Social Issues in the Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby is considered an exceptional piece of social commentary that takes a look into social issues in American history of the 1920s. This written work, completed by F. Scott Fitzgerald, takes a look at social issues that continue to plague problems for the American people in modern times. It looks at the rich, poor, power, betrayal, greed and
other related elements of how people related to them as such years ago. Fitzgerald used a creative approach to distinguishing social issues while sending strong messages that other societies can easily relate to.

The Great Gatsby takes a look at the wealthy from a standpoint many people could agree with. The author used wealth as a theme to help get significant messages across regarding how people view money. In the story, there are people who are rich, middle class and working just to get by. The rich or the elite in this case, seem as if they don’t want to associate themselves with anything that is not of high standards. It is as if they felt money and material things were what they were all about instead of showing any kind of compassion or feelings for others.

People that had money were divided into categories such as old money and new money. People in each category had a different way of living and how they perceived people and material things around them. A person who was born into a wealthy family may not be seen in the same light as someone who worked for their money or had lower standards because of their limited finances. The elite seemed to be interested in certain people that had money but not for the person they were; it was more about the material things they had or what they could get from them.

Some people used their status to take advantage of other people. Even those who were miserable with their lives and wanted more were willing to commit negative acts in order to be happy, even if it was for a short time. Fitzgerald would use his less fortunate characters to make his point about why material things are not as important as one may think. Even though the story is set in the 1920s, many who read it feel as if they can relate to the actions and thoughts of the characters today in modern society.

Symbolism In The Great Gatsby

“The symbolic aspect of the novel adds greatly to our understanding of the text.’’ Discuss F. Scott Fitzgerald’s use of the symbols throughout the novel, supporting your answer with reference to the text.

Symbols play a huge role in the Great Gatsby. They add to the understanding we take
from the novel. A symbol is an object, character, figure or colour that is used to represent an abstract idea or concept. F. Scott Fitzgerald uses many symbols throughout the novel to highlight key ideas, some are more obvious than others but all are effective. He makes use of all the symbolic options to reinforce the messages of the novel. Characters are used to highlight ideas. Places are used to add contrast. Symbols highlight the beliefs of characters and the seasonal setting aides the building climax.

Characters can be used as symbols to highlight an idea. Daisy is one such character. Fitzgerald uses Daisy to highlight the moral corruption of characters. Daisy she is described as ‘‘a silver idol weighing down [her] white [dress] against the singing breeze of fans.’’ White is a colour commonly associated with purity and innocence. However we soon realise that Daisy is far from pure and innocent. She is a morally corrupt character who lets Gatsby believe she will leave Tom for him, but in the end chooses Tom’s money over Gatsby’s love. We learn then that money is the most important thing to Daisy. Money is gold/yellow, a colour commonly associated with corruption and dishonesty. A daisy, the flower after which she is named, is a gold/yellow centre surrounded by white. This symbolises the moral corruption of Daisy. Daisies are also fragile flowers, and similarly Daisy is a fragile person who is unable to make her mind up. For me this is a symbol that helped me understand the moral corruption of the novel.

The Valley of Ashes is a symbolic place used in the book. It is first introduced to us in Chapter Two, when Tom takes Nick to meet Myrtle Wilson, his mistress. It is a “desolate area of land’’ between West Egg and New York which was created by the dumping of industrial ashes. The Valley Of Ashes represents the moral and social decay produced by the pursuit of wealth without thought for others. Its main purpose in the novel, from my understanding, is to highlight the plight of the poor who are exiled to stay living in this “solemn dumping ground.’’ It also provided me with a contrast between the lives of the “careless people’’ who lived the high life and those who weren’t benefitting from what came to be known as “The Roaring Twenties.’’ I found it to be a highly effective symbol that aided my understanding of the novel.

Overlooking The Valley Of Ashes is a billboard of the Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. The advertisement is simply a pair of eyes “[looking] out of no face’’ and stands at “one yard high,’’ looking out over the “solemn dumping ground.’’ There is a strong link between the eyes and God. God is believed to watch over everyone and be all seeing, similar to T.J. Eckleburg . They may represent God staring down upon and judging American society and seeing the moral wasteland that as previously stated the Valley Of Ashes symbolises. It is George Wilson that highlights this symbolism. He refers to the eyes when he tells Myrtle he knows about her affair; “I took her to the window…..and I said “God knows what you’ve been doing, everything you’ve been doing. You may fool me, but you can’t fool God.’’ In doing this Fitzgerald suggests that symbols only have meaning because characters instill them with meaning. The connection between the eyes and God are strongest in Wilson’s grief stricken mind. He repeats that “God sees everything’’ to himself, allowing the reader and unsettling insight into his mind prior to killing Gatsby and himself. It is also key that colour is once again brought into this symbol. The rims of his glasses are yellow, which symbolises that although he sees corruptness he also sees it through the eyes of someone who is also corrupt. This reinforced the idea that corrupt characters wrongly judge others for being corrupt. Personally this was my favourite symbol in the novel because it was the easiest to understand.

