Was Jay Gatsby Really Great?

 

        Fitzgerald’s Great Gatsby challenges the ideal American life through the protagonist, Jay Gatsby. Gatsby’s life serves as an example of the detrimental effects the “ideal life” can have on one’s character and quality of life. F. Scott Fitzgerald suggests that the American dream is not as great as it is made out to be.

        The title, Great Gatsby, gives the impression that Gatsby was a admirable character, but a look into his inner life proves otherwise. Gatsby’s greatest flaw is idealism which causes him to act on his strong desire to repeat the past and his amoral strategies for success. ‘“Can’t repeat the past?” he cried incredulously. “Why of course you can!”’ (p. 128) ‘“I’m going to fix everything just the way it was before,” he said, nodding determinedly. “She’ll see.”’ (p. 131) This major flaw had caused him to take action on his aspirations for wealth and then to work towards a new life with Daisy. Gatsby’s vision was focused on money, greed, and carelessness, and centered around Daisy leaving him vulnerable to a juvenile fantasy. Jay Gatsby had developed an obsession that had taken over his life by waiting for her for years. “After his embarrassment and his unresounding joy he was consumed with the wonder of her presence. He had been full of the idea for so long, dreamed it right through the end, waited until his teeth set, so to speak, at an  inconceivable pitch of intensity. Now, in a reaction, he was running down like an overwound clock.” (p. 114) This juvenile fantasy was his hopeless illusion of life forever with Daisy and moved him further away from reality each time he chased his goal. Gradually, a false idea of Daisy began to shape in his mind that he loved, thus Gatsby does not love Daisy but an idealized version of her. In the last chapter Gatsby shows he has lost all ability to discern fact from fiction by waiting for a sign from Daisy. Eventually his affair with Daisy led to bitterness ending with his assassination. The same people who had attended his parties were absent at his funeral, including Daisy. Pursuing the American Dream, in the end, only resulted in him losing his life, friends, and family. The only greatness in the Great Gatsby was the extremeness of the tragedy that was his life.

        The Great Gatsby, is a criticism of the American Dream through an ironic title. F. Scott Fitzgerald wants Americans to rethink their ideals on American progress. Though Gatsby gained wealth it did not make him happy, but made him desperate. Jay Gatsby was not great, but he thought he was.

 

                                                          Works Cited

Greenberg, Nicki, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby. Allen & Unwin, 2009.