“Great Gatsby” by Scott Fitzgerald is one of the best American novels owing to its thematic strength. It reflects “The Jazz Age” of 1920s and the writer artistically examine the theme of aspiration in America during this era. Fitzgerald wrote this novel as a satire on this so called glamorous period. The title per se conjures images of an intriguing persona, Gatsby. It (Novel) takes into account “the complicated feelings we have about Jay Gatsby” who is “driven by a ‘dream’, enriched by bootlegging wealth.” (Sutherland 97). Beyond that, The Great Gatsby is an allegory of society. The surface study shows that its about love relation between Gatsby and Daisy. But it has much broader theme rather than big romantic scope. The Great Gatsby is a story of “American Dream” or rather “Perverted American Dream”. It is very symbolic story of “Roaring Age” of 1920s America, particularly the story of shattering of American Dream in that era of economic prosperity and material abundance. It exposes how the American people adulterated American Dream by indulging in immoral and unethical pursuits of wealth. The energy to be burnt in noble purpose gets started to be burnt in show off and individual pleasure, fame and success. All other themes of the novel strengthen this theme through out the story. The people become selfish, indulge themselves in vulgar means of wealth, disloyalty is at its peak and the most important of all; they forget the American dream was originally about discovery, individualism, and the pursuit of happiness.
The novel is a story of the West, as expressed through narrator Nick Carraway. Gatsby’s concentration on what Nick refers to as the “green breast of the new world” exemplifies “the infinite hope of the frontier spirit.” (Mangum 514). Unfortunately, as with most pompous dreams that are pursued at all costs, Gatsby’s aspirations and obsession with materialism leads to corruption and his inevitable downfall. In like manner, the world has witnessed threats to the American nation’s security as well as “the corruption of the American promise of equality for all.” (Mangum 514).
Theme of wealth supports the main theme in the strongest way. It is desire of possessing enormous wealth which blinds one from real objective. It is wealth which betrays the characters of the story from their noble goal and leads them to wrong way. That is how noble American dream is corrupted. Insight and vision of the characters are blurred due to obsession of wealth. The characters are too blind to know their own self or others’. The writer is successful in connecting this blindness of characters with main theme of “Disintegration of American Dream”.
Barbara Will likewise likened Gatsby’s desire for Daisy to pioneering American colonists eyeing the new world. In “Great Gatsby and the Obscene Word,” she noted that the fate of the main character in The Great Gatsby is “an allegory for the course of the American nation and for the struggles and dreams of its citizens.” The story can be further be interpreted as juxtaposition of two opposed ideas. The ideals are shattered when they are confronted with reality. The ideals of American dream are shattered when Gatsby gets love of Daisy, when he kisses her, and when he holds her in his arms. The ideal world, in Gatsby’s case, shatters in the face of the real one.
The intricate weaving of the various stories within The Great Gatsby is accomplished through a complex symbolic substructure of the narrative. The green light, godly eye of Eckleburg,”brood on over the solemn dumping ground” which shows America as wasteland due to materialistic society and many other symbols make it easier for the writer to intricate stories containing opposing ideas. He also uses metaphors through which he hints at the standards of morality and immorality through out the novel. Daisy can’t change her luxurious living style and can’t accept the new wealthy class. Jordan Baker boasts of her careless driving.
Nick Carraway, one of the main characters who becomes spectator to the many events unfolding in the loves of the rich, famous, immoral and corrupt, sees Gatsby as an ally and one with “an extraordinary gift for hope”. Barbara Will correlated such perception of Gatsby to “the incarnation of… national impulse” in “Great Gatsby and The Obscene Word.” The notion that Gatsby “turned out all right in the end” in a sense connotes how a nation or continent – like America or Asia – can transcend or `ride out its woes’. (Foster 28). Gatsby may have wanted Daisy but was not able to really keep her. What ensued, instead, was a tragedy.
In The Great Gatsby, the rich male protagonist’s (Gatsby’s) unquenchable desire for material wealth and self-affirmation of his ability to make friends also resembles Arthur Miller’s male lead in Death of a Salesman, except that in the latter, Willy Loman, who pursues the American dream at all costs and loses his grip on reality early on, lives and dies a poor man. Both male personas embody the notion explicitly stated in the classic play, “It’s the only dream you can have – to come out number-one man.” (Miller 139).
As for Nick, who clearly embodies Shakespeare’s “fair is foul and foul is fair” line in Macbeth with the way he sees Gatsby’s spectacular lifestyle and misdeeds but who still reveres Gatsby, comes out as a detached observer. This is expressed in an online article entitled “The Great Gatsby Nick – Detached or Dishonest?” In his piece, “Nick Carraway and the Image of Disorder,” author-editor Peter Lisca presented Nick as “a paradigm of order and decorum” (Lisca 18) in stark contrast to “the chaos of Gatsby’s world.” (Lisca 18).
The Great Gatsby is the biggest example of skilled narrative art as it is based on the principle of “double vision”. Everything in the novel is seen in two ways: on the one hand it looks a romantic love story of Gatsby and Daisy, and on the other hand it is about “perverted form of American Dream”. Scott Fitzgerald is successful in writing a fiction which carries two parallel stories at the same time. The writer himself once stated,” The test of a first rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time , and still retain the ability to function”. The story offers the reader to form quality of double vision to see everything in two ways. The surface study of the novel shows that its about love relation between Daisy and Gatsby, but if we probe into the theme, its about corruption of American dream and a failure to achieve ideals.