Another symbolic place that added to the understanding I took from the novel was the two “eggs’’ on which Nick, Gatsby and the Buchanans lived. East and West Egg are two fictional villages on Long Island created by Fitzgerald as the setting for the novel. They are both “[dissimilar] in every particular except shape and size.’’ Nick lives on West Egg “the less fashionable of the two,’’ in the ‘’consoling proximity of millionaires.’’ The residents of West Egg, referred to as “West Eggers’’ are looked down upon by their old money neighbours on East Egg. Daisy and Tom are typical East Egg residents, old money and careless about others. Colour again is associated with the eggs. Eggs are a yellow/gold centre surrounded by white, which similar to Daisy shows that money and corruption is at their core. An egg also symbolizes a false show of purity as we never know if an egg is decaying or rotten on the inside until we crack it. It is my understanding that East and West Egg are no exception to this, appearing to be perfect from the outside. However, when on the inside Nick soon realises, a “rotten bunch’’ of people live there. Therefore the eggs helped my understanding of the novel.

The Green Light at the end of Daisy’s dock is by far the most important symbol in the novel. An artificial light that flashes to make incoming boats aware of the dock, it is key in understanding the novel. The light is symbolic of Gatsby’s American Dream; his pursuit to “change the past’’ and regain Daisy’s love. The green light gave Gatsby something to reach for. He purposely chose his home so as to have the green light within reaching distance. By choosing to have Gatsby reaching for an artificial light, Fitzgerald highlights that Gatsby’s dream was artificial and unrealistic. Gatsby believed that his dream was “so close he could hardly fail to grasp it,’’ however because the light is artificial we understand that he undoubtedly will fail. Nick highlights the importance of the green light in the last lines of the book; “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 one fine morning – So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.’’ For me this sums up the significance of the American dream to the novel; we aim to achieve it and no matter how hard we try it is always out of our reach, but we still strive and one day it will become reality.

Finally the seasonal setting of the novel can also be interpreted as symbolic. The novel is set in the summer of 1922. The summer in New York is known to be hot, heavy and humid. This is reflected as the novel reaches its climax. When the main characters take their trip to New York it is on one of the hottest days of the summer. This reflects the tension building between Tm and Gatsby which reaches boiling point in the hotel room when Gatsby suggests it is time for Daisy to tell Tom she “never loved him.’’ The two, fighting for Daisy’s affections, come to blows over their love for her. Tom, fighting to hold onto the last shred of Daisy’s love he has, and Gatsby, clinging to his “no longer tangible’’ American dream, both snap. I found the symbol of the summer to be helpful in understanding how the novel would pan out. Overall F. Scott Fitzgerald worked wonders with the symbolic aspect of the novel. He used every option to create symbols that help the reader to gain a stronger understanding of his novel and the ideas behind it. From colours to characters and places to seasonal settings I thoroughly enjoyed the way the symbols worked with the novel.

 

Best Analysis: The American Dream in The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby is a tragic love story on the surface, but it’s most commonly understood as a pessimistic critique of the American Dream. In the novel, Jay Gatsby overcomes his poor past to gain an incredible amount of money and a limited amount of social cache in 1920s NYC, only to be rejected by the “old money” crowd. He then gets killed after being
tangled up with them.

Through Gatsby’s life, as well as that of the Wilsons’, Fitzgerald critiques the idea that America is a meritocracy where anyone can rise to the top with enough hard work. We will explore how this theme plays out in the plot, briefly analyze some key quotes about it, as well as do some character analysis and broader analysis of topics surrounding the American Dream in The Great Gatsby.

1. What is the American Dream?
2. The American Dream in the Great Gatsby plot
3. Key American Dream quotes
4. Analyzing characters via the American Dream
5. Common discussion and essay topics

Quick Note on Our Citations

Our citation format in this guide is (chapter.paragraph). We’re using this system since there are many editions of Gatsby, so using page numbers would only work for students with our copy of the book. To find a quotation we cite via chapter and paragraph in your book, you can either eyeball it (Paragraph 1-50: beginning of chapter; 50-100: middle of chapter; 100-on: end of chapter), or use the search function if you’re using an online or eReader version of the text.

What Exactly Is “The American Dream”?

The American Dream is the belief that anyone, regardless of race, class, gender, or nationality, can be successful in America (read: rich) if they just work hard enough. The American Dream thus presents a pretty rosy view of American society that ignores problems like systemic racism and misogyny, xenophobia, and income inequality. It also presumes a myth of class equality, when the reality is America has a pretty well-developed class hierarchy.

The 1920s in particular was a pretty tumultuous time due to increased immigration (and the accompanying xenophobia), changing women’s roles (spurred by the right to vote, which was won in 1919), and extraordinary income inequality. The country was also in the midst of an economic boom, which fueled the belief that anyone could “strike it rich” on Wall Street. However, this rapid economic growth was built on a bubble which popped in 1929. The Great Gatsby was published in 1925, well before the crash, but through its wry descriptions of the ultra-wealthy, it seems to somehow predict that the fantastic wealth on display in 1920s New York was just as ephemeral as one of Gatsby’s parties.

