Th great gatsby
Th great gatsbyThe Great Gatsby is a novel that illustrates the
society in the 1920’s and the associated beliefs,
values and dreams of the American population at
that time. These beliefs, values and dreams can be
summed up be what is termed the “American Dream”;
a dream of money, wealth, prosperity and the
happiness that supposedly came with the booming
economy and get-rich-quick schemes that formed the
essential underworld of American upper-class
society. This underworld infiltrated the upper
echelons and created such a moral decay within
general society that paved the way for the ruining
of dreams and dashing of hopes as they were placed
confidently in the chance for opportunities that
could be seized by one and all. Scott Fitzgerald
illustrates the American Dream and the “foul dust”
or the carelessness of a society that floats in
the wake of this dream. By looking at each
character and their situation and ambition it can
be seen that the American Dream was not limited to
one social class or type of person, that it was
nation wide and was found within everyone.
From the position as narrator the reader has
access to the thoughts and feelings of Nick
Carraway more than any other characters; but this
same position also reduces the effectiveness of
the reader as a judge of character because he is
presented in a biased way compared to others. With
that said, it can be seen that Nick suffers
greatly from his experiences in New York. His
regard for human decency is ruined and he leaves
with his hopes dashed and a disgust at how the
materialism that runs rampant throughout his
social class is capable of ruining lives and
dreams. Nick, as with all characters is a believer
in the American Dream because even he moves East
to work in the bond business - then a booming
industry. Because of the actions of his cousin
Daisy, her husband Tom and the beliefs held by his
love interest in the novel Jordan, Nick is finally
privy to how the dreams and values held by all
these people overrun their sense of sensible
behavior and how the general society caused their
personalities to be affected this way.
The transformation between James Gatz and Jay
Gatsby is an example of how people can transform
themselves according to their ambition for wealth
and prosperity. The use of illegal activities to
gain Gatsby’s wealth is alluded to in the book;
this shows the extent of how the American Dream
circumvented the moral revulsion and pushed people
who were crazy about money into crime - driving
the moral standing of wealthier citizens into the
ground. To Gatsby, his dream was symbolised by
Daisy; Gatsby even says that her voice sounds like
money, a direct correlation between Daisy and the
wealth and happiness that Gatsby would supposedly
enjoy if only he could have married Daisy but
could still enjoy if he had married her five years
later. His pursuit of happiness with Daisy was the
ultimate cause of the degradation of Gatsby’s
morals and realistic dreams. This is because he
held an unrealistic view of life and how he could
recreate the past. His dreams had distorted
reality to the point where when his rationality
realised that the image of life and of Daisy did
not coincide with the real life version his mind
did not grasp that perhaps the dream had receded
to the point of no return, consequently his dreams
helped to result in the devastating end that was
the finish of The Great Gatsby.
This difference in Gatsby’s mental image and the
real image of daisy was due to the incompleteness
of daisy’s character. Her rendering of the
American Dream included fun, comfortable living
with money and influence. To do this her marriage
choices were limited to men with money, preferably
with old inherited money, the type that prestige
accompanies. The reader can see that Daisy is a
superficial character who considers happiness more
of a physical state than a mental state by the
scene when she is talking about her daughter and
what she said when she was born: “that’s the best
thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful
little fool”; this shows how Daisy thinks about
life and how happiness can be bought by not being
aware and presumably by having money and being
fooled with it. The results of her dream and the
methods she used to accomplish her dream led to
the unhappiness of her marriage, when she again
tried to capture happiness whilst still keeping
her dream in front of her it ended in the tragedy
that The Great Gatsby depicted. If Daisy had
indeed been concerned with happiness, as was
implied throughout the novel, then she would not
have been as concerned with money as she obviously
was - she would have waited for Gatsby to come
back from the war and not have married Tom; a
decision based on her thoughts of what her life
should have been life and a decision that cost her
her happiness. The moral decadence and
carelessness of the American dream is also
illustrates accurately in Daisy in the situation
of the killing of Myrtle and her abandonment of
Gatsby just before and after his death. The fact
that she ran over Myrtle without stopping and did
not have the bravery to tell Tom shows how Daisy
was always thinking of herself and of her own
comfort rather than the safety, wellbeing and
feelings of others.
Whilst Tom’s interpretation of the American dream
does involve money it is not his prime concern as
it is with many of the other characters. His dream
also concentrates of power, gained through the
prestige that is associated with old money. His
self-confidence and utter belief in his
superiority are an example of how he thinks about
himself in relation to all other people,
especially ones of a lower social class. Tom’s
dream of power and superiority led to his moral
decline that contributed to Tom ruining his
marriage with Daisy and ultimately her wishes of
having a truly happy marriage. Not only did his
lack of morals affect Daisy and her happiness it
also fostered the situation of Gatsby’s and
George’s death which was the ultimate example of
how the effects of the American dream caused
society to change their morals and exhibit actions
that were detrimental to society in general.
Myrtle, as almost a coconspirator with Tom, is to
blame for the unhappiness of her own marriage with
George and Tom’s marriage with Daisy but the
latter would already have been unhappy because of
Tom’s former indiscretions. Her dream of riches
and of belonging to a social elite blinded her
from the chance that perhaps she could have tried
to make her marriage with George work and hence
achieve happiness, though this can be doubted
generally because it can be said that a woman with
personality and ambitions such as myrtle could
hardly have been happy with a “spiritless” man
like George. Supposedly she married George because
she thought he was a gentleman, something that the
social elite traditionally value; though only if
he is also rich enough to belong there in the
first place. Because myrtle’s personality is so
strong it would have indeed been easy for her
aspirations for her style of living to corrupt her
values and so open the door for the ruining of her
dreams. This ruination indeed happened because of
the man she fell in love with, Tom, and what he
stood for - money, power and materialism.
George, as a complete opposite to myrtle, turned
to a more introvert person as a consequence of his
style of living in the garage. Towards the end of
the novel the reader may question his state of
mind because of some of his actions toward myrtle,
especially his opinion towards the eyes of the
T.J. Eckleberg advertisement, whilst it is obvious
to the reader that they do indeed represent God or
at least the fact that the moral decay is being
subtly observed it could not be obvious to the
characters of the book (except George). This could
be because they were indeed far too busy
gallivanting around New York with their lack of
morals and the behavior that was the The Great
Gatsby. Despite the fact that George did not
belong to a church he became religious towards the
end of the novel, perhaps as a reaction to the
behavior of his wife and the depression that would
have been associated with both that and the
failings of his business. His dreams are not well
documented in the novel, apart from the obvious
dream of money and making a profit of his
business, this obvious dream was in fact ruined
because of the fact that not everyone could get
rich (the basis of the American dream) and the
immoral behavior of his wife and the rest of the
characters.
As another contrast to all of the aforementioned
characters Jordan’s immoral behavior does not
directly lead to any of the situations in the
novel, whilst she did encourage Daisy to have an
affair with Gatsby she could not be blamed for the
deaths or the unhappiness of any of the other
characters. Jordan can be viewed as a
representative of general society as she does
display many immoral traits (Such as moving the
ball illegally during one of her tournaments and
being more than slightly hypocritical when she
talks about careless people, saying she “hates
careless people” when she admits that she is one.)
that contribute to the overall ethical decay
within the American aristocracy.
Fitzgerald shows that in the social classes that
were represented in The Great Gatsby there is a
running theme of how the American dream affects
all of the characters, they each have their own
aspirations for their own life but more often than
not they revolve around money and the effects that
wealth has on their style of life. Because of the
tragic events within the The Great Gatsby and the
fact that the characters who are still alive at
the end of the novel, bar Nick, are not
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