Reaction to Theme of Great Gatsby - Book Report/Review Example

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is set in the United States in what was called the 'Roaring Twenties', the decade of Prohibition, jazz and mobsters. It is a tale of magic and illusion, told by the narrator, Nick Caraway. He is a friend to Jay Gatsby and cousin to Gatsby's true love, Daisy. Daisy is married to Tom Buchanan. Nick stands in awe of them and relates the saga as if it were a fairy-tale come to life. For Gatsby and Daisy, life was a fairy-tale, filled with little reality, but rather the illusion that they created in their lives. Even the title conjures images of the performing magician. Gatsby's title of 'Great' is often used as a stage name for such performers. The burden which Fitzgerald carried in the writing of this work was to make the lives of the two dreamers into a tale which anyone would care about, other than themselves. It is obvious to the reader that Gatsby and Daisy are not grounded in reality. They live the life of the charmed and the charming, and flit along not caring about the rest of humanity. So why then, should the reader care about them The magical glory they created was the illusion that money and position will keep one free of all the ills of the world. At the outset, as Fitzgerald introduces the reader to Jay Gatsby, the illusion which he has created holds up and the reader perceives him to be just what he claims to be. But the deception cannot last and slowly the true face of the man is revealed. The reader learns that Gatsby's entire life is a faade behind which there is a man of little social import and less breeding and position. Slowly the reader comes to understand that little which Gatsby presents as the truth is real. The reader learns that he was not a gentleman of leisure, but rather earned his money in various illegal schemes. He presents himself as being Oxford educated, but soon enough that lie comes to light and the reader learns that he only attended Oxford for a few months, and on a scholarship at that. He would not be socially acceptable in the group with whom Daisy travels. Slowly, like peeling back the layers of an onion, the real Jay Gatsby is revealed. Gatsby is the great illusionist. He is a fake and a charlatan and he drags Daisy along for the ride on his magic carpet. Like most who pretend to be more than they are, and, like Daedalus, flying too close to the sun, Gatsby will fall to earth. Gatsby's ideas of life are not founded on reality. They are in the realm of magical glory and cannot last. Fitzgerald is not an illusionist. If he were not grounded in reality he could not have told this tale of illusion with such clarity and force. It is a tribute to his skills as an author of fiction that he makes us care what will happen to the two ill-fated lovers who live their lives in a world of dreams. The world to which Gatsby aspires is socially far above him but he has made the money necessary to travel in the circle of wealth and privilege, and thus believes he deserves to be there. Fitzgerald compares him to the street magician in many ways as he plies this illusion of his own social status among the well to do. Gatsby fears being exposed for what he is. He pretends to have come from old money and plays the role of the rich playboy scion of old money and genteel upbringing but none of what he said or implied was true. He was not a socialite and his family had no status. He was rich, yes, but not from legal means. He lived in fear that his social friends would discover the truth and he would be exposed for what he really was. He accumulated the mansion and the fancy cars for a reason. He amassed all of the trappings of wealth that money alone can buy. He wanted Daisy and he wanted to be in her world. We learn that this entire charade which Gatsby plays, is not for his own sake, in a direct way, but rather to win the love of a woman he perceives to be far above him socially. It is for this reason that he pretends to be what he is not. Gatsby's magic glory has but one aim, one goal, and one reason for existing. He has to convince Daisy Buchanan that he is what he appears to be, meaning he has to convince her he is not only her equal in society, in manners and breeding but also is a fitting match for her romantically. Gatsby is such an illusionist that he manages to even fool himself. He lives in a make believe world in order to secure the one thing he believes will bring him happiness, but he spends all of his time doing things he does not really want to do in order to achieve that one goal. It is counter-productive. There are better ways he could have spent his time and achieved a more equitable life. His parties were attended by all of the right people, those who could do him the most good socially. He has no use for the people. He does not really like any of them. He only invites them because he wants to impress them. He is obsessed with how they will perceive him. He has an unquenchable desire to be admired, envied and respected by the upper-class bores he invites. He remains a man of mystery to all of the socialites he emulates. He cannot allow anyone to look too deeply into his past, for then, he knows, his lies would be exposed. He has to be vague and coy in never telling too much about himself. He has to be maintain the air of mystery, which he so diligently cultivates. Fitzgerald paints a picture of Gatsby as being as elusive physically as he is in the games he plays with the people around him. Fitzgerald tells of Nick seeing him on his balcony, standing alone, like a wizard, seemingly able to come and go in a wisp of smoke. He appears and disappears with an eerie ability, as if he is actually