In any case, the novel, just by being set in the 1920s, is unlikely to present an optimistic view of the American Dream, or at least a version of the dream that’s inclusive to all genders, ethnicities, and incomes. With that background in mind, let’s jump into the plot!

The American Dream in The Great Gatsby

Chapter 1 places us in a particular year – 1922 – and gives us some background about WWI.  This is relevant, since the 1920s is presented as a time of hollow decadence among the wealthy, as evidenced especially by the parties in Chapters 2 and 3. And as we mention above, the 1920s were a particularly tense time in America.

We also meet George and Myrtle Wilson in Chapter 2, both working class people who are working to improve their lot in life, George through his work, and Myrtle through her affair with Tom Buchanan.

We learn about Gatsby’s goal in Chapter 4: to win Daisy back. Despite everything he owns, including fantastic amounts of money and an over-the-top mansion, for Gatsby, Daisy is the ultimate status symbol. So in Chapter 5, when Daisy and Gatsby reunite and begin an affair, it seems like Gatsby could in fact achieve his goal.

In Chapter 6, we learn about Gatsby’s less-than-wealthy past, which not only makes him look like the star of a rags-to-riches story, it makes Gatsby himself seem like someone in pursuit of the American Dream, and for him the personification of that dream is Daisy.

However, in Chapters 7 and 8, everything comes crashing down: Daisy refuses to leave Tom, Myrtle is killed, and George breaks down and kills Gatsby and then himself, leaving all of the “strivers” dead and the old money crowd safe. Furthermore, we learn in those last chapters that Gatsby didn’t even achieve all his wealth through hard work, like the American Dream would stipulate – instead, he earned his money through crime. (He did work hard and honestly under Dan Cody, but lost Dan Cody’s inheritance to his ex-wife.)

In short, things do not turn out well for our dreamers in the novel! Thus, the novel ends with Nick’s sad meditation on the lost promise of the American Dream. You can read a detailed analysis of these last lines in our summary of the novel’s ending.

Key American Dream Quotes

But I didn’t call to him for he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to be alone–he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and far as I was from him I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward–and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock. (1.152)

In our first glimpse of Jay Gatsby, we see him reaching towards something far off, something in sight but definitely out of reach. This famous image of the green light is often understood as part of The Great Gatsby’s meditation on The American Dream – the idea that people are always reaching towards something greater than themselves that is just out of reach. You can read more about this in our post all about the green light. The fact that this yearning image is our introduction to Gatsby foreshadows his unhappy end and also marks him as a dreamer, rather than people like Tom or Daisy who were born with money and don’t need to strive for anything so far off.

Over the great bridge, with the sunlight through the girders making a constant flicker upon the moving cars, with the city rising up across the river in white heaps and sugar lumps all built with a wish out of non-olfactory money. The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world.

A dead man passed us in a hearse heaped with blooms, followed by two carriages with drawn blinds and by more cheerful carriages for friends. The friends looked out at us with the tragic eyes and short upper lips of south-eastern Europe, and I was glad that the sight of Gatsby’s splendid car was included in their somber holiday. As we crossed Blackwell’s Island a limousine passed us, driven by a white chauffeur, in which sat three modish Negroes, two bucks and a girl. I laughed aloud as the yolks of their eyeballs rolled toward us in haughty rivalry.

“Anything can happen now that we’ve slid over this bridge,” I thought; “anything at all. . . .”

Even Gatsby could happen, without any particular wonder. (4.55-8)

Early in the novel, we get this mostly optimistic illustration of the American Dream – we see people of different races and nationalities racing towards NYC, a city of unfathomable possibility. This moment has all the classic elements of the American Dream – economic possibility, racial and religious diversity, a carefree attitude. At this moment, it does feel like “anything can happen,” even a happy ending.

However, this rosy view eventually gets undermined by the tragic events later in the novel. And even at this point, Nick’s condescension towards the people in the other cars reinforces America’s racial hierarchy that disrupts the idea of the American Dream. There is even a little competition at play, a “haughty rivalry” at play between Gatsby’s car and the one bearing the “modish Negroes.” Nick “laughs aloud” at this moment, suggesting he thinks it’s amusing that the passengers in this other car see them as equals, or even rivals to be bested. In other words, he seems to firmly believe in the racial hierarchy Tom defends in Chapter 1, even if it doesn’t admit it honestly.

His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy’s white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete. (6.134)

This moment explicitly ties Daisy to all of Gatsby’s larger dreams for a better life – to his American Dream. This sets the stage for the novel’s tragic ending, since Daisy cannot hold up under the weight of the dream Gatsby projects onto her. Instead, she stays with Tom Buchanan, despite her feelings for Gatsby. Thus when Gatsby fails to win over Daisy, he also fails to achieve his version of the American Dream. This is why so many people read the novel as a somber or pessimistic take on the American Dream, rather than an optimistic one.

