Introduction 

The phrase, “The American Dream” is not actually used by Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby. It was coined in 1931 by writer and historian James Truslow Adams. The idea that one can, through hard work, thrift, and dedication, improve one’s life and achieve fulfillment, happiness and wealth, has its antecedents in the words of the Declaration of Independence, which endows all the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” However, what happens when we try to achieve this fabled goal? The characters in the book search tirelessly for this elusive dream with little luck, and in the end, none of them find it. Perhaps, as Fitzgerald hints at through his novel, the journey to find the American Dream leads only to a dead end of heartbreak and despair.

 

There are thematic connections between Chapter 9, Gatsby's boyhood plans for self-improvement, and the much mythologized Benjamin Franklin, who is closely associated with the American Dream ethos.  Click here to read some of Franklin's autobiography (pp. 76-83) http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/franklin/a_b_benf.pdf 

 

Chapter 2

 

In this response, Ary describes how the characters in the novel have failed to achieve the American dream. She says that their failure is evident in their land, which is filled with ash and dust. Perhaps the failure of the crop to grow and thrive is a symbol of the failure of the characters to achieve their main goal. She brings up a very importnat question in her response as well; can pursuing the American dream ever lead to a fruitful result, or will it only end in heartbreak and pain?

 

“About half way between West Egg and New York the motor road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from a certain desolate area of land. This is the valley of ashes- a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powerdery air. Occasionally a line of gray cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak, and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-gray men swarm up into the leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud, which screens their obscure operations from your sight” ( Fitzgerald 23)

 

            This passage had so many layers of symbolism that became more evident after I finished the book. At first, The Valley of Ashes represents the moral and social decay that results from belonging to the lower class, as the rich only worry for their pleasures. It symbolizes the unfortunate conditions of the lower class, like George and Myrtle Wilson, who live among the dirty ashes and lose their durability as a result. The ash and dust, is not only a reflection of the corruption of the American dream, but of the negative consequences of the pursuit of the American dream. The Valley of Ashes also embodies the decline of spiritual life and the degradation of values associated with the vulgar pursuit of wealth. Images of death and hopelessness are associated with the valley of Ashes, and this describes the consequences of striving to move up the social ladder.

However, farm images and images of death are juxtaposed in the Valley of Ashes. This “fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat” shows the ugliness of the failure of the American dream, but illustrates the necessity of this failure so people like Tom and Daisy Buchanan can live their lavish lifestyle. In addition, food, which is the main product of a farm, is replaced with industrial ashes.  This eludes to how innovation and industrialism is beginning to turn people away from humane characteristics.  This careless lifestyle comes at the cost of those in the Valley of Ashes, who are forced to realize the consequences of their actions. The death of Myrtle Wilson in the Valley of Ashes sets off the chain of events that lead to the death of Gatsby and his dream. As we talked in class about the vivid details of Gatsby’s death, of his body burning up in ashes, the image of the Valley of Ashes sparked in my mind. His death returns him back to the Valley of Ashes, with the sullen lower class who also failed to reach their aspirations. James Gatz spent his entire life pretending to be James Gatsby, an upper class elite, but ends up in the piles of ashes among the stark lower class. Fitzgerald’s diction and stunning descriptions of The Valley of Ashes were interweaved into many different passages throughout the book and kept bleak this image in my mind.

Ary Park 

 

In this passage, Will analyzes the way in which Tom treats those around him, and how he uses his resources to make himself feel bigger and better than anyone else. In doing this, Tom is searching for his own American Dream, which is to be the best. Will references Tom's excessive spending and rude personality in describing his need to seem important. He also uses a great quote from the novel to describe how Tom yearns to achieve the glory that he once did in his football days at Yale, and yet simply cannot. Tom's quest for his own American dream is a perfect example of how the characters in the story used their power and money and influence to appear to be more than what they actually are.

 

We backed up to a gray old man who bore an absurd resemblance to John D. Rockefeller.  In a basket swung from his neck cowered a dozen very recent puppies of an indeterminate breed.

    “What kind are they?” asked Mrs.  Wilson eagerly, as he came to the taxi-window.

    “All kinds.  What kind do you want, lady?”

    “I’d like to get one of those police dogs; I don’t suppose you got that kind?”

    The man peered doubtfully into the basket, plunged in his hand and drew one up, wriggling, by the back of the neck.

    “That’s no police dog,” said Tom.

