The Great Gatsby

Jay Gatsby, a major character in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby contributes to many ideas expressed in the novel. His hope and dedication to his goal reinforce the positive aspects of the American Dream yet his attempt to grasp it by means of riches reflects the corruption of this once idealistic promise. His belief that the past can be recaptured also contributes to the idea of time in the novel.

Gatsby is a self made man who sprung from his own “platonic conception of himself.” He disconnected himself from his family and had “come a long way” to New York to live the American Dream. Nick compares Gatsby’s wonder as he watched the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock to the feelings of the Dutch sailors who first sighted America- the “fresh green breast of the new world.” The light represented his hope for his dream of Daisy. “It must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it.” We cannot blame Gatsby for having such immense hope for something even if it was infact “minute and far away.” The thought of a new start in one’s own creation is as glorious as the discovery of a new land. In this way his “extraordinary gift for hope” is admirable and contributes to the positivity of the American Dream.

Yet the light is an illusion, merely a warning of shallow waters. Gatsby is “preyed on” by the corruptive idea that money can buy happiness. He assumes that all he needs is enough money and then the past, beauty, youth and love can all be had forever. This is his foolish restatement of the American Dream. Gatsby said to Tom, after all, “She only married you because I was poor.” Gatsby ‘bounced’ ever higher in order to win Daisy, he even gained money illegally by bootlegging. He showed off his riches with his overly extravagant, “vulgar” mansion and expensive shirts which made Daisy “cry stormily”. The “colossal vitality of his illusion” became more than just having Daisy- “He had thrown himself into it, adding to it, decking it out,” in order to force Daisy into ‘loving’ him. By the end of the novel Gatsby is left an empty shell- rejected by Daisy, dead and with no one at his funeral. His obsession with accumulating wealth contributes to the idea of the American Dream being distorted by materialism.

Gatsby