…as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors’ eyes–a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished 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.

And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.” (9.151-152)

The closing pages of the novel reflect at length on the American Dream, in an attitude that seems simultaneously mournful, appreciative, and pessimistic. It also ties back to our first glimpse of Gatsby, reaching out over the water towards the Buchanan’s green light. Nick notes that Gatsby’s dream was “already behind him” then, in other words, it was impossible to attain. But still, he finds something to admire in how Gatsby still hoped for a better life, and constantly reached out toward that brighter future.

For a full consideration of these last lines and what they could mean, see our analysis of the novel’s ending.

Analyzing Characters Through the American Dream

An analysis of the characters in terms of the American Dream usually leads to a pretty cynical take on the American Dream.

Most character analysis centered on the American Dream will necessarily focus on Gatsby, George, or Myrtle (the true strivers in the novel), though as we’ll discuss below, the Buchanans can also provide some interesting layers of discussion. For character analysis that incorporates the American Dream, carefully consider your chosen character’s motivations and desires, and how the novel does (or doesn’t!) provide glimpses of the dream’s fulfillment for them.

Gatsby

Gatsby himself is obviously the best candidate for writing about the American Dream – he comes from humble roots (he’s the son of poor farmers from North Dakota) and rises to be notoriously wealthy, only for everything to slip away from him in the end. Many people also incorporate Daisy into their analyses as the physical representation of Gatsby’s dream.

However, definitely consider the fact that in the traditional American Dream, people achieve their goals through honest hard work, but in Gatsby’s case, he very quickly acquires a large amount of money through crime. Gatsby does attempt the hard work approach, through his years of service to Dan Cody, but that doesn’t work out since Cody’s ex-wife ends up with the entire inheritance. So instead he turns to crime, and only then does he manage to achieve his desired wealth.

So while Gatsby’s story arc resembles a traditional rags-to-riches tale, the fact that he gained his money immorally complicates the idea that he is a perfect avatar for the American Dream. Furthermore, his success obviously doesn’t last – he still pines for Daisy and loses everything in his attempt to get her back. In other words, Gatsby’s huge dreams, all precariously wedded to Daisy  (“He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God” (6.134)) are as flimsy and flight as Daisy herself.

George and Myrtle Wilson

This couple also represents people aiming at the dream – George owns his own shop and is doing his best to get business, though is increasingly worn down by the harsh demands of his life, while Myrtle chases after wealth and status through an affair with Tom.

Both are disempowered due to the lack of money at their own disposal – Myrtle certainly has access to some of the “finer things” through Tom but has to deal with his abuse, while George is unable to leave his current life and move West since he doesn’t have the funds available. He even has to make himself servile to Tom in an attempt to get Tom to sell his car, a fact that could even cause him to overlook the evidence of his wife’s affair. So neither character is on the upward trajectory that the American Dream promises, at least during the novel.

In the end, everything goes horribly wrong for both George and Myrtle, suggesting that in this world, it’s dangerous to strive for more than you’re given.

George and Myrtle’s deadly fates, along with Gatsby, help illustrate the novel’s pessimistic attitude toward the American Dream. After all, how unfair is it that the couple working to improve their position in society (George and Myrtle) both end up dead, while Tom, who dragged Myrtle into an increasingly dangerous situation, and Daisy, who killed her, don’t face any consequences? And on top of that they are fabulously wealthy? The American Dream certainly is not alive and well for the poor Wilsons.

Tom and Daisy as Antagonists to the American Dream

We’ve talked quite a bit already about Gatsby, George, and Myrtle – the three characters who come from humble roots and try to climb the ranks in 1920s New York. But what about the other major characters, especially the ones born with money? What is their relationship to the American Dream?

Specifically, Tom and Daisy have old money, and thus they don’t need the American Dream, since they were born with America already at their feet.

Perhaps because of this, they seem to directly antagonize the dream – Daisy by refusing Gatsby, and Tom by helping to drag the Wilsons into tragedy.

This is especially interesting because unlike Gatsby, Myrtle, and George, who actively hope and dream of a better life, Daisy and Tom are described as bored and “careless,” and end up instigating a large amount of tragedy through their own recklessness.

In other words, income inequality and the vastly different starts in life the characters have strongly affects their outcomes. The way they choose to live their lives, their morality (or lack thereof), and how much they dream doesn’t seem to matter. This, of course, is tragic and antithetical to the idea of the American Dream, which claims that class should be irrelevant and anyone can rise to the top.

Daisy as a Personification of the American Dream

As we discuss in our post on money and materialism in The Great Gatsby, Daisy’s voice is explicitly tied to money by Gatsby:

“Her voice is full of money,” he said suddenly.

