A Lost Institution Essay, Research Paper

In his novel, The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald focuses on the corruption of the American Dream. By analyzing high society during the 1920s through the eyes of narrator Nick Carraway, the author reveals that the American Dream has transformed from a pure ideal of security into a convoluted scheme of materialistic power. In support of this message, Fitzgerald emphasizes the original aspects as well as the new aspects of the American Dream in his tragic story to illustrate that a once inviolable dream is now lost forever to the American people.

The ethic of hard work, a quality present in the essence of the American Dream, can be found in the life of young James Gatz whose focus on becoming a great man is carefully documented in his “Hopalong Cassidy” (181) journal. When Mr. Gatz shows the tattered book to Nick, he declares, “‘Jimmy was bound to get ahead. He always had some resolves like this or something. Do you notice what he’s got about improving his mind? He was always great for that.’” (182). The journal portrays the continual struggle for self-improvement, which has defined the image of America as a land of opportunity. By comparing the young James Gatz to the young Benjamin Franklin, Fitzgerald proves that the American Dream is truly able to survive in the face of modern society. The journal, consisting of all the hard work and plans that Gatsby lays out for himself, epitomizes the purest characteristic of the American Dream: everlasting hope.

Although Gatsby’s rise to prominence is symbolic of the nature of the new dream, the most despicable qualities of that dream are evident in Tom Buchanan, who lives his life with no hopes and no regrets because the true foundation of his character is his opulence. After Gatsby’s death, Nick confronts Tom one last time, at which point Gatsby’s rival responds: “‘I told him the truth… What if I did tell him? That fellow had it coming to him’” (187). Tom admits to the fact that he is responsible for Gatsby’s murder and Wilson’s suicide, but continues to claim innocence because he has never known guilt or shame as a member of the established elite. Through Nick, Fitzgerald pinpoints the effect of the modern dream on the upper class, thus condemning an entire people: “I couldn’t forgive him or like him but I saw what he had done was, to him, entirely justified… They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness and let other people clean up the mess they had made… ” (187). Tom represents a class of heartless citizens who attain success at the cost of dehumanization. His immense wealth blocks out all inspiration and all true emotion, resulting in a void of apathy held by status and power.

The incident of George Wilson s and Gatsby s deaths signifies the demise of the traditional American Dream. Wilson, Fitzgerald’s symbol of the common man struggling to achieve his own success within the realm of the modern dream, falsely believes that Gatsby ran over his wife, Myrtle Wilson, in his car. Consequently, Wilson shoots Gatsby, and then immediately commits suicide a little way off in the grass (170) from where Gatsby is shot. When Gatsby is shot, any chance the American Dream has of surviving in the dehumanized modern world dies with him. Nick later speculates on Gatsby’s last thoughts before death, conjecturing, “He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass” (169). Nick obviously knows how disheartened Gatsby is to realize that the love of his life, Daisy, is in reality very superficial, with a voice full of money (127). The hopes and dreams, which strengthen and uplift Gatsby, shatter as he lies in the pool, dazed and confused in a world that he no longer understands. These deaths of a rich man and a poor man, both pushing themselves towards the same impossible goal of achieving what they want through hard work and patience, mirror the death of the original dream on which America was founded. At the end of the novel, Nick returns to the Midwest with this disturbing knowledge, reflecting on Gatsby’s life as the struggle of the American people in a society losing its humanity: “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past” (189). The dream is now utterly lost and can never be resurrected.

Through the unfolding events of this drama, Fitzgerald simultaneously unfolds the tragic fate of American values. Gatsby and the other characters of his story act as vessels for the author’s true message- the American Dream, once a pure and mighty ideal, has been buried and is pressed into the ground by the inhuman emptiness of money. The Great Gatsby is not a novel about the death of Jay Gatsby, rather, it is written in remembrance of an institution which once was, but is now gone and can never be.