The Great Gatsby

On the fall term of sophomore year, we read F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby." It was an interesting book portraying how superficial individuals can be under a society that measures people through wealth and appearances. I wrote an essay analyzing its symbolisms towards the American Dream.

Fitzgerald's Portrayal of the American Dream

The American Dream, a main topic portrayed in F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby, brings out multiple emotions, fates, and thoughts that every character goes through. There are people living inside the American Dream like Tom, Daisy, and Jordan; people observing the American Dream while bordering it like Nick; people accumulating enough money but remaining unable to be part of the traditional riches like Gatsby; and people striving to even properly make a living like Mr. and Mrs. Wilson. The hopes, failures, and endings of many of these characters makes us question whether the American Dream is genuinely worth pursuing, and makes us feel skeptical of its validity. In fact, by the end of the novel, Fitzgerald's message on the American Dream is pretty clear: it is not worth pursuing. Throughout his novel The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald characterizes the American Dream as a vanity by framing it as something unachievable, making the characters increasingly distressed and miserable, and ending the story with Nick leaving the society of the East and West Eggs, which was the center of the American Dream.

Fitzgerald characterizes the American Dream as something unachievable to the people in the Valley of the Ashes. During the Roaring 20s, the American Dream was perceived as an ideal that anyone could achieve if they worked hard enough. However, as the story progresses, it is often mentioned that a case like Gatsby is rare, and most people are confined to the social classes assigned to them the moment they were born. In the poem "Let America be America Again", there is a stanza that says, "I am the people, humble, hungry, mean – / Hungry yet today despite the dream. / Beaten yet today – O, Pioneers! / I am the man who never got ahead, / The poorest worker bartered through the years" (Hughes). This represents the state of the people within the Valley of the Ashes, who work in severe conditions daily but can never expect an improved quality of life. The phrase 'Hungry yet today despite the dream' portrays the contrast between the ideals and the reality of the working class people especially well, illustrating that for some people, the American Dream is unachievable from the start. Furthermore, when Nick describes the aftermath of Myrtle's death, he says, "Myrtle Wilson, her life violently extinguished, knelt in the road and mingled her thick dark blood with the dust" (Fitzgerald 137). By framing her as Myrtle Wilson, Fitzgerald implies that Myrtle could never be part of the rich class even until her death. The way her corpse mixes with the ashes also symbolizes that she is eternally a part of the Valley of the Ashes, without an opportunity to 'move up.' In other words, the American Dream is fully impossible for the members of the Valley of the Ashes to obtain, no matter how hard they work to accumulate wealth.

Characters in The Great Gatsby become increasingly distressed and miserable in their pursuit of the American Dream. Although the American Dream is an ideal that guarantees happiness and stability, characters from the working class voluntarily ruin their daily lives and give up everything else solely for their pursuit of the American Dream. When Nick observes Gatsby trying to impress Daisy in Gatsby's mansion, Nick thinks, "There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams – not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything" (Fitzgerald 95). Through emphasizing the coreless nature of the American Dream by mentioning the 'vitality of his illusion', Fitzgerald reflects on how Gatsby's pursuit of the American Dream has bordered on obsession, highlighting his growing distress. In this quote, Daisy represents the 'prize' that serves as a symbol of the American Dream to Gatsby. By framing the American Dream as an illusion, this implies that Gatsby is unable to claim any of his 'prizes' regardless of his wealth. Furthermore, when Nick observes Myrtle watching Mr. Wilson talk to Tom about owing a car, Nick records, "So engrossed was she that she had no consciousness of being observed, and one emotion after another crept into her face like objects into a slowly developing picture" (Fitzgerald 124). This portrays Myrtle as a hopeless, desperate mess, well representing the fate of a person with a devout pursuit of the American Dream. This illustrates the American Dream in a way that it is self-destructive to the pursuers, emphasizing its vanity once again.

Fitzgerald eventually makes Nick escape the East and West Egg society, or the symbol of the American Dream, to wrap up the story. Often serving as a reflection of the author's ultimate viewpoint, Narrators of a story typically go through a resolution that changes their stances or opinions that they started with in the beginning. When Nick reminisces on saying goodbye to Gatsby that he would later realize was his final goodbye, he recalls, "'They're a rotten crowd,' I shouted across the lawn. 'You're worth the whole damn bunch put together'" (Fitzgerald 154). This presents how Nick's viewpoint towards the people within the East and West Egg society changed from interest to disdain, realizing that people living in the center of the American Dream are in fact irresponsible and superficial. This emphasizes Nick's shift in viewpoint from observant curiosity to full disappointment. Furthermore, when Nick is left alone after Gatsby's death and everyone else's indifference, Nick says, "After Gatsby's death the East was haunted for me like that, distorted beyond my eyes' power of correction. So when the blue smoke of brittle leaves was in the air and the wind blew the wet laundry stiff on the line I decided to come back home" (Fitzgerald 176). The fact that the East haunted Nick after Gatsby's death means that Gatsby was the only person Nick approved of within the rich society, and that Nick was greatly affected by Gatsby's loss. These details add up to effectively portray Nick's disdain towards the traditional riches, and thus reveals the author's message that the wealthy society – or the American Dream – is not worth pursuing at all, let alone pursuable in the first place.

In conclusion, Fitzgerald develops a message throughout The Great Gatsby that the American Dream is but a vanity by tying together all components of the story, including the tangled arrangement of emotions, attempts, and outcomes. These then lead us into tragic failures, escalating conflict, and ultimately, a complete abandonment of one's life bordering it. Ironically, the American Dream is what many characters in the book live for the sake of, but is also what eventually fails them at the end. Just like an illusion that promises every dream and hopes coming true, and then breaking the dreamer apart, the American Dream solely brings detrimental impacts to anyone outside its borderlines that knocks on its door. Although The Great Gatsby was written multiple decades ago, it offers us a timeless message that we are always something more than our wealth, possession, and status, and that we have to see what is in front of us instead of being tied by illusions.