That was it. I’d never understood before. It was full of money–that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals’ song of it. . . . High in a white palace the king’s daughter, the golden girl. . . . (7.105-6)

If Daisy’s voice promises money, and the American Dream is explicitly linked to wealth, it’s not hard to argue that Daisy herself – along with the green light at the end of her dock – stands in for the American Dream. In fact, as Nick goes on to describe Daisy as “High in a white palace the king’s daughter, the golden girl,” he also seems to literally describe Daisy as a prize, much like the princess at the end of a fairy tale (or even Princess Peach at the end of a Mario game!).

But Daisy, of course, is only human – flawed, flighty, and ultimately unable to embody the huge fantasy Gatsby projects onto her. So this, in turn, means that the American Dream itself is just a fantasy, a concept too flimsy to actually hold weight, especially in the fast-paced, dog-eat-dog world of 1920s America.

Furthermore, you should definitely consider the tension between the fact that Daisy represents Gatsby’s ultimate goal, but at the same time (as we discussed above), her actual life is the opposite of the American Dream: she is born with money and privilege, likely dies with it all intact, and there are no consequences to how she chooses to live her life in between.

 

Can Female Characters Achieve the American Dream?

Finally, it’s interesting to compare and contrast some of the female characters using the lens of the American Dream.

Let’s start with Daisy, who is unhappy in her marriage and, despite a brief attempt to leave it, remains with Tom, unwilling to give up the status and security their marriage provides. At first, it may seem like Daisy doesn’t dream at all, so of course she ends up unhappy. But consider the fact that Daisy was already born into the highest level of American society. The expectation placed on her, as a wealthy woman, was never to pursue something greater, but simply to maintain her status. She did that by marrying Tom, and it’s understandable why she wouldn’t risk the uncertainty and loss of status that would come through divorce and marriage to a bootlegger. Again, Daisy seems to typify the “anti-American” dream, in that she was born into a kind of aristocracy and simply has to maintain her position, not fight for something better.

In contrast, Myrtle, aside from Gatsby, seems to be the most ambitiously in pursuit of getting more than she was given in life. She parlays her affair with Tom into an apartment, nice clothes, and parties, and seems to revel in her newfound status. But of course, she is knocked down the hardest, killed for her involvement with the Buchanans, and specifically for wrongfully assuming she had value to them. Considering that Gatsby did have a chance to leave New York and distance himself from the unfolding tragedy, but Myrtle was the first to be killed, you could argue the novel presents an even bleaker view of the American Dream where women are concerned.

Even Jordan, who seems to be living out a kind of dream by playing golf and being relatively independent, is tied to her family’s money and insulated from consequences by it, making her a pretty poor representation of the dream. And of course, since her end game also seems to be marriage, she doesn’t push the boundaries of women’s roles as far as she might wish (read more about Jordan, the role of women in the 1920s, and marriage over at her character page).

So while the women all push the boundaries of society’s expectations of them in certain ways, they either fall in line or are killed, which definitely undermines the rosy of idea that anyone, regardless of gender, can make it in America. The American Dream as shown in Gatsby becomes even more pessimistic through the lens of the female characters.

Common Essay Questions/Discussion Topics

Now let’s work through some of the more frequently brought up subjects for discussion.

Was Gatsby’s dream worth it? Was all the work, time, and patience worth it for him?

Like me, you might immediately think “of course it wasn’t worth it! Gatsby lost everything, not to mention the Wilsons got caught up in the tragedy and ended up dead!” So if you want to make the more obvious “the dream wasn’t worth it” argument, you could point to the unraveling that happens at the end of the novel (including the deaths of Myrtle, Gatsby and George) and how all Gatsby’s achievements are for nothing, as evidenced by the sparse attendance of his funeral.

However, you could definitely take the less obvious route and argue that Gatsby’s dream was worth it, despite the tragic end. First of all, consider Jay’s unique characterization in the story: “He was a son of God–a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that–and he must be about His Father’s Business, the service of a vast, vulgar and meretricious beauty” (6.7). In other words, Gatsby has a larger-than-life persona and he never would have been content to remain in North Dakota to be poor farmers like his parents. Even if he ends up living a shorter life, he certainly lived a full one full of adventure. His dreams of wealth and status took him all over the world on Dan Cody’s yacht, to Louisville where he met and fell in love with Daisy, to the battlefields of WWI, to the halls of Oxford University, and then to the fast-paced world of Manhattan in the early 1920s, when he earned a fortune as a bootlegger. In fact, it seems Jay lived several lives in the space of just half a normal lifespan. In short, to argue that Gatsby’s dream was worth it, you should point to his larger-than-life conception of himself and the fact that he could have only sought happiness through striving for something greater than himself, even if that ended up being deadly in the end.

In the Langston Hughes poem “A Dream Deferred,” Hughes asks questions about what happens to postponed dreams. How does Fitzgerald examine this issue of deferred dreams? What do you think are the effects of postponing our dreams? How can you apply this lesson to your own life?

