When Dreams Come True…

"The Great Gatsby” by F. S. Fitzgerald turns out to be one of the most profound investigations of the depths of human desires and cravings. It focuses on revealing the real nature and on the disillusionment of the main character. The reader is presented with the detailed description of the main character’s (Jay Gatsby) backgrounds and the ways he exploited to reach his state of well-being.

At the age of 17 he invented a new personality for himself and resolved to follow it to the end. His dream was to win the heart of the lovely girl, Daisy, who conquered his thoughts and her image directed all his efforts. He made up a new name – he became Jay Gatsby out of a poor officer James Gatz. On one hand, his desire to become rich was propelled by the wish to forget his own poverty; on the other hand, he wanted to touch the green light – Daisy.

To become wealthy was his only lofty aim. But the means to reaching this aim was fallacious. He had sold alcohol illegally and had been engaged in trading in stolen securities. He built a gaudy mansion where the opulent parties took place very night. His greatness was a mere shrouding cloth that hid his inner essence.

Gatsby’s house is a strong descriptive detail which enables the reader to sense the atmosphere and the dreams of the character. At night it was full of unfamiliar guests, wanton women, prim men and impudent loafers. During the day it was quiet and still; only the wind pierced the rooms producing a chilling impression upon a random visitor. Jay Gatsby pretended to look great and popular; but in fact he was lonely like no one in the book.

Gatsby was almost lurid in his persistence to win Daisy back. Their resurgent love inspired him with hope that the impossible was at arm’s length. He was absolutely blind with love and didn’t notice the shallowness and rapacious nature of his beloved.

Throughout the pages of the book Gatsby is on the edge of attaining what he wanted – Daisy was again in love with him and they were planning to claim it to her husband Tom. When the two lovers were driving home from New York, Daisy showed herself as a reckless driver and ran down her husband’s mistress, Mrs. Wilson. But the criminals drove away. The death nearly made Mr. Wilson insane and he decided to find the murderer of his wife. He found out the car belonged to Gatsby and shot him down. Daisy and her husband left the city without leaving an address. Nick Carraway, the narrator of the story, was the only person who went to the funeral. He was also the only one to realize that the tenacity of Gatsby’s dreams was ruined in a moment.

The Great Gatsby – a Lover, a Dreamer, a Seeker

In the world where people were struggling for a prosperous life and successful well-being there was a man who was looking for a dream. Not the American dream, notorious and tempting, but his own dream.

In the world where people were seduced by money and riches there was a man allured by a woman.

In the world where material possessions substituted moral values there was a Man with Green Light in his Eyes, full of Hope and Love.

The Great Gatsby is a strange man. You'll never be able to understand him completely unless you read the book to the very end. At the very beginning of the first chapter the author describes J. Gatsby as a typical representative of the capitalistic American society, but then, throughout the story his opinion is changing but not due to the development of the main character. Gatsby stays the same. We just learn him better.

Gatsby is not a typical representative of the society, he is completely different. Though he managed to become rich and prosperous, he always regarded his money as a means to get closer to his dream, not as the only aim. He moved to West Egg just in order to be closer to a woman he loved: "Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay”. Everything he did was devoted to her. Gatsby is a symbol of permanent hope and light of love that never fades away.

Besides for numerous symbols colour structure also plays an important role in the novel. At the very beginning of the story the leading colour is yellow: "Every Friday five crates of oranges and lemons arrived from a fruiterer in New York – every Monday these same oranges and lemons left his back door in the pyramid of pulpless halves”, "The light grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun, and now the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music”, "...and gave ear to two girls in twin yellow dresses”. His car is also yellow. "It was a yellow car, <…> big yellow car. New.” Yellow symbolises the continuous partying and revelry that are indispensable parts of Gatsby's parties. It can stand for Gatsby's richness, wealth and money, it can also symbolise the light his life is full of.

Another colour present in the story when describing Mr. Gatsby is pink. "His gorgeous pink rag of a suit made a bright spot of color against the white steps.” And this is of course a metonymy. Gatsby’s pink rag of a suit stands for Gatsby himself. Gatsby is like a bright spot of colour against the colourless life that surrounds him. "White” means no colour. So, the society in which Gatsby lives is just a crowd, a crew, a herd of people that do not have their own life position. Of people who are just a mass rather than individuals. They exist. And Gatsby wants to live.

That is why when Mr. Gatsby is dead dark colours prevail. ”…he began to pull so incessantly at his sparse gray beard that I had difficulty in getting off his coat”. Gray is a dark colour, but it is soft. But it is just a hint at the emotional background. After Gatsby’s death nearly all colours disappear. The story becomes a plain sequence of events. The author uses less stylistic devices. The tone becomes monotonous. And that all show us that without Gatsby life is a boring thing.

The main idea of the story is contained in the last lines. "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by years recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter – tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms father. … And one fine morning –

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past”.

American dream: material prosperity or love and hope

As it is said all American dreams have nothing to do with moral development. Americans want to get, to consume, to buy, and to increase their prosperity. The Jay Gatsby is a typical representative of the American society. His life is an everlasting pleasure. He has a lot of parties for his friends.

            Gatsby has actually achieved the great American dream to become rich. His life is more than physical satisfaction, but still there is one point I should mention. Gatsby is in love with Daisy. So he is able to feel and ready for the moral development.

