Marcos Norris
American LIt.
Dr. Schaak
April 18, 2007
Gatsby and the Disillusion of the American Dream
Perhaps the greatest American novel ever written, The Great Gatsby stands out in the American literary tradition as F. Scott Fitzgerald's most notable work and as a representative depiction of America in the 1920's. Marked by lyrical genius, the novel combusts with the colors, sounds, and temperature of the Jazz Age, as a work intimately expressive of its time and culture.
On the surface, The Great Gatsby can be categorized as a story of romance, betrayal, and murder, circling among the desperate and conniving. It may also be set along side the Greek tragedies, bearing the qualities of a historically rich literary genre. Based on my reading of the text, however, I think the The Great Gatsby is primarily a social-commentary, critiquing 1920's Americanism in regards to what tradition has deemed the "American dream."
In this paper, I will first argue for the text's self-proclaimed role as a social-commentary; following, I will explore how its societal critique depicts the "American dream" and its failure to be realistically realized by the American people. Thus, my examination will relate the novel's critique as two-fold: 1) The "American dream" has degenerated into a morally-absent pursuit of material wealth 2) The "American dream" is an ideal which supersedes incarnation and is invariably unattainable.
Although there may be a number of hints throughout the narrative, it isn't until Nick's final contemplation that the text securely takes on it's role as a social-commentary. Tracing back to the arrival of Dutch colonists and their insurmountable wonder of America, Nick brings us back to a time when human and societal possibilities seemed unlimited. The images of this final contemplation are telling--the "inessential houses began to melt away" (180) and a "fresh, green breast of the new world" came forth and made "way for Gatsby's house;" the images link Gatsby and the Dutch colonists symmetrically through their shared wonder, or common sense of the "American dream."
Following, Nick links the reader with himself and Gatsby through a shift in his use of pronouns. Laura Barret notices that "in a significant shift in pronouns of the novel's final sentences, Nick unites Gatsby's effort with a general, if unspecified, national collective...What matters to Gatsby is what matters to "us"' Gatsby's story is "our" story; his fate and the fate of the nation are intertwined" (126). By saying "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us," Nick unites himself, his culture, and his audience with an intertwined union of Jay Gatsby and Dutch colonists. As Barret said, through this linkage the "American dream" moves beyond Gatsby's vision to a collective vision shared by all Americans.
Furthermore, I think the very fact that the novel concludes with this collective American vision, considering the novel is Nick Caraway's recounting of a significant experience in his life, is enough to position the vision as not only an ending to the story but also as a resolution Nick carried away from his experience. Also, by recalling back to his first experience of Gatsby, who was standing on his lawn and gazing across the Sound at the green light at the end of Daisy's dock, Nick ties the beginning of the novel tightly with its ending; by doing so, the final American vision is empowered with great influence over the whole novel, establishing, I think, its primary role as a social-commentary.
As stated in the introduction, I believe the novel's societal critique is two-fold: 1) The "American dream" has degenerated into a morally-absent pursuit of material wealth 2) The "American dream" is an ideal which supersedes incarnation and is invariably unattainable. To begin, we will discuss the first point.
John Callahan views The Great Gatsby in consideration of the Declaration of Independence, writing
In its American guise, the dream Fitzgerald sought to realize flowed from that most elusive and original of the rights proclaimed by the Declaration of Independence. Framed as an "unalienable" right by Thomas Jefferson and espoused by the other founders of this revolutionary nation, the "pursuit of happiness" magnified the American dream into an abiding, almost sacred promise. (379)
Viewing from this perspective, what Callahan says next becomes especially relevent to our discusion: "One such contradiction unresolved by the Declaration or the ensuing Constitution, and played out since in national experience and Fitzgerald's novels, is between property and the "pursuit of happiness"...For some the "pursuit of happiness" was simply a euphemism for property." What this critic calls a "contradiction" directs us precisely to the ironic tension within the novel: the "American dream" or "pursuit of happiness" is apprehended by the characters and strongly presented as a pursuit of material wealth.
Next Callahan directs our attention in an even more relevant direction, saying "Daisy's pursuit of happiness in the form of her dangerous, defiant love for Gatsby surrenders to the palpability of a safe, material, unequal propertied union with Tom Buchanan...Gatsby understands: To win Daisy he gathers money and property...in the quick and illegal ways open to him...the struggle over Daisy (and, parabolically, America) is fought on the field of property" (382).
Positioning Daisy as a parabolical America, Gatsby's pursuit of the "American dream" is seen representatively through his pursuit of Daisy--a pursuit marked with criminal activity and the accumulation of garish wealth.
