The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a novel about one man’s disenchantment with the American dream. In the story we get a glimpse into the life of Jay Gatsby, a man who aspired to achieve a position among the American rich to win the heart of his true love, Daisy Fay. Gatsby’s downfall was in the fact that he was unable to determine that concealed boundary between reality and illusion in his life. The Great Gatsby is a tightly structured, symbolically compressed novel whose predominant images and symbols reinforce the idea that Gatsby’s dream exists on borrowed time.

Fitzgerald perfectly understood the nadequacy of Gatsby’s romantic view of wealth. At a young age he met and fell in love with Ginevra King, a Chicago girl who enjoyed the wealth and social position to which Fitzgerald was always drawn. After being rejected by Ginevra because of his lower social standing, Fitzgerald came away with a sense of social inadequacy, a deep hurt, and a longing for the girl beyond attainment. This disappointment grew into distrust and envy of the American rich and their lifestyle. These personal feelings are expressed in Gatsby.

The rich symbolize the failure of a civilization and the way of life and this flaw becomes apparent n the characters of Tom and Daisy Buchanan. Nick Carraway, the narrator of the story, quickly became disillusioned with the upper social class after having dinner at their home on the fashionable East Egg Island. “Nick is forced unwillingly to observe the violent contrast between their opportunities- what is implied by the gracious surface of their existence- and the seamy underside which is it’s reality” (Way 93).

In the Buchanans, and in Nick’s reaction to them, Fitzgerald shows us how completely the American upper class has failed to become an aristocracy. The Buchanans represent cowardice, corruption, and the demise of Gatsby’s dream Gatsby, unlike Fitzgerald himself, never discovers how he has been betrayed by the class he has idealized for so long. For Gatsby, the failure of the rich has disastrous consequences. Gatsby’s desire to achieve his dream leads him to West Egg Island. He purchased a mansion across the bay from Daisy’s home.

There is a green light at the end of Daisy’s dock that is visible at night from the windows and lawn of Gatsby’s house. This green light is one of the central symbols of the novel. In chapter one, Nick observes Gatsby in the ark as he looks longingly across the bay with arms stretched outward toward the green light. It becomes apparent, as the story progresses that “the whole being of Gatsby exists only in relation to what the green light symbolizes This first sight, that we have of Gatsby, is a ritualistic tableau that literally contains the meaning of the completed book” (Bewley 41).

A broader definition of the green light’s significance is revealed in Chapter 5, as Gatsby and Daisy stand at one of the windows in his mansion. “If it wasn’t for the mist we could see your home across the bay,” said Gatsby. “You always ave a green light that burns all night at the end of your dock. ” “Daisy put her arm through his abruptly, but he seemed absorbed in what he had just said. Possibly it had occurred to him that the colossal significance of that light had vanished forever. Compared to the great distance that had separated him from Daisy it has seemed very near to her, almost touching her.

It had seemed so close as a star to the moon. Now it was again a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted objects has diminished by one” (Fitzgerald 94). Gatsby had believed in the green light, it made his dream seem attainable. Upon meeting Daisy again, after a five-year separation, Gatsby discovers that sometimes attaining a desired object can bring a sense of loss rather than fulfillment. It is when Gatsby makes this discovery that the green light is no longer the central image of a great dream, but only a green light at the end of a dock.

The most obvious symbol in The Great Gatsby is a waste land called the Valley of Ashes, a dumping ground that lies between East and West Egg and New York City. Symbolically “the green breast of the new world” (Fitzgerald 182) becomes this Valley of Ashes. As the illusions of youth give ay to the disillusionment of the thirties, so green hopes give way to the dust of disappointment. Certainly Gatsby’s dreams turn to ashes; and it is dramatically appropriate that the custodian of the Valley of Ashes, George Wilson, should be Gatsby’s murderer.

