Greats Gatsby Essay, Research Paper

A dream is defined in the Webster’s New World Dictionary as: a

fanciful vision of the conscious mind; a fond hope or aspiration; anything

so lovely, transitory, etc. as to seem dreamlike. In the beginning pages

of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway, the

narrator of the story gives us a glimpse into Gatsby’s idealistic dream

which is later disintegrated. “No- Gatsby turned out all right at the end;

it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his

dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and

short-winded elation’s of men.” Gatsby is revealed to us slowly and

skillfully, and with a keen tenderness which in the end makes his tragedy

a deeply moving one.

Jay Gatsby is a crook, a bootlegger who has involved himself with

swindlers like Meyer Wolfsheim, the man who fixed the 1919 World Series.

He has committed crimes in order to buy the house he feels he needs to win

the woman he loves. In chapter five Nick says, “…and I think he

revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it

drew from her well-loved eyes.” Everything in Gatsby’s house is the zenith

of his dreams, and when Daisy enters Gatsby’s house the material things

seem to lose their life. Daisy represents a dreamlike, heavenly presence

which all that he has is devoted to. Yes, we should consider Jay Gatsby

as tragic figure because of belief that he can restore the past and live

happily, but his distorted faith is so intense that he blindly unaware of

realism that his dream lacks. Gatsby has accumulated his money by

dealings with gangsters, yet he remains an innocent figure, he is

extravagant. Gatsby is not interested in power for its own sake or in

money or prestige. What he wants is his dream, and that dream is embodied

in Daisy. Ironically, Daisy Buchanan, is a much more realistic, hard-

headed character. She understands money and what it means in American

society, because it his her nature; she was born into it. Gatsby

intuitively recognizes this, although he cannot fully accept it, when he

remarks to Nick that Daisy’s voice “is full of money.” Gatsby will not

admit this essential fact because it would destroy his understanding of

Daisy. In the end, this willful blindness helps lead to his ultimate

tragedy.

Gatsby is a romantic, a man who began with a high and exalted

vision of himself and his destiny. He aspires to greatness, which he

associates with Daisy. If he can win her, then he will have somehow

achieved his goal. Gatsby’s wealth, his mansion, his parties, his

possessions, even his heroism in battle are but means to achieve his

ultimate goal. Gatsby is mistaken, however, in his belief that money can

buy happiness or that he can recapture his past if he only becomes rich.

One of these examples is when the epigraph becomes clear: the four-line

poem of Thomas Park d’Invilliers that Fitzgerald quotes on the title page

describes exactly what Gatsby has done. He has symbolically worn the gold

hat; he has bounced high, accumulating possessions for this moment, so

that when Daisy sees them she will cry our, like the lover in the poem, “I

must have you.” And Daisy does. These shirts move Daisy not because they

are mad of such fine fabric, or the shirts look very well; they move her

because of what the shirts symbolize Gatsby’s extraordinary dedication to

his dream. This dedication separates him and makes him morally superior

that the materialistic society with which he lives in.. In this case one

could consider Gatsby as morally superior even when he commits an error of

judgment because of a flaw in his character.

1A

Gatsby is indeed morally superior to the other characters in the

book, but this superiority is another factor which contributes to Gatsby’s

ultimate misfortune. No matter what we think of Gatsby or of his dream,

we are drawn to him by the sad apprehension that dreams themselves are

often more beautiful than dreams fulfilled. Nick realizes this, too, when

he says: “There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy

tumbled short of his dreams -nor through her own fault, but because of the

colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond

everything.” What Gatsby and Daisy have is so much more than an endeavor;

it’s beautiful, more intense, and finally more painful in the end. There

is both a joy and sadness in a love as great as theirs. In some ways

Gatsby is morally superior than the society at the time, but this moral

superiority is the cause of Gatsby’s dillusionment dream, and inevitable

fate.

Finally, Nick’s approval is what allows Gatsby to be called

“great,” but his greatness has a curious, puzzling quality to it, since it

cannot be easily or completely defined. Gatsby certainly lacks many of

the qualities and fails many of the tests normally linked with greatness,

but he redeems this by his exalted conception of himself. Gatsby has

dedicated himself to the accomplishment of a supreme object, to restore to

himself an illusion he had lost; he set about it, in a pathetic American

way. Gatsby is a man with a dream at the mercy of the “foul dust” that

sometimes seems only to exist in order to swarm against the dream. It is

a strange dream, Gatsby’s but he was a man who had hopes and aspirations.

He was a child, who believed in a childish thing.