Perhaps the strongest textual evidence in support of Daisy's representation as material wealth takes place in chapter seven of the book. Daisy's voice is revisited a number of times throughout the novel, impressing Nick with it's mysterious sound and movement, until Gatsby finally decodes its mysterious giving: ""Her voice is full of money," he said suddenly. That was it. I'd never understood before. It was full of money--that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it" (120). In this scene, the recurrence of yellow and green (the colors of gold coins and dollar bills) seen throughout the novel take on fuller significance; Gatsby's vision of the green light at the end of Daisy's dock, in one shade, represents the American's fervent desire for wealth.
During a final showdown between Gatsby and Tom "on the field of property," Gatsby exclaims "She only married you because I was poor and she was tired of waiting for me" (130). In this statement, the strong ties between Daisy and wealth are clear, intertwining the "American dream" and Gatsby's longing to possess Daisy.
Also intertwined with the scene is the hot tension between its characters and their immoral disputes. Closely associated with the story's climax is the climax of immoral happenings: Gatsby's affair with Daisy, Tom's affair with Myrtle, and George Wilson's murder and suicide. Through these close associations the "pursuit of happiness" and the "American dream" are colored with immorality.
As one who "represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn" (2), Gatsby moved from rags to riches (most likely) through his shady "gonnegtions" with Meyer Wolfshiem. Circling speculation places Gatsby in the eyes of many as both a bootlegger and a murderer. The quality of his decadence is communicated by Nick's response to the World Series fix of 1919: "It never occurred to me that one man could start to play with the fate of fifty million people--with the single-mindedness of a burglar blowing a safe" (73). A single-minded safe blower, in this instance, doesn't compare adequately with the person immoral enough to play with the fate of fifty million people. The statement's irony highlights Wolfshiem's own immorality and alludes to the criminality of Gatsby's career.
Thus, the "pursuit of happiness" is characterized as the pursuit for material wealth through criminal activity. As representative types, Gatsby and Daisy formulate this aspect of the novel's critique. In the same way, the characters represent the wealthy and seekers of wealth as people with shallow perspectives and impure motives. Through close "gonnegtions" and intertwining, the novel presents these aspects of criticism in Gatsby and the American people.
The second point of the critique is that the "American dream" has been idealized to the point of surpassing any possibilities of actually being attained. Communicated through Gatsby's role as a representative type, the idealized "American dream" is seen through his fabricated hope of a life with Daisy. But like Gatsby's illusions, the American pursuit is obstructed by significant challenges.
Fitzgerald lays it out plainly when he writes "a faint doubt had occurred to him as to the quality of his present happiness. Almost five years! 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" (95). Clearly Gatsby had built up in his imagination an "orgastic future" which transcended the realms of reality. Similarly, the "American dream" is characterized as a past ideal (such as the pursuit of happiness/property) which once attained fails to meet one's idealistic expectations.
Besides his initial dissatisfaction, Gatsby's illusory hopes are confronted with much stronger objections. For example, at one point "Gatsby...leaned down and took the small reluctant hand. Afterward he kept looking at the child with surprise. I don't think he had ever really believed in its existence before" (117). In this scene, Daisy's daughter poses a threat to Gatsby's view of the world. Induced by his hopeful imagination, Gatsby is stunned by the young girl's physical presence. Gatsby's "orgastic future" is severely challenged and he is "borne back ceaselessly into the past" (180). In other words, these challenges force Gatsby into a process of disillusion, and inevitably position his future hopes as lost ideals. In such a way, the text represents the American pursuit as a futile one. In simple terms, I think the text is saying that just as Daisy's daughter destroys any incarnation of past ideals, there are barriers in America that restrict the American pursuit.
In conclusion, The Great Gatsby presents itself, according to my argument, as primarily a social-commentary. The novel critiques America as a nation of unreachable idealism. The "pursuit of happiness" or the "American dream" is collectively considered a pursuit of financial wealth, and the related lifestyle is colored with lacking morals and a shallow apprehension of human worth. The novel's societal critique is accompanied by poetic language, a compelling plot, and great beauty. The Great Gatsby, widely considered the great American novel, is without a doubt a work intimately connected with American history, culture, and the American.

Works Cited
Barrett, Laura. "From Wonderland to Wasteland: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, The Great Gatsby, and the New American Fairy Tale." Spring 2006: 150-. MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. April 4, 2007. .
Callahan, John F. "F. Scott FItzgerald's Evolving American Dream: The 'Pursuit of Happiness' in Gatsby, Tender is the Night, and The Last Tycoon." Fall 1996: 42-.MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. April 4, 2007. .
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner, 2004.