The term "American Dream" was first used by the American historian James Truslow Adams in his book "The Epic of America" published in 1931. At that time, the United States was suffering from the Great Depression. Adams used the term to describe the complex beliefs, religious promises and political and social expectations. Even to this day, it is believed that American Dream, though more or less hard to achieve, is the ultimate key to success and happiness. However dreams are not always sunshine and rainbows, but also nightmares. That’s what F. Scott Fitzgerald portrays in “The Great Gatsby”: Most of the characters, such as Gatsby, Tom, Daisy and Nick, are, at superficial level, living the American dream. However later on it is clear that American Dream has made the above mentioned characters even unhappier. Thus American Dream is not the ultimate key to success and happiness. The best example of an unhappy American Dream is Jay Gatsby himself. From an outsider’s perspective, Gatsby was living the American Dream: He was rich, could get anything he desired and could have had any woman he wanted. But, in Gatsby’s dream there was only one special woman, who he couldn’t get hold of no matter what he did. When Gatsby was poor, Daisy didn’t want to marry him, so he worked hard and literally recreated himself from virtually nothing: he made a lot of money through illegal means, though no one seems to care much about that, thus tainting his soul. Gatsby also surrounded himself with the material possessions which he thinks will attract Daisy to him. For her sake, to be accepted by Daisy, James Gatz covered up all of his obscure past, created a new alter ego: Jay Gatsby, who was a son and an heir to a rich man. He even took upon himself Myrtles murder, but even after all of this Daisy ultimately rejected Gatsby. Another character who isn’t happy with his life is Tom, who inherited lots of money from his father and is in a good s