The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald - Book Report/Review Example

The Great Gatsby In The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby has set his sights on winning back the only girl he ever felt he loved. Because Daisy is already married to Tom when Gatsby returns from the war and because she has always been a child of privilege, Gatsby reasons that the best way to win her back is to be rich and to have flashier things than those of her husband. Toward that end, Gatsby gets involved in the illegal bootlegging business during the 1920s prohibition period, he buys a huge mansion that affords him a view of Daisy’s house from the back and he throws lavish parties in an effort to try to lure Daisy across the water into his world. His plan seems to be succeeding as he visits with her several times and she seems to be returning some of his affections, but when she’s forced to make a choice between Tom and Gatsby, Daisy chooses Tom for his old money and connections. The reader understands all this from the beginning thanks to the observations of the narrator, Nick. Following an accident when Daisy kills Tom’s girlfriend while driving Gatsby’s car, Gatsby proves his inability to handle the emergency while Tom takes charge and whisks Daisy away to a safe place. Meanwhile, Gatsby’s inability to see the truth contributes to his own tragic death at the hands of the dead woman’s grief-stricken husband. “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” (182). Throughout the story, Jay Gatsby serves as a metaphor for the deterioration of the American Dream during the 1920s. Almost every aspect of the story can be interpreted as a symbol for something else. With these symbols, Fitzgerald ridicules the contemporary concept of the American Dream as being something empty and shallow based on meaningless material goods rather than more satisfying spiritual development. Describing one of Gatsby’s smiles, Nick says “it understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey” (48). In this description, Nick sums up the entire attitude of the nation in its superficial presentation and shallow understanding as well as suggests a much deeper meaning and potential lying in wait for those who would seek it. The emptiness of the American Dream as it is typically understood is demonstrated through the reinforcement of the old rich rising in triumph over the new as Tom and Daisy escape on vacation while Gatsby floats dead in his pool. Fitzgerald seems to be calling into question our American values in his story. Reading this novel on a deep level, one can see the allusions made to America and the loss of its innocence and noble ideas in the face of an ever-increasing materialism and decadence following the First World War. In the character of Daisy, who symbolizes the American Dream itself, and Gatsby who pursues her, one can see the innocence of America as well as its fickle, inconsistent nature that changes as quickly as the views of those around her change. Through the action of the story and the character of Jay Gatsby, one can see the deterioration of the Dream while Gatsby’s death at the end thus comes to represent the death of the Dream. In the story, the character Jay Gatsby’s only real goal in life is to win back the only girl he ever loved, Daisy, which is a direct image of the pursuit of the American Dream. Daisy is already married to Tom when Gatsby returns from the war and is enjoying being the wife of a very wealthy man. Because she has always been wealthy, Gatsby reasons that the best way to win her back is to be rich and to have flashier things than those of her husband. All of this can be said as easily of the American Dream, which is often considered to belong to others and best attained by acquiring wealth and other material things. Gatsby seems to have attained the dream as he lives in a large mansion and is able to throw expensive parties that only the wealthy can attend. However, he is still not happy because he does not have what he really wants, which is Daisy. Through this connection, one can see that Gatsby has used the accumulation of material wealth to equate in his mind with the pursuit of happiness and the American Dream. His blind pursuit of Daisy seems tantalizingly close, particularly once he meets Nick and is re-introduced into Daisy’s company, but in the end, the material things are not able to purchase what he really wants. One of the things that is important to understand in this connection is the way in which the character of Daisy is used as a symbol of the American Dream itself. However unearned, Daisy is associated with the American Dream through the color green like money. This is seen through the tragic form of Jay Gatsby, who stares each night at the small green light at the end of her East Egg pier as a beacon of hope, love and promise. Watching Gatsby upon his first view of the man, Nick describes the way in which Gatsby “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 faraway, that might have been the end of a dock” (21-22). Eventually, Nick discovers that this green light is, indeed, at the end of Daisy’s dock and, as he gets to know Gatsby a little better, realizes the hope and the dream that Gatsby associates with Daisy. This light belonging to Daisy further reflects that old American dream, always just out of reach, always a little brighter than reality and always a little different from what one might have been expecting. This association is brought forward by Nick in Chapter 9 when he mentions “a fresh, green breast of the new world” (182) that opened its doors for the Dutch settlers in much the same way that the green light seemed to spur Gatsby to continue following his dream. “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic 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…” (182). Gatsby yearns toward the green light as the answer to his life’s goal, the fulfillment of his American Dream, yet the fact that Daisy was gone at the end of the story and Gatsby is dead indicates the lie inherent in the promise. However, when Daisy first appears in the novel, she does so in a flowing white dress, such that the reader sees a clean slate, a blank canvas and a picture of innocence which is how many people choose to see America. Nick Calloway, the story’s narrator, gives a hint as to how such a blank slate might not be a great thing as he describes the first glimpse of Daisy to be had: “They were both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house … the caught wind died out about the room, and the curtain and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor” (8). By equating Daisy and her friend Jordan with the curtains and rugs, Nick indicates that neither of them has a personality