If you’re thinking about “deferred dreams” in The Great Gatsby, the big one is obviously Gatsby’s deferred dream for Daisy – nearly five years pass between his initial infatuation and his attempt in the novel to win her back, an attempt that obviously backfires. You can examine various aspects of Gatsby’s dream – the flashbacks to his first memories of Daisy in Chapter 8, the moment when they reunite in Chapter 5, or the disastrous consequences of the confrontation of Chapter 7 – to illustrate Gatsby’s deferred dream.

You could also look at George Wilson’s postponed dream of going West, or Myrtle’s dream of marrying a wealthy man of “breeding” – George never gets the funds to go West, and is instead mired in the Valley of Ashes, while Myrtle’s attempt to achieve her dream after 12 years of marriage through an affair ends in tragedy. Apparently, dreams deferred are dreams doomed to fail.

As Nick Carraway says, “you can’t repeat the past” – the novel seems to imply there is a small window for certain dreams, and when the window closes, they can no longer be attained. This is pretty pessimistic, and for the prompt’s personal reflection aspect, I wouldn’t say you should necessarily “apply this lesson to your own life” straightforwardly.  But it is worth noting that certain opportunities are fleeting, and perhaps it’s wiser to seek out newer and/or more attainable ones, rather than pining over a lost chance.

Any prompt like this one which has a section of more personal reflection gives you freedom to tie in your own experiences and point of view, so be thoughtful and think of good examples from your own life!

Explain how the novel does or does not demonstrate the death of the American Dream. Is the main theme of Gatsby indeed “the withering American Dream”? What does the novel offer about American identity?

In this prompt, another one that zeroes in on the dead or dying American Dream, you could discuss how the destruction of three lives (Gatsby, George, Myrtle) and the cynical portrayal of the old money crowd illustrates a dead, or dying American Dream. After all, if the characters who dream end up dead, and the ones who were born into life with money and privilege get to keep it without consequence, is there any room at all for the idea that less-privileged people can work their way up?

In terms of what the novel says about American identity, there are a few threads you could pick up – one is Nick’s comment in Chapter 9 about the novel really being a story about (mid)westerners trying (and failing) to go East: “I see now that this has been a story of the West, after all–Tom and Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan and I, were all Westerners, and perhaps we possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life” (9.125). This observation suggests an American identity that is determined by birthplace, and that within the American identity there are smaller, inescapable points of identification.

Furthermore, for those in the novel not born into money, the American identity seems to be about striving to end up with more wealth and status. But in terms of the portrayal of the old money set, particularly Daisy, Tom, and Jordan, the novel presents a segment of American society that is essentially aristocratic – you have to be born into it. In that regard, too, the novel presents a fractured American identity, with different lives possible based on how much money you are born with.

In short, I think the novel disrupts the idea of a unified American identity or American dream, by instead presenting a tragic, fractured, and rigid American society, one that is divided based on both geographic location and social class.

Most would consider dreams to be positive motivators to achieve success, but the characters in the novel often take their dreams of ideal lives too far. Explain how characters’ American Dreams cause them to have pain when they could have been content with more modest ambitions.

Gatsby is an obvious choice here – his pursuit of money and status, particularly through Daisy, leads him to ruin. There were many points when perhaps Gatsby could have been happy with what he achieved (especially after his apparently successful endeavors in the war, if he had remained at Oxford, or even after amassing a great amount of wealth as a bootlegger) but instead he kept striving upward, which ultimately lead to his downfall. You can flesh this argument out with the quotations in Chapters 6 and 8 about Gatsby’s past, along with his tragic death.

Myrtle would be another good choice for this type of prompt. In a sense, she seems to be living her ideal life in her affair with Tom – she has a fancy NYC apartment, hosts parties, and gets to act sophisticated – but these pleasures end up gravely hurting George, and of course her association with Tom Buchanan gets her killed.

Nick, too, if he had been happy with his family’s respectable fortune and his girlfriend out west, might have avoided the pain of knowing Gatsby and the general sense of despair he was left with.

You might be wondering about George – after all, isn’t he someone also dreaming of a better life? However, there aren’t many instances of George taking his dreams of an ideal life “too far.” In fact, he struggles just to make one car sale so that he can finally move out West with Myrtle. Also, given that his current situation in the Valley of Ashes is quite bleak, it’s hard to say that striving upward gave him pain.

The Great Gatsby is, among other things, a sobering and even ominous commentary on the dark side of the American dream. Discuss this theme, incorporating the conflicts of East Egg vs. West Egg and old money vs. new money. What does the American dream mean to Gatsby? What did the American Dream mean to Fitzgerald? How does morality fit into achieving the American dream?

This prompt allows you to consider pretty broadly the novel’s attitude toward the American Dream, with emphasis on “sobering and even ominous” commentary. Note that Fitzgerald seems to be specifically mocking the stereotypical rags to riches story here – especially since he draws the Dan Cody narrative almost note for note from the work of someone like Horatio Alger, whose books were almost universally about rich men schooling young, entrepreneurial boys in the ways of the world. In other words, you should discuss how the Great Gatsby seems to turn the idea of the American Dream as described in the quote on its head: Gatsby does achieve a rags-to-riches rise, but it doesn’t last.