a magician. The reader eventually learns that Jay Gatsby was born James Gatz, and as a boy, was raised in poverty. He managed to come under the tutelage of a rich man. From this mentor, Dan Cody, he managed to get a rudimentary education and took a new name. But he was still penniless. Tom Buchanan delights in telling Daisy this information and destroying the illusion that Gatsby has worked so hard to produce. She learns that Gatsby was once so poor that when he was discharged from the army he had no other clothes but his army uniform and had to wear it everywhere he went (133). He began to make money in his various schemes and eventually, through the act of bootlegging, or transporting and selling illegal alcohol, he makes himself incredible wealthy. When Tom reveals this secret of the Great Gatsby, his illusion is destroyed and he is no longer the man of mystery. His socialite friends desert him and his world comes tumbling down. It is as if he were a magician who performed a signature piece of magic on stage. Suddenly the audience knew the details to the magic illusion and the trick no longer had the capacity to awe anyone anymore. The audience saw how it was all done. The magician is now booed and driven off the stage. His act has no value any longer. The realities of life came crashing down on Jay Gatsby and the magic illusions he spun out of the air were gone in a heartbeat. This, here, is the theme of the Great Gatsby. It is not in the telling of how he did what he did but rather in how he will behave once the secret is out. It is a sad business. The difference between the illusion and the reality of life can be heart breaking to someone who has lived in the dream for so long. It is Fitzgerald's task to show the broad difference between the real world of the early 20th century in America and the world of glitz and glitter to which Jay Gatsby aspired. But it has to be remembered, so Fitzgerald tells the reader, that Gatsby only really cared about that world so long as Daisy Buchanan was there in it. He would have been content, in all likelihood, to just be very rich, and travel in his own circle of friends. All of the illusion he created was for the benefit of Daisy. He wanted her so much that he was willing to create an artificial world and live inside a fishbowl, always fearing his secret would be told, just for the chance to win another man's wife. Fitzgerald paints an image of a group of people who have all been seduced, in one way or the other, by the heady world of money and power. It can almost make the reader begin to believe that such a world would be desirable and a wonderful place to live. Fitzgerald shows that money corrupts, and this era, which he chose to depict, was a time when values seemed to disappear. There were few ethics in business or society. The country, in hindsight, was on the verge of collapse. The Great Depression would strike at the end of the decade and bring to a close much of the excesses that Fitzgerald described so vividly. Gatsby loved Daisy and she left him for a man of her own social position. He meant to stop at nothing to win her back. Morals had no place in his life. He had the delusion that he could make her fall in love with him, and even leave her husband to be with him, if he could simple amass enough money to make her see how important he had become. He was willing to become an outlaw to do this. He believed it would work because of the lack of respect he had for all people in society with money and prestige. He thought that since they cared little how they came to have their money, he would be able to come into their circle without being questioned too much as to the source of his fortune. He and his partner, Meyer Wolfshiem, bought drug stores and began selling alcohol openly, Fitzgerald says. He was ruthless and had little regard for how the money was made. He never seemed to grasp that Daisy married Tom Buchanan not just for money but for the social position it would bring her to be Mrs. Tom Buchanan. Jay Gatsby never seemed to understand that. He never understood that he never had a serious shot at winning her, and certainly never had a chance at making her divorce her husband. In the circles that Daisy traveled, the idea of divorce was scandalous. She never had any intention of leaving Tom (102). In the end, Fitzgerald shows us that Daisy, for all her airs and all of her highborn ways and all of her pretension, is not really any less superficial than Gatsby. They are both fakes in their own way, and most likely deserved each other. When the magic glory was gone they are left with nothing meaningful in their lives. The American Dream, which Gatsby saw as only money and material goods was never realized. Yet, in a larger sense, no one in the novel truly understood what the dream was about. All of the characters were superficial and shallow in their lives and in their relationships. When the question arises as to whether or not Fitzgerald did an adequate job of depicting his characters in a real manner the answer is an unqualified, yes. But it begs the question as to whether or not they possess enough substance to make an interesting story. Perhaps they are painted as superficial people because they were superficial. Fitzgerald did excellent work in drawing these characters and making them seem real. But in the end it is like watching amoeba in a dish. Why would anyone really care about them They learned that their magic glory did little to keep them safe from all harm. They received a strong dose of reality. Their illusions were just that, illusion. Bibliography Fitzgerald, F. The Great Gatsby, Thomas, S. 2003, University of Adelaide Library, Electronics Text Collection, Read More