    “No, it’s not exactly a police dog,” said the man with disappointment in his voice.  “It’s more of an Airedale.” He passed his hand over the brown wash-rag of a back.  “Look at that coat.  Some coat.  That’s a dog that’ll never bother you with catching cold.”

    “I think it’s cute,” said Mrs.  Wilson enthusiastically.  “How much is it?”

    “That dog?” He looked at it admiringly.  “That dog will cost you ten dollars.”

    The Airedale—undoubtedly there was an Airedale concerned in it somewhere, though its feet were startlingly white—changed hands and settled down into Mrs.  Wilson’s lap, where she fondled the weather-proof coat with rapture.

    “Is it a boy or a girl?” she asked delicately.

    “That dog?  That dog’s a boy.”

    “It’s a bitch,” said Tom decisively.  “Here’s your money.  Go and buy ten more dogs with it.” (Fitzgerald 30)

 

This passage is important because it gives insight on Tom, the way people acted during the “Roaring 20’s” and it contains a reference that I am still attempting to fully decipher.

                 Tom only speaks twice during this passage, and what he says is abrupt, rude, and belittling.  His first line does not convey much about his character, besides the fact that Tim is not the friendliest man.  The second time he speaks he abruptly says, “It’s a bitch…Here’s your money.  Go and buy ten more dogs with it.”  Firstly, this shows Tom’s excessive splurging, and disregard for money, because he merely hands the man more than enough money and does not seem to care about the extra money he gave away.  This ‘wasteful’ spending was seen among many during the early 20^th century, and a term that became popular regarding the upper-class’s spending was “conspicuous consumption.”  This “conspicuous consumption” could be seen as the wealthy bought large homes, threw large parties, and drove nice cars.  What makes this passage special is that it shows “conspicuous consumption” on a lower scale that we can all relate to: an interaction with a small salesman.  Fitzgerald captured the behavior of so many during that time in such a down-to-earth example which gives the reader even better insight on the time period.

                 Secondly, this shows Tom’s constant tendencies to make himself more dominant than those around him.  In this example he does so through the use of money, but he has also attempted to remain dominant amongst those around him by cheating on his wife, spending large amounts of money, hitting women, and racial superiority.  All these factors contribute to Tom’s zeal for greatness, yet he never seems to achieve what he once did during his years as a football star at Yale.  The fact that he never feels this dominance again “make(s) him nibble at the edge of stale ideas as if his sturdy physical egotism no longer nourished his peremptory heart.”  Tom has become weaker as he tries to become stronger than those around him.  By giving the man more money than needed and saying a condescending comment is an instance where Tom tries to make himself feel dominant.  Further, this interaction between Tom and the man selling the dogs reveals a great deal about Tom, and gives insight on how the wealthy sometimes acted. . .

Will Maxfield

 

Chapter 4

 

The passage gives great insight on the dishonest ways people were making money in the roaring 20’s.  The wealth aspect of the “American Dream” seemed to be the most important to people, as they would do anything for wealth at that time.

 

 “Who is he, anyhow, an actor?”

“No.”

“A dentist?”

“Meyer Wolfshiem? No, he’s a gambler.” Gatsby hesitated, then added cooly: “He’s the man who fixed the World’s Series back in 1919.”

The idea staggered me. I remembered, of course, that the World Series had been fixed in 1919, but if I had thought of it at all I would have thought of it as a thing that merely happened, the end of some inevitable chain. It never occurred to me that one man could start to play with the faith of fifty million people-with the single-mindedness of a burglar blowing a safe.

“How did he happen to do that?” I asked after a minute.

“He just saw the opportunity.”

“Why isn’t he in jail?”

“They can’t get him, old sport. He’s a smart man.” (77-78)

[Meyer Wolfsheim, based on Arnold Rothstein, the real man who fixed the 1919 World Series, is used by F. Scott Fitzgerald] to try and capture part of the zeitgeist of the generation of “New money,” such as those who lives in West Egg, like Gatsby.  He depicts these people as gaining wealth through dishonest means, and this character represents that.  At this time, there were notable “Robber Barons,”… businessmen who acquired wealth through dishonest manners.  Some notable “Robber Barons” were John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie, who held great wealth, yet not always honest wealth.  [The most successful businessmen from the era were those using immoral or dishonest means. This pertains to the way Fitzgerald depicts Wolfsheim, not as successful but just as dirty, one operating in the margins of society--the underground world of gangsters.]… The second function of this scene is to show the contrast between Nick and Gatsby.  Gatsby casually speaks of Wolfshiem’s actions, while Nick thinks deeply about the act, and how one greedy man can affect the fate of so many.  This contrast is important, because it shows the ignorance of Nick towards the “New Wealth”-class, and the almost disturbing nonchalance that Gatsby has while discussing the fixing of a World Series.  Further, Gatsby’s calmness shows that he is immune to such kinds of actions proving that a great deal of dishonest money is circulating within the “New Wealth”-class.

