The Great Gatsby Essay

Scott Pero
AP English 11
August 1, 2009
How does Fitzgerald develop the theme of pessimism towards the American Dream?

A Wish America’s Heart Made

On the 12th of October, 1492, Christopher Columbus and his crew discovered the Americas. In 1607, English colonists made landfall in the Americas on April 26th, and would later colonize Jamestown on May 14th, the first permanent English colony in what would eventually become the United States. From there, America has grown, first born along its east coast, and, according to manifest destiny, it stretched west toward the Pacific. It has experienced its fair share of rough patches, such as the Revolutionary War to declare its independence from England, the Civil War that separated America itself, and the Great Depression, which challenged Americans in every aspect of their lives. When the first settlers sailed to America, however, it is unlikely they envisioned all of these hardships for their prosperity. According to Walt Disney, “A dream is a wish your heart makes”. Metaphorically speaking, a dream is a set of desires or aspirations that could, potentially, come to fruition. America’s dream, a dream of discovery, individualism, and the pursuit of happiness, has been long sought after by any who travel to America’s shores. In the novel, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald develops a theme of pessimism towards this dream. The novel, revolving around the lives of its two protagonists, Jay Gatsby and Nick Carraway, depicts a 1920s America that simply falls short of fulfilling the American dream. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald develops this theme through the characters and how they did not discover, individualize, or pursue happiness.

Just as the first settlers discovered America, abundant with possibility, the American Dream included discovery. One must discover new things and always keep moving forward, ultimately reaching bigger and better things. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald tears down the American Dream piece by piece, the first of which is discovery. The characters did not move forward and did not discover anything new. On the contrary, they dwelled in the past. They would not leave things behind, and so they could not move forward. Such is the problem of the protagonist Jay Gatsby. Gatsby’s love, Daisy Buchanan, married another man while he was away at war. Throughout the novel, Gatsby tries to recreate their time together; he hopes to bring back the past. As Fitzgerald writes, “[Gatsby] must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream” (Fitzgerald, 161), because he lived in his dreamlike past, Gatsby paid for it, first by losing Daisy and finally by losing his life. If we focus too much on the past, we forget about the present and lose sight of the future; we can end up like Gatsby: loveless and lifeless. America’s dream for a better future cannot be realized if we care too much about the past. Not only should we care about the discovery of the future, but ourselves in the process.

Individualism is another key component of the American Dream. America’s founding fathers conceived a country where every man can be their own man, and gave us various freedoms to do so, such as the freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and even the Bill of Rights. We are free in this country to be ourselves, but in the novel, the world does not work that way. Instead of moving in their own direction, people instead latch onto others’ fame and fortune to get ahead in life, like the remora attaches to a shark. Fitzgerald exemplifies this in the lavish parties Gatsby hosts, and the patrons that attend them. Only a rare few are invited to Gatsby’s soirées, but the rest simply arrive of their own volition: “People were not invited—they went there…[s]ometimes they came and went without having met Gatsby at all, came for the party with a simplicity of heart that was its own ticket of admission” (41). The party-goers attend Gatsby’s parties for the party, not for Gatsby. Essentially, they were using Gatsby to get to the rich and famous that came to his parties.

This notion is further emphasized when, after Gatsby’s death, Nick endeavors to contact people Gatsby knew: “One gentleman to whom I telephoned implied that [Gatsby] had got what he deserved. However, that was my fault, for he was one of those who used to sneer most bitterly at Gatsby on the courage of Gatsby’s liquor” (169). People never cared for Gatsby. They only kept contact with him to attend his parties and reap the benefits. Like the remora, they are only along for the ride; they could care less about the shark they ride. The shark gains nothing from the association, neither does Gatsby. When Gatsby died, the remora no longer cared, and simply fled to find another able host. The American Dream is all about being your own person; impossible, if you use others to do so. In order to be your own person, you must be happy with yourself.

Everyone desires to be happy. Like anyone, we search for happiness in any way we can. Part of the American Dream is the pursuit of happiness as well. When the first settlers arrived on American shores, they saw a land where there descendants could be happy, and that is meant for every American citizen. Fitzgerald shows us through his writing that Americans either do not pursue true happiness, or eventually end up unhappy. For example, materialism plays a role in The Great Gatsby. The characters only care about money and success, not true happiness. When Nick encounters Tom Buchanan, Daisy’s husband, after Gatsby’s death, he realizes this: “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that held them together, and let other people clean up the mess they made…” (179). After that, Tom simply heads into a jewelry store and buys something else, further exemplifying his materialism. Most of the characters are like this, only caring about the superficial, and not the real things that matter. To Tom and Daisy, money and people are simply objects. Tom cheats on Daisy with Myrtle Wilson, who is also cheating on her spouse with Tom. This materialism is why Gatsby tries to appeal to Daisy in the first place, thinking that if he can make Daisy happy in this manner, she will leave Tom. In all cases, the characters don’t end up truly happy.

Throughout the novel, Nick never really searches for love. He does, however, inexplicably find something like it in Jordan Baker, Daisy’s friend. During the course of the story, Jordan and Nick spend more time together and talk to each other more. In the end, though, they both are unhappy. After a meeting with Jordan in the aftermath of Gatsby’s death, Nick leaves: “Angry, and half in love with her, and tremendously sorry, [he] turned away” (177). As Fitzgerald writes, in the process of following the American Dream, the characters’ pursuit of happiness went sour. Nick thought he was attaining happiness with Jordan, but in the end he did not. All of his emotions—anger, love, and remorse—are used an examples of what usually happens when American try to chase that one dream and fail. The characters either pursue the wrong happiness or end up unhappy, which either way contributes to the masterful theme Fitzgerald devises.

The American Dream was something meant for every American. The dream described in The Great Gatsby, however, is anything but that. F. Scott Fitzgerald takes the American Dream—discovery, individualism, and the pursuit of happiness—and portrays the negative side of it, woven intricately into the lives of Nick Carraway, Jay Gatsby, and the rest of the characters. His novel shows how America had developed in the 1920s, and of how far it had grown from its original dream. America’s heart, those that founded it and all it stands for, made this wish, but as it bloomed in The Great Gatsby, its own citizens were the ones who strayed from the dream’s path. Perhaps wishing upon a star would have been more reliable.