tells us that, even though Gatsby dies and the small and corrupt survive, his longing was nonetheless magnificent.

The lawn and drive had been crowded with the faces of those who guessed at his corruption—and he had stood on those steps, concealing his incorruptible dream, as he waved them good-by.

Ultimately Fitzgerald chose not to use the word "America" at all in the novel's concluding passage. America remains an emblem -- not quite a metaphor, but a symbol, a figure, the fact as colossal as a continent -- and what it represents is not a specific nation but a human capacity, our capacity for hope, for wonder, for discovery. It represents the corruption of that capacity into a faith in the material world, rather than the ideal one. And it reminds us, too of our careless habit of losing our paradises.