That Wilson is the demise of Gatsby’s dream- and that the dream gives way to ashes- is made clear through descriptive detail. Over the desolate area, known as the Valley of Ashes, brood the eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg. “Gatsby is a kind of T. J. Eckleburg; he has created a god like image of himself, but the image is doomed- the dream will turn to dust- nd like Eckleburg, Gatsby also has occasion to brood over the ashes of the past, over the solemn dumping ground of worn out hopes” (Lehan 121). The death of Gatsby comes ironically from George Wilson’s total misunderstanding of the world from which the Buchanans and Myrtle come.

The eyes of Dr. Eckleburg, brooding over the Valley of Ashes, become what is left of the Son of God Gatsby has imagined himself to be. As the novel closes, the experience of Gatsby and his broken dream become the focus of that historic dream for which he stands. In the final thoughts of the novel, Fitzgerald would like the reader to see a much roader picture of the theme- a vision of America as the continent of lost innocence and lost illusions. He compares Gatsby’s experience to that of the Dutch Sailors who first came to Long Island and had an unspoiled continent before them.

As Nick lies on the beach in front of Gatsby’s home, his last night in the East, he contemplates this thought, “I became aware of the old island that flowered once for Dutch sailor’s eyes – a fresh green breast of the new world. It’s vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby’s house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.

I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him” (Fitzgerald 182). Gatsby’s greatness was to have retained a sense of wonder as eep as the sailor’s on that first landfall. Gatsby’s tragedy was to have had, not a continent to wonder at, but only a green light at the end of Daisy’s Dock and the triviality of Daisy herself.

The evolution of such triviality was Gatsby’s particular tragedy and the tragedy of America. Gatsby fades into the past forever to take his place with the Dutch sailors who had chosen their moment in time so much more happily than he. By the close of the novel, Fitzgerald has completely convinced the reader that Gatsby’s capacity for illusion is touching and heroic, despite the worthlessness of the objects of his reams. It is through combining faultless artistry with symbolism that Fitzgerald paints a vivid picture of the dream destined to fail because it’s basis was illusion. ot reality The Great Gatsby Cary L. Pannell Eng. 206 Rough draft of Final Word Count 1328 Thesis: The Great Gatsby is a tightly structured, symbolically compressed novel in which predominant images and symbols reinforce the idea that Gatsby’s dream exists on borrowed time. I. American Rich symbolize the failure of a civilization. A. Fitzgerald’s feelings toward wealthy B. Nick’s disappointment with Buchanans C. Rich fail as aristocracy D. Gatsby betrayed by class he idealized II. Green light symbolizes hope. A.

Gatsby’s being significant to symbolism of green light. B. Green light ceases to be an enchanted object. III. Most obvious symbol is Valley of Ashes. A. Hope gives way to dust of disappointment. B. Death and destruction of dreams lie among ashes. C. T. J. Eckelberg’s eyes are God-like symbol. IV. America the continent of lost innocence and illusions. A. Gatsby’s experience compared to Dutch sailors. B. Gatsby’s tragedy was triviality of Daisy. Conclusion: Symbolism and artistry paint a vivid picture of a dream destined to fail.

In, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the story is brought to us through a “flawed” narrator, Nick Carraway. It is through his eyes and ears that we form our opinions of the other characters. This makes the audience blind to any discrimination or bias he might have towards the other characters; so Fitzgerald knowingly tries to establish Nick as a trust worthy source. This is important because our only descriptions of Gatsbys character come from Nick. In The Great Gatsby, Nick goes to some length to establish his credibility, including his moral integrity, in telling this story about this “great” man called Gatsby.

He begins with a reflection on his own upbringing, quoting his father’s words about Nick’s “advantages” which we could assume were material but, he soon makes clear, were moral advantages. Nick wants the reader to know that his upbringing gave him the moral foundation with which to withstand and pass judgment on an immoral world, such as the one he has observed in his stay in the East (New York). He says, rather pompously, that as a consequence of such an upbringing, he is “inclined to reserve all judgments” about other people, but then goes on to say that such “tolerance… has a limit.

This is the first sign that we can trust this narrator to give us an even-handed insight to the story that is about to unfold, but we later learn that he neither reserves all judgments nor does his tolerance reach its limit. He admits early into the story, for example, that he makes an exception of judging Gatsby, for whom he is prepared to suspend both the moral code of his upbringing and the limit of tolerance, because Gatsby had an “extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness. ” This inspired him to a level of friendship and loyalty that Nick seems unprepared to extend towards others in the novel.