or presence of their own, but are instead merely a reflection of the beholder’s thoughts. This, too, is similar to the American Dream in that everyone seems to think the Dream is clear, like a curtain, but it really doesn’t have any shape or motion of its own. The fact that they are clad in white further emphasizes this idea as neither woman expresses color or individuality. The inclusion of the effect of the wind blowing about the house and its effect upon the women’s dresses gives the reader a further impression that both of these women are little more than birds, ethereal creatures having little to do with everyday life but rather just existing from day to day in whatever form or shape the wind cares to impart. This concept is related to America of the 1920s in that its innocent goals for the pursuit of happiness, individuality and discovery had been overtaken by the winds of materialism and a shift of values to the decadent display of wealth. Although America was still there, it was no longer colored with individual thought, a drive for discovery or a true pursuit of happiness. Daisy is seen as the perfect example of the American high society ideal. She has the family background that provides her with “old money” connections and a husband with enough wealth of his own to bring down a string of polo ponies. “It was hard to realize that a man in my own generation was wealthy enough to do that” (6). She has all the right friends and the personality, charm and decadent style to make her welcome in any social gathering. “Her voice is full of money” (120), the pursuit of which was becoming even more closely associated with the American dream. However, her actions begin to speak even more eloquently of an ideal that has lost its purpose. As the reader learns more about her, she becomes even less a real person, having once promised herself to Gatsby only to marry Tom, then to again promise herself to Gatsby (Chapter 7) and again choose Tom based on the idea that Gatsby’s fortunes might be ruined upon further investigation. Finally, her willingness to allow Gatsby to shoulder the blame for the hit-and-run murder of Myrtle Wilson demonstrates her true nature, never taking the blame for what she’s done and running off to the next adventure. “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – 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” (180-181). This changeable nature, always shifting with the most prevalent, loudest voice, is the way in which America is seen to operate in these post-war years, no longer standing true to her ideals but instead shifting and changing any way the money blows. The setting in which Gatsby operates is also symbolic of the American Dream and its decline. The novel starts off with Nick describing how he ‘accidentally’ fell into renting a small house on the West Egg, an area of town that represents the new rich of the likes of Jay Gatsby, while his cousin Daisy and her husband live across the bay at East Egg, the area of the old rich. They are separated by a gulf of water that neither side seems likely to cross. As the story develops, the gulf that separates them becomes more obvious and more abstract. Daisy and Tom are selfish, cynical, uncaring and unattached. They play with people the way others might play with toys and care even less when one gets broken. Gatsby, on the other hand, has gained his money illegally, but demonstrates that he is still very capable of feeling. He stands outside Daisy’s window for hours after the accident that kills Myrtle to be sure Daisy is all right even though he’s taking the blame for Myrtle’s death. Between these two parts of town lies the Valley of the Ashes, through which they must drive if they are to get to New York. From the valley to the city, the world seems oddly empty whenever the characters venture there. This no man’s land contains, as far as the reader is aware, only one dwelling and one business, the store where Myrtle and her husband reside under the giant billboard of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg that watches over everything. It is described how this area of desolation has been created by the regular dumping of industrial waste into the area, making it impossible for anything else to live there and representing the destruction of America caused by this type of activity. It is only by passing through this dead zone that they are able to reach the seemingly deserted city of New York, which suggests the death of the city and the decline of the American Dream because of its lack of activity and prosperity. It is also within the Valley of Ashes that Daisy kills Myrtle, emphasizing the idea that the middle class will be consumed by the jealousies and actions of the ruling rich. F. Scott Fitzgerald is calling into question our American values in his story. Reading this novel on a deeper level, there are many allusions made to America itself, and the loss of its innocence and noble ideas in the face of an ever-increasing materialism and decadence following the First World War. In the character of Daisy, Fitzgerald reveals the innocence of America as well as its fickle, inconsistent nature that changes as quickly as the views of those around her change. When Daisy first appears in the novel, she does so in a flowing white dress, such that the reader sees a clean slate, a blank canvas and a picture of innocence, but she floats around without any kind of substance, meaning or purpose. This concept is related to America of the 1920s in that its innocent goals for the pursuit of happiness, individuality and discovery had been overtaken by the winds of materialism and a shift of values to the decadent display of wealth. Although America was still there, it was no longer colored with individual thought, a drive for discovery or a pursuit of happiness. Yet Daisy is seen as the perfect example of the American high society ideal because she has everything but she cannot remain dedicated to anything. This changeable nature, always shifting with the most prevalent, loudest voice, is the way in which America is seen to operate in these post-war years, no longer standing true to her ideals but instead shifting and changing any way the money blows. The light at the end of Daisy’s East Egg pier reflects the American dream, always just out of reach, always a little brighter than reality and always a little different from what one might have been expecting. The symbol of Daisy for the changing nature of American ideals is just one element of how Fitzgerald communicates his message. His story and style of writing is complex and sometimes difficult to understand, but interesting because of the many layers involved. Works Cited Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1925. Read More