The writer attempted to make readers see through his eyes. The reader is made to believe in the possibilities of variety of opposed ideas. That’s why it is also called “an allegorical novel”. The reader forms different opinion about the novel when he starts reading, but he finds everything quite different when he reaches the end. The story shows that anyone in America can and can not achieve success to the best despite his level best efforts and hard work. The reader is trapped in enigma by thinking whether Gatsby would get Daisy or not. This is proved when Daisy rejects Gatsby and later accepts him and the reader is able to believe in both alternates. Gatsby himself is the most real and the most unreal elite described in the story. The writer presents this principle of double vision more artistically by introducing character of Nick who tells us what he sees and gathers information about what he does not see himself.
The vividly described houses of the main characters in The Great Gatsby symbolize the disparity in the social and economic class of its inhabitants. In chapters three and five of the novel, Nick gets to see the grandiose lifestyles of his neighbor. Gatsby’s abode was described as one “blazing with light… lit from tower to cellar “ symbolizing a lavish existence that contrasted the much simpler dwelling of his neighbor, Nick. Party goers entering into and out of Gatsby’s well-serviced mansion represent the people who find their way into Gatsby’s life, albeit for fleeting moments.
Another major theme tackled in The Great Gatsby is a woman’s role or struggle to co-exist in a male-dominated world. Women of diverse races, occupation and creed, especially those in the 1920s (which served as the setting for The Great Gatsby), have long been cast in roles relegated to keeping house, rearing kids and supporting their dominant male partners. Essayist Tina Gianoulis wrote in an article on Women’s Liberation Movement, “Ever since men have claimed dominance over women in patriarchal societies, there have been strong women who have fought for dignity and human rights.” Fitzgerald’s Daisy, however, does little to elevate her position, much less disprove society’s notions of women as silly and shallow, even when they are much more than that. It is the adored but weak-willed, immoral and doomed woman that is presented in The Great Gatsby. Men’s domination of women, especially in the domestic front, is another universal subject matter touched by The Great Gatsby. George Wilson locks up his wife Myrtle in a room as a form of subjugation. Myrtle carries on an illicit affair with Tom Buchanan. Myrtle personifies the unchaste woman, a recurring, and oftentimes fascinating, element in literature.
The Great Gatsby is laden with many other symbolisms. The most notable of these are the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg, darting towards the `valley of ashes’ and looking down upon the characters like “some sad, compassionate spirit…” (Kennedy & Gioia 217). Dr. Eckleburg’s eyes symbolize the eyes of God, who serves as witness to the crucial events and numerous misdeeds unfolding and perpetrated by the characters in The Great Gatsby. Colors also stand for something in The Great Gatsby. The Literature Network Forums, in the online site, http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=29547 cited how the colors green, silver, and pink represented Gatsby’s multi-faceted personality. Green symbolized the Gatsby’s ambition to obtain Daisy. It signified moving forward or accomplishing objectives or aspirations. Silver signifies a monetary orientation. Daisy was perceived by Gatsby as a “silver idol” and a ticket to a place at East Egg. Pink, on the other hand, symbolized Gatsby’s affection for Daisy. Meantime, white symbolized the outward innocence impressed on Nick by the female characters, Daisy and Jordan, even as this innocence was contradicted as the story progressed.
The tragedy theme is also what makes The Great Gatsby an even more compelling piece of literature. When Gatsby is murdered, readers are left pondering on their own dreams and whether these are worth chasing. “The main concern of tragedy is with truth and the pleasure it gives is the pleasure of knowledge… Tragedy takes us through various emotional responses culminating in intellectual purification.” (Bhatia 94). This, in effect, is what makes The Great Gatsby an exceptional reading matter. Brimming with symbolisms, with a great sense of mystery, and serving as a grim reminder that man’s downfall results from his own weaknesses or wrongdoings, it sends across the message that nobody is invincible. Gatsby’s death shows that power and wealth by themselves cannot prevent one’s ruin.
The Great Gatsby has many other merits that are worth exploring in minute detail. To delve on them in cursory manner does not lend justice to this most studied piece of literary work. On the whole, The Great Gatsby is a memorable and magnificent work not only because there are many constructive insights to be gleaned, but also because of the interesting parallelisms to the present age that may be drawn from the oeuvre.
Works Cited
Bhatia, Praveen. William Shakespeare – Julius Caesar. New Delhi: UBS Publication Distributors, 2006.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Penguin Classics, 1994.
“Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby – Nick Carraway, Detached or Dishonest?.” 123HelpMe.com. 23 Jan 2008 <http://www.123HelpMe.com/view.asp?id=11922>.
Foster, Andrew “Markets Mayhem and China, Asia.” Forbes Asia 3 September 2007: 26, 28.
Kennedy, X.J., and Dana Gioia. Literature – An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry and Drama. 7th ed. New York: West Longman, Inc., 1998.
Mangum, Bryant, “The Great Gatsby.” Encyclopedia of the Novel. Ed. Paul Schellinger. London and Chicago: Fitzroy-Dearborn, 1998.
Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. New York: Penguin Books, 1949.
Sutherland, John. How to Read a Novel. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2006.
Barbara, Will. “Great Gatsby and The Obscene Word.” Fall 2005. The University of Liverpool. 23 January 2008 <http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3709/is_200510/ai_n15739726>.
“Women’s Liberation Movement.” Tina Gianoulis. 2004. glbtq (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, & queer culture) inc. 23 January 2008 http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/womens_liberation_movement.html/>.
