The Corruption of the Dream in The Great Gatsby The American Dream describes an attitude of hope and faith that eagerly awaits the fulfillment of human wishes and desires. What these desires were, they were expressed in Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence of 1776, which stated: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these there is life, freedom and the pursuit of happiness. This search for freedom and happiness actually dates back to the dawn of American civilization, to the days of the first settlers. The first settlers were all religious refugees driven to the New World by persecution. For these people, America represented a new life of freedom, with a promise of spiritual and material happiness. For those settlers who were not so religiously inclined, America was still a fairyland, a land of great possibility. Thus the first thirteen colonies were born, amidst the religious and materialistic hopes of the first settlers. Material prosperity and progress went hand in hand with religious and spiritual goals because both Puritans and Quakers approved of industry and material progress. Because, while physical pleasures were evil, hard work and achievement were considered indicators of inner goodness. When the East Coast, which included the thirteen colonies, became overcrowded, settlers began moving west. The openness of the Middle and Western states has increased the sense of hope and faith. And this looking forward beyond the immediate present, this confidence in the future, has become a national characteristic that may in part explain the speed of American progress in so many areas of endeavor. The democratic system, first expressed in Jefferson's 1776 Declaration of Independence, can be traced back to this fundamental attitude of hope and trust. The American Dream, however, originally refers to the desire for spiritual and material improvement. What happened was that, from one moment to the next, the material aspect of the dream was achieved too easily and too quickly, with the result that it soon surpassed and even obliterated the first spiritual ideals. Then a state of material well-being but devoid of spiritual life or purpose emerged. So when Fitzgerald produced Gatsby, modeled no doubt on the writer's faith in life, he seemed to have created a character who represented an early American when the dream was still very much alive..