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CENTRAL IDEAS IN THE GREAT GATSBY. THE AFFIRMATION OF THE TRUE SPIRIT OF THE AMERICAN DREAM IN A SOCIETY WHICH HAS DISTORTED THAT DREAM. CENTRAL IDEAS IN THE GREAT GATSBY. THE AFFIRMATION OF THE TRUE SPIRIT OF THE AMERICAN DREAM IN A SOCIETY WHICH HAS DISTORTED THAT DREAM. 1) WHAT IS THE TRUE SPIRIT OF THE AMERICAN DREAM? For an explanation we must look at the final section of the novel. “And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that once flowered for Dutch sailors' eyes- a fresh, green breast of the New World. Its varnished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby 's house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.” (p. l87) The spirit of the dream is basically a belief in the possibilities of life. A belief in the GOODNESS OF MAN. America was the New World to which the persecuted and downtrodden of many countries came to begi