For example, Nick overlooks the moral failures of Gatsby’s bootlegging, his association with speakeasies, and his liaison with Meyer Wolfsheim yet, he is contemptuous of Jordan Baker for cheating in a mere golf game. And though he says that he’s prepared to forgive this sort of behavior in a woman: “It made no difference to me. Dishonesty in a woman is a thing you never blame too deeply… I was casually sorry, and then I forgot,” it seems that he cannot accept her for being “incurably dishonest”, and then says that his one “cardinal virtue” is that he’s “one of the few honest people” he has ever known.

When it comes to women (or possible girlfriends) not only are they judged, they are measured up against his own virtues as well. To understand Nick’s values one must know his origins. Nick leaves the Mid-West after he returns home from WWI, understandably restless and at odds with the traditional and conservative values that, from his account haven’t changed in spite of the tumult of the war. It is this insularity from a changed world no longer structured by the values that had sent young men to war, that makes him decide to go East, to New York and learn about bonds.

After a summer in the East, he decides to go back home to the security of what is familiar and traditional. He seeks a return to the safety of a place where houses we referred to by the names of families that had inhabited them for generations. By this stage, the East has become for him the “grotesque” origins of his nightmares. Don’t we perhaps feel a little let down that Nick runs away from his experience in the East in much the same way that he has run away from that “tangle back home” to whom he writes letters and signs “with love”, but doesn’t really mean it?

This is truly an ironic action on the part of Nick, who is still trying to establish his honesty. Is it unfair to want more from this narrator, to show some kind of development in his emotional make-up? His return home suggests a retreat from life and kind of emotional regression. There aren’t very many emotions in The Great Gatsby. The only genuine affection in the novel is shown by Nick towards Gatsby. He admires Gatsby’s optimism, an attitude that is out of step with the sordidness of the times.

Fitzgerald illustrates this squalor not just in the Valley of Ashes, but right there beneath the thin veneer of the luxury represented by Daisy and Tom. Nick is “in love” with Gatsby’s capacity to dream and ability to live as if the dream were to come true, and it is this that clouds his judgment of Gatsby and therefore obscures our grasp on Gatsby. When Gatsby takes Nick to one side and tells him of his origins, he starts to say that he was “the son of some wealthy people in the Midwest- all dead now, The truth of his origins doesn’t matter to Gatsby; what matters to him is being part of Daisy’s world or Daisy being part of his.

Gatsby’s sense of what is true and real is of an entirely other order to Nick’s. If Nick were motivated by truth, then Gatsby would still be poor Jay Gatz chasing a hopelessly futile dream. In Gatsby’s dream, time has literally stopped. This is symbolized by his catching of the mantle clock when he’s first reunited with Daisy. Gatsby thinks, he and Daisy are as they were before the war; unfortunately that’s his biggest flaw and ultimately his undoing. Gatsby’s dream is to reach the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock, but he fails to see that dream is no longer a possibility after he has met Daisy.

His own ability to dream is Gatsbys ultimate downfall, as he cannot let his dream go, even after its death. And so the American dream dies with Gatsby and the only person who notices is an emotionally insecure, young Midwestern bond broker who will now return home to hide. Nick’s admiration for Gatsby still remains because he has accomplished what Nick had hoped to do. Yet it is this same admiration, which fogs a true picture of Gatsby. Thus, leaving Gatsby as another innocent victim of the cruel and destructive nature of the East.

When it was Gatsby’s own love-blinded judgment which gets him into trouble, and even a dilemma with the law as in the phone calls Nick gets after Gatsby’s death. And so Fitzgerald has brought to us the purpose of his novel. When an author creates an unconventional narrator, as he has done with Nick, it draws attention to the story as fiction. Ironically, in doing this, he has created in Nick a figure who more closely resembles an average human being and thus has heightened the realism of the novel. The realism comes from the fact the majority of humans are flawed and bias in ways that many times, they cannot realize, such as Nick.