American Literature

When one speaks of  The American Dream,  one would think of a feeling of opportunity, individualism and the quest for happiness.  In other words, it is the pursuit and living of the  good life.   It is about taking advantage of the opportunities American society offers to anyone as far as achieving one s goals or dreams is concerned.  The American Dream is often envisioned as having just about everything one needs to be happy a decent house in a decent neighborhood where people are friendly, being able to raise a family and provide for them without having to worry about a thing and having a good job in order to provide for one s family and one s own needs. It is a life that appears to be devoid of any kind of problem in society. This has been the goal of anyone in America, whether native-born or an immigrant.  The general theme of the novel, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (as well as his other work, The Beautiful and the Damned) is all about the American dream.  However, Fitzgerald depicts it in a different light which shows the dark side of this fantasy world called the  American Dream.   This is underscored when in a letter to his friend Marya Mannes, Fitzgerald said,  Americas great promise is that somethings going to happen, and after a while you get tired of waiting because . . . America is the story of the moon that never rose...America is so decadent that its brilliant children are damned almost before they are born (Fitzgerald,  The Beautiful and the Damned,  iii).

When Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby, he lived during the  Roaring 20 s,  a period when the United States was enjoying great prosperity since its economy was not adversely affected by the ravages of the First World War.  The 1920 s saw American society living it up to the fullest and people appeared to have a lot of money to spend for more than just the basic needs. This is underscored when Daisy said,  Ive been everywhere and seen everything and done everything Sophisticated - God, Im sophisticated  (Fitzgerald,  The Great Gatsby,  13).  However, Fitzgerald saw it in a different light, apparently drawing mainly from his personal experiences, by depicting a side of the  American Dream  no one has seen or cared to see.  Fitzgerald showed the darker side of American society and that the emerging moral decadence was undermining the  American Dream.   The first chapter appears to offer a hint when Daisy, in her conversation with Nick, was hoping her daughter would be a  beautiful little fool  which she believes would be the best thing a girl could be in the world as far as she was concerned (Fitzgerald,  The Great Gatsby,  13).  This underscored the seeming narrow-mindedness, if not superficiality of the social elites of the time and would give the reader a taste of what is to come in the subsequent chapters.

In the novel, Gatsby, the main protagonist of the story, personified the  noveau riche  or the new class of affluent people as a self-made tycoon who often likes to mingle with the other elites of society in his community.  This is observed by Nick when he said,  The truth was that Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself. He was a son of God-a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that-and he must be about His Fathers business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty. So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end  (Fitzgerald,  The Great Gatsby,  63).  Gatsby transforms himself into the ideal image that he envisioned for himself and remains fixed to that ideal, despite the obstacles that would impede in the fulfillment of his dream.  However, this image Gatsby presents hides a darker side here.  Gatsby did not acquire his wealth in the  traditional  way but through illegal activities since he had ties to organized crime which was instrumental in his rise to wealth and fame.  As a way of flaunting his newly-acquired wealth and status, he would throw lavish parties every week and these parties would attract not only his ilk (the  new money ) but also the  old money  people, some of whom would be repulsed by the apparent lack of graces of the former to demonstrate he was one of them and deserved to be among them notwithstanding his past.

On the other hand, the latter was without faults either as Fitzgerald highlighted the seemings mentality of hypocrisy among the established elite (Stratton). In addition, the  old money  people have their share of immorality which is underscored by Toms illicit affair with Wilsons wife Myrtle and finds it outrageous at the mans naivete when he said,  He thinks she goes to see her sister in New York. Hes so dumb he doesnt know hes alive  (Fitzgerald,  The Great Gatsby,  36).  Gatsby pursued wealth because of love but the means he used to acquire it were morally wrong, giving credence to the Machiavellian axiom,  the ends justify the means.   In the beginning of the movie, Gatsby is already dead and his life is recreated mainly through the eyes of Nick Carraway who serves as Fitzgerald s alter-ego in the novel.  He underscores the dark side of society by saying  That s my Middle West the street lamps and sleigh bells in the frosty dark I see now that this has been a story of the West, after all, Tom and Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan and I, were all Westerners, and perhaps we possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life (Fizgerald,  The Great Gatsby,  96).

The novel tends to depict Gatsby as a  social climber.  Gatsby came from an impoverished family but acquired wealth as time progressed .  In the case of Gatsby, he acquired his wealth by being involved in organized crime.  His pursuit for wealth was in order to win the heart of Daisy Buchanan who belonged to the  old money  people whom he fears might despise him, hence the need to reinvent himself to be acceptable to her.  Upon acquiring wealth, Gatsby would flaunt his wealth and influence to demonstrate his power.  Gatsby throws lavish parties every Saturday to attract all the affluent people in his community in a bid to demonstrate he belongs among them and serves as a step to bring him closer to Daisy, even changing his original name of Gatz to Gatsby to be accepted.  Nick would put it like this,  Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us.  It eluded us then, but that s no matter- tomorrow will run faster, stretch out our arms further and then one fine morning- (Fizgerald,  The Great Gatsby,  120).  

This underscores Gatsby s relentless pursuit of something that would just remain a dream.  Although he has achieved his goal in becoming wealthy, winning the heart of the woman he loves proved to be the most elusive dream he had which unfortunately had no chance to fulfill as he was murdered by Daisy s vengeful husband Tom who himself is involved in an affair and killed Gatsby in revenge for killing his lover though by accident.  In his heart, there can be no one else but Daisy for him and he pictured her as his ideal woman.  This is underscored when Nick, through his observation of Gatsby, said,  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. He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion  (Fitzgerald,  The Great Gatsby,  42).

If there is a lesson from both The Great Gatsby,  it is a reminder that being wealthy, famous or powerful should not be used as a measurement for success.  For having these does not guarantee one will be forever happy, as it is underscored in the case of Gatsby who lived unhappily and the happiness he had put up was illusory.  This also showed the darker side of the rich and powerful and shows how material wealth and corrupt one s morals and be a slave to it.  The Great Gatsby pictures the darker side of the American Dream.  Not everybody gets to fulfill it they way they dreamed of in the beginning.  In the case of the elites of West Egg, their wealth corrupted them instead of making them better individuals in terms of attitude and values as demonstrated by Daisy in the earlier chapter.  Gatsby acquired his wealth  illegally  and for the wrong reasons.  Furthermore, Gatsby did not get to fulfill his dream of getting Daisy and would never do as he was killed later on.  This was the decadence that Fitzgerald noticed and feared would have terrible consequences for American society which he believed was not built on these values.  The decadence of these elites caused them to be more greedy and even commit acts of impropriety, a far cry from the values practiced by the rest of American society.