What do you think Fitzgerald is saying about the American dream in the 1920s?

Fitzgerald is saying that those who pursue the American Dream can never be satisfied, because the American Dream entails always striving for something more than what we already have. Gatsby embodies this in the decadent wealth that he is always accumulating, and also in his pursuit of Daisy. Even when Gatsby succeeds in seducing Daisy, and even when she wants to run away with him, he does not feel satisfied. He wants her to say she never loved Tom and to live in his house with him as if she had been married to him all along; this is impossible for her to do. Because of this, Gatsby will always be unsatisfied, and this destroys him. This can be seen as representative of the frustration all those who try to pursue the American dream feel.

Specifically in terms of the time period, the 1920s were a time of great economic growth, especially in the stock market. The theory of the stock market was that wealth is infinite; that is, if you work hard (keep up with your investments), your income will always grow. The belief was also that anyone could become a part of it, even if they were born poor (like Gatsby). This was the crux of the American Dream in the 1920s and is a common theme in the novel; however, this idea of infinite growth turned out to be untrue, as the economy crashed in the 1930s and America went through the Great Depression, which left people frustrated with the illusion of the American Dream. While the novel was published before the Depression, Fitzgerald may have been savvy enough to know this was not all it was cracked up to be. In that respect, Gatsby’s story arch can be seen as a metaphor for this.

These ideas are summed up well in the closing of the novel:

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And then one fine morning—
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

Those who follow the American Dream always believe a bigger, brighter future is ahead of them, and no matter what they do or what they gain, the future is (of course) always ahead of them; that is, they believe they can always strive for something better. If they “run faster, stretch out [their] arms farther,” then there will eventually be that “one fine morning” – yet Fitzgerald pauses there with no concrete description of what will happen then, because in reality, it is a vague desire that those caught up in the American Dream can’t even fully imagine for themselves. For example, it’s likely that even if Daisy did what Gatsby wanted, he would still not be satisfied somehow. Then Fitzgerald goes on to say that those who follow this dream are really beating against the current, always being pulled into the past; that is, they’re fighting a losing battle that will not just leave them stagnant, but will actually make them regress, and so no real progress is made.