The Great Gatsby is a romantically tragic, social view of 1920s America that Fitzgerald created using the standard “American dream” as the story’s foundation. In “The Disillusionment of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Dreams and Ideas in the Great Gatsby,” Fanimeh Keshmiri calls The Great Gatsby “a genuine representation of America that radically criticizes a basic historic attitude of Americans to life” (1296). The symbols the author used demonstrate two sides of the coin of the Jazz age. For example, Gatsby’s “big yellow car” is almost golden but not quite, which symbolizes his inability to reach the upper class (Fitzgerald 89). The Dream of Gatsby “was doomed to failure and corruption because it demanded too much” (Keshmiri 1296). However, even though the novel is symbolic, the readers see the characters facing different consequences inherent to the real world. Gatsby’s dream to become wealthy to gain Daisy’s attention “is simply believable and is still a common dream of the current time” (Keshmiri 1298). Keshmiri states that Gatsby is portrayed “as the aloof, inexplicable, and standoffish host of the luxury parties, but gets more interesting and complex background later” (1296). According to Keshmiri, “Gatsby portrays one part of Fitzgerald’s personality that is looking for his destiny” (1296). At the same time, Nick represents the other part that fulfills the double vision by participating and commenting on the actions of the novel (1296). However, Gatsby is the story’s main character and is a “personification” of the novel’s topic. Fitzgerald uses Gatsby to portray the American dream from the outside and its rotten ethical and social values.
Works Cited
Fitzgerald, Francis Scott. The Great Gatsby. Wordsworth Classics, 1925.
Keshmiri, Fanimeh. “The Disillusionment of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Dreams and Ideas in The Great Gatsby.” Theory and Practice in Language Studies, vol. 6, no. 6, 2016, pp. 1295-1299. Web.