            We can also say that Gatsby another side of the American dream. It’s said that during the party Gatsby is just standing apart from his guests. He seems to be a lonely man. I mean that inside all this richness there is a futility, moral futility.

            "…Gatsby possessed an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness". This quotation also proves that Gatsby is not so materialistic. His lover Daisy married another man. Some time passed, but Gatsby still loves her. He saves his feelings. That means that all this time he has had a hope for meeting Daisy one day.

            So we can understand that trying to achieve material prosperity we lose moral values. Gatsby is rich, but his richness is not in his material prosperity. It is in his love and hope.

(by Seagull)

The main idea which goes through the first chapters is about reaching the American dream – earning much money and living in prosperity. It is said in the book that there were many new rich people who wanted to get incorporated into the society of old aristocrats, though those new rich were in a way despised by Fitzgerald because the only feature of the upper class they had were money and success. They didn’t possess that level of personal culture as the old upper class had. This is actually well depicted in the scene of a party where Nick, the narrator, underlines a noticeable difference between those from the West Egg and those from the East Egg. 

 Gatsby goes out of his way to show that he is not worse than those who inhabit East Egg. Now, to be sure, five months at Oxford do not make an Oxford man, nor does a chestful of medals prove that a man is valorous. But Gatsby, with naïve innocence, believes they do. And what is ultimately important is not that he has gained these symbols of accomplishment - the medals, the pictures, the house, etc. What is important is Gatsby’s belief, his dream.

In these chapters Gatsby would like to make his dream come true and this is why he is called the great.  But at the same time we can say that Gatsby’s perception of Daisy is a dream as well. He thinks of her as a sweet girl who loved him in Louisville, but he can’t reconcile with the thought that she can’t give up her social background in order to be with him. After all, Gatsby’s dream collapses and he is never to be with Daisy, so his hopes for the future collapse as well. And finally Gatsby is killed, and this how the author underlines that perhaps Gatsby has nothing to live for. He achieved a lot of success and earned a very high social position in order to find Daisy and marry her. His every effort was aimed at this future. But he failed to, so this is why in fact he was killed. The tragic end of the novel emphasizes the tragedy of Gatsby’s live.

(by 8davids8)

The narrator, Nick Carraway, begins the novel by commenting on himself. He does not like the lifestyle of New York and decides to move in Midwest. He rents a small house in the West Egg. We know very little about Nick. He is very tolerant. Carraway comes from a prominent Midwestern family and graduated from Yale.  He’s connected to wealthy and important people, like his cousin Daisy and Tom but he isn't drowning in wealth. Therefore, he fears to be misunderstood by those who have not enjoyed the same advantages. He attempts to understand people on their own terms, rather than holding them up to his own personal standards.   We can say that he intellectually-developed.   Through Nick’s eyes, we meet his second cousin, Daisy Buchanan, her large and aggressive husband, Tom Buchanan, and Jordan Baker, who quickly becomes a romantic interest for our narrator. Tom Buchanan is an extremely wealthy man, a brute, and an athlete. He’s selfish and does what he needs to get what he wants. Most of all, he seeks control of his life and control of others.

 Another interesting character in this story is Mr. Jay Gatsby. He is a wealthy and mysterious man who owns a huge mansion next door to Nick and spends a good chunk of his evenings standing on his lawn and looking at an equally mysterious green light across the bay. Gadsby represents everything that Nick hates about New York.  Jay Gatsby is a man with a lot of money, a lot of acquaintances, and very few friends. Only in the in the second part we can see the main idea of this story.   Nick tells us a true history about Gatsby. He was actually James Gatz. His parents were unsuccessful farmer people. He tried to go to College but left after 2 weeks. He was discovered by wealthy miner Dan Cody, who took care of him. Gatsby reveals to Nick that he and Daisy used to love each other before he went away to the war. And now Daisy is unable to leave her husband. At the same time Myrtle is struck and killed by Gatsby’s car. Gatsby tells Nick that Daisy was driving, but he’s going to take the blame for it. George Wilson Myrtle’s husband shoots and kills Gatsby before taking his own life. Nick is the only person who takes care of Gatsby’s affairs and arrange for his funeral. Standing on Gatsby’s lawn and looking at the green light Nick concludes that our nostalgia, our desire to replicate the past, forces us constantly back into it.

The very nature of Jay Gatsby contains some features of jazz. Though all his life is dominated by one dream, as a Blues by one melody, much in it depends on improvisation. And this dream is Daisy. Gatsby is the most complex character in this story.  Gatsby is a newly wealthy person who orders his life around one desire to be reunited with Daisy, the love he lost five years earlier. With Daisy he forgets to play the role of a man with lot of money, a lot of acquaintances he shows himself to be a love-struck, awkward young man.   His cherished dream leads him from poverty to wealth, into the arms of his beloved and, eventually, to death.

We can say that The Great Gatsby is full of not only different images and symbols but also it represents the color structure which characterizes thoughts, feelings, state of the main characters or the atmosphere of general events.  We can say that the green light is probably one of the most important symbols in The Great Gatsby. Green is the color of hope, freshness, vitality and future.  In the context of the novel this green light represents Gatsby’s hope to meet Daisy again and a chance to return her back. "Gatsby believed in the green light”.

(By Tanya)