All of Gatsby’s hard work for Dan Cody, after all, didn’t pay off since he lost the inheritance. So instead, Gatsby turned to crime after the war to quickly gain a ton of money. Especially since Gatsby finally achieves his great wealth through dubious means, the novel further undermines the classic image of someone working hard and honestly to go from rags to riches.

If you’re addressing this prompt or a similar one, make sure to focus on the darker aspects of the American Dream, including the dark conclusion to the novel and Daisy and Tom’s protection from any real consequences. (This would also allow you to considering morality, and how morally bankrupt the characters are.)

What is the current state of the American Dream?

This is a more outward-looking prompt, that allows you to consider current events today to either be generally optimistic (the American dream is alive and well) or pessimistic (it’s as dead as it is in The Great Gatsby).

You have dozens of potential current events to use as evidence for either argument, but consider especially immigration and immigration reform, mass incarceration, income inequality, education, and health care in America as good potential examples to use as you argue about the current state of the American Dream. Your writing will be especially powerful if you can point to some specific current events to support your argument.

 

The Great Gatsby Essay

The Great Gatsby is a famous classic American novel written by Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald in the year 1925. Scott Fitzgerald is an American short-story writer and novelist, whose first career breakthrough was the novel This Side of Paradise made him one of the most promising young writers almost overnight (Biography.com).

The Great Gatsby’s story is told from the point of view of Nick Carraway, a Midwesterner who moves to a little house in West Egg, Long Island, across the river from Daisy and right next to Jay Gatsby’s enormous palace (Fitzgerald, 12). Nick tells the story happened around 1922 following the first World War. He came to the big city to find out about the bond business, but discovered the most exciting story and the lesson of his life.

However, the story’s main character is not Nick Carraway, it is his mysterious neighbor and, possibly, friend – Jay Gatsby – whose personality and history remains a secret for other characters and even readers. Even though he is a public person – no one knows a thing about who he is, except for Nick. People around knows only rumors they heard like the fact that Jay killed a man, studied in Oxford, was a soldier in the 1st World War, he is the devil’s cousin and others.

The reason of Gatsby’s actions and his all life for the past five years is simple – he wants to be reunited with the love of his life, married woman Daisy Buchanan. She cannot even imagine that Gatsby did all the crazy things to attract her attention. All the amazing posh parties with numerous entertainments at his wonderful mansion were arranged only for Daisy to look at Jay. Gatsby kept an enormous house that was extremely well maintained by dozens of servants. “It looked like the World’s fair was here I saw the light miles away.” (Fitzgerald, 87).

Besides the love story, Scott Fitzgerald highlighted some social issues in his novel. Firstly, the reader gets to know how money influences people and puts the consumer’s values above morality. Moreover, the author is pointing out the conflict between different types of wealth, new money versus old money, as well as the hollowness of the upper level of class. In a certain way, Fitzgerald not only critics the higher class of society for being obsessed with money, but also the lower class for forgetting the true American Dream values. Instead of pursuing the idea of being happy, most of the characters are more interested in money and authority (Lehan 10).

While reading the book you will definitely notice the beautiful way the Great Gatsby’s world is illustrated. Using the best possible lyricism author creates the pitch-perfect impression that the Jazz Age happens in the readers’ mind.

The Great Gatsby is a great book to learn from. It shows the power of love, wealth, power, options in our lives and how our decisions influence us and the world around. The result of Gatsby’s decision was his death. The most tragic part of the novel is the fact that Daisy did not show up to his funeral (Fitzgerald, 167). Moreover, is spite of the numerous guests at his parties, there were few mourners at Gatsby’s funeral. It turns out that, except for friends and few more people, no one is interested at Jay Gatsby when there are no benefits from being around him. However, maybe it was Gatsby’s fault, as he kept only few friends in his life. He thought his reputation and authority would be more perfected if no one around really knew him.

Works Cited:
Biography.com. (2016). F. Scott Fitzgerald Biography. [online] Available at: http://www.biography.com/people/f-scott-fitzgerald-9296261 [Accessed 23 Jul. 2016].
Lehan, Richard D. The Great Gatsby: The Limits of Wonder. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1990.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner, 2013. Print.

The Great Gatsby: Free Essay Sample

Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby as a satire that comments on American ideals in the 1920s. He shows the carelessness of everyone during the time by portraying them in the community of East and West Egg. Fitzgerald conveys two different themes throughout the story. One is “the American Dream is corrupted by the desire for wealth” and the
other is “the Attainment of a dream may be less satisfying than the pursuit of it”. He uses those themes to show how The Great Gatsby is a satire of American Ideals.

