|
The Great Gatsby One of the most prominent themes in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s
novel, The Great Gatsby, is of the American Dream. This dream can be many things
to many different people, but everyone does have some sort of goal that they
want to accomplish in their life. For Jay Gatsby, the dream is that through
wealth, power, and financial stability, one can acquire pure happiness and
self-satisfaction. This happiness that he is reaching for is to be reunited with
his love from days past, Daisy. Before Gatsby went off to fight in the war, he
and Daisy had been involved. Gatsby, realizing that Daisy was from a wealthy
family, knew that he couldn’t financially support Daisy if he were to ask for
her hand in marriage.
Then Gatsby went off to war and Daisy married Tom
Buchanan, who was also from a wealthy family. Returning from war, Gatsby decides
to become a completely different person. He begins this transformation by
changing his name from James Gatz to Jay Gatsby. Then, through illegal dealings
in organized crime, he becomes wealthy and able to afford anything to get closer
to Daisy. “Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay
(83),” and he fills his estate with many luxuries and throws many extravagant
parties to impress people, hoping that it will lead him to Daisy. Unfortunately
for Gatsby, there is a “foul dust” that “preys on him (6).” This “foul dust” is
made up of society’s twisted views of the classes. Tom, Daisy’s husband believes
that because he is from a wealthy family, then he can do whatever pleases him,
which, in this case, is an affair. Because Gatsby is part of the “nouveau
riche,” he is not as accepted and welcome into that class of society. Gatsby,
however, will not rest until he fulfills his dream of pure happiness by being
with Daisy. In the pursuit of his disillusioned goal, Gatsby ends up dead and
never able to carry out his American Dream of finding true self-satisfaction in
life.
|