The American dream is life should be better and richer and fuller for one. This dream is corrupted between the relationship of Gatsby and daisy. Daisy is the symbol of all that Gatsby strives for; her voice is full of money, as Gatsby describes it. Her voice was “full of money-that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals’ song in it” (Fitzgerald 120). She can be interpreted as a twentieth-century flapper because she ensnares men with her husky, mysterious voice. Gatsby became so enamored by her voice that he based all of his actions on winning Daisy over. Her voice contains the promise of vast riches. However, Gatsby is too late to realize that money is the only thing her voice promises. There is no compassion in Daisy, just as there is none in cold, hard cash. Daisy’s dream is corrupted by wealth because she is caught up with Tom’s wealth and Gatsby’s wealth.

Daisy and Tom’s marriage is further proof of the collapse of the American dream. Although they belong to the West Egg social group and have extreme wealth, they are unhappy. Tom is first described as “one of those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterwards savours of anti-climax” (Fitzgerald 6). Tom and Daisy are both in unsatisfied with life and are searching for something better. They have traveled to France and drifted “here and there unrest fully wherever people were rich and played polo together” (Fitzgerald 6). They are unhappy and bored with life. Tom seems to be searching for the excitement that he found in playing football in college, and he finds an outlet for his dissatisfaction by cheating on his wife with Myrtle. Once again, Gatsby does not see that attaining wealth and power does not equal happiness.

The Buchanans’ marriage is full of lies and infidelities, yet they are united through their corruption. After Tom has discovered Daisy’s infidelity and Myrtle has been killed, their callous selfishness is revealed when they are reunited over “fried chicken and two bottles of ale” (Fitzgerald 145). They instinctively seek out each other because each recognizes the other’s strength in the corrupt spiritual element they inhabit. After Myrtle and Gatsby are both killed, neither one of the Buchanans sends their regards or seem remorseful. In fact, they go on a short vacation, which is an indication of the lack of compassion they have toward others. There was no love for anyone. All people cared about was wealth and parties. Nick perceives Tom and Daisy as they really are, heartless and careless. “They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made” (Fitzgerald 179). Tom and Daisy’s actions are an indication of the detrimental and emotionally numbing effects that wealth can have on someone. They focus too much on appearance and things of monetary value, while ignoring people’s feelings and lives.

Jordan Baker’s plans are also negatively impacted by the corruptive qualities of wealth. Although Nick is attracted to Jordan’s bored, jaunty, careless air at first, he finally understands that it conveys her profound disregard for other people’s feelings. Jordan supports Daisy having an affair, because “Daisy ought to have something in her life” (Fitzgerald 79). She sees Gatsby as something, not someone. Jordan also has a reputation for being dishonest and for being a gossip. She was involved in a golf tournament scandal in which she was accused of moving her golf ball to her advantage. Jordan belongs to the East Egg social group because of her careless, dishonest ways. She serves as a hint as to the true nature of the people from East Egg. Jordan may also be an indication of the types of people that Gatsby entertains, since she attends his parties. She is similar to many of his partygoers in that she exploits his hospitality yet never shows any genuine kindness toward him. It is very telling that Gatsby’s house is full of people throughout the entire summer, yet when Gatsby dies, no one attends his funeral except Nick and Gatsby’s father. The shallow acquaintances of Gatsby were never his true friends-the only used him for his lavish generosity. The countless people who attend his parties, ride on his hydroplane and in his car, and drink his alcohol are nowhere to be seen when the time comes to pay their respects for him.

The theme of the pursuit of a dream is more satisfying than attaining the dream itself repeats itself throughout the book. Gatsby’s dream was to get Daisy. We see this repetition of a “green light” though out the story. Every time Gatsby looked at Daisy’s house Fitzgerald mentioned the green light. Fitzgerald compares Gatsby’s green light to the “green breast of the new world” (Fitzgerald 180), comparing Gatsby’s dream of rediscovering Daisy to the explorer’s discovery of America and the promise of a new continent. However, Gatsby’s dream is tarnished by his material possessions, much like America is now with our obsession with wealth. Gatsby “wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to tom and say: I never loved you” (Fitzgerald 109). Gatsby tried and tried to get Daisy to think she never loved Tom but the truth was that she did love him. The pursuit of the dream was more satisfying for Gatsby than actually attaining it. He threw parties just to hope she would come and he would be able to see him. He became rich so he could impress her with nice things. If Gatsby truly got Daisy’s heart they would end up doing the same thing as Tom and she normally do. In the end they will have the same dinner “fried chicken…and two bottles of ale” (Fitzgerald 145) and it would get old and then they would end up having an affair with other people around town like nothing ever changed.

On the surface, Fitzgerald’s novel may appear to be just a shallow novel about the jazz, parties, and glitz that he experienced in the early twentieth century. After closer examination, however, it is apparent that The Great Gatsby is a profound social commentary on the corrupt and disillusioning effects that materialism can have on members of society. We also learn that in the end attaining your dream is not as fun as trying to get it. Fitzgerald did write a satire that showed the ideals of the 1820s.