Will Maxfield

 

 

Chapter 5

 

 

This post discusses American opinions on social class in that time period.

 

 “There was nothing to look at from under the tree except Gatsby’s enormous house so I stared at it, like Kant at his church steeple, for half an hour. A brewer had built it early in the “period” craze, a decade before, and there was a story that he’d agreed to pay five years’ taxes on all the neighboring cottages if the owners would have their roofs thatched with straw. Perhaps their refusal took the heart out of his plan to found a Family—he went into an immediate decline. His children sold his house with a black wreath still on the door. Americans, while occasionally willing to be serfs, have always been obstinate about being peasantry.” (Fitzgerald 92)

 

 

…why is Gatsby’s mansion so important that it consumes Nick’s thoughts? The mansion, in one respect, is a symbolic manifestation of the Gilded Age as a whole. The Gilded Age in America was a very complex time. Just as Gatsby’s house is beautiful on the outside, but is often filled with people and things that mean nothing to Gatsby, who is languishing in his never-ending love for Daisy, so too was the age characterized by a gaudy façade of extravagant wealth, covering what was a slowly crumbling economy.

            In his discussion of the mansion’s history, Fitzgerald also makes an interesting use of irony, he says “Americans, while occasionally willing to be serfs, have always been obstinate about being peasantry.” This statement is ironic because serfdom is a type of peasantry, but it is peasantry in the form of servitude. It is a type of mutual contract where the serf agrees to work for the lord in return for protection and the right to work the land. These two types of people could easily be compared to Americans during the Gilded Age. They were willing to do anything for money. They were willing to be slaves to the system, as long as their title and their mass of property indicated otherwise. They refused to be considered peasants, even if being a peasant was much more free and honest, they would much prefer to be a slave to industry. 

           [He uses this passage]… to interject a degree of social criticism about greedy capitalism in America.

Faith Shapiro

 

More on the mind of Gatsby

 

It almost seems that he needs people to accept him as this rich, successful, person that is full of generosity and virtue. Just like Daisy, he needs acknowledgement of his wealth and success.

Jeremy Scher

 

 

This passage discusses Daisy’s obsession of wealth and money, also showing the “great emphases on the outward appearance of the characters.”

 

“I’ve got a man in England who buys me clothes.  He sends over a selection of things at the beginning of each season, spring and fall.” 

He took out a pile of shirts and began throwing them, one by one, before us, shirts of sheer linen and thick silk and fine flannel, which lost their folds as they fell and covered the table in many-colored disarray.  While we admired he brought more and the soft rich heap mounted higher—shirts with stripes and scrolls and plaids in coral and apple-green and lavender and faint orange, and monograms of Indian blue.  Suddenly, with a strained sound, Daisy bent her head into the shirts and began to cry stormily.

  “They’re such beautiful shirts,” she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds.  “It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such—such beautiful shirts before.”  -Fitzgerald 97

 

 

In the passage, Daisy breaks down crying merely due to her amazement over Gatsby’s clothing.  To me, there seems to be something inherently wrong with Daisy’s action. She did not even break down crying when she first saw Gatsby, and yet she is sobbing over clothing?  Fitzgerald’s vivid description of the clothing “shirts with stripes and scrolls and plaids in coral and apple-green,” adds to the attentiveness Daisy shows toward the clothing. It is no doubt that this passage exemplifies Daisy’s flawed character. At first, her love for Gatsby seems to be genuine and the reason she married Tom was because she had to, yet this passage clearly shows how important wealth is to Daisy. The same can be said for Gatsby; it seems he just wants to add Daisy to his trophy case to show that he can get whatever he wants.

 

… In this high class society, it is clear that image is important. Fitzgerald uses the clothing to show how shallow the characters in the novel are. Rather than focusing on personality or integrity, the characters are interested in social standing and wealth.  The “sheer linen and thick silk,” gives an ostentatious and gaudy imagery to the clothing. In fact, it does not even seem that the clothing is that beautiful at all.

 

 

Chapter 6

 

 

This first post on this passage focuses on Gatsby’s need to change and achieve the American Dream.  The second praises Gatsby for his success at “creating his own fate.”

 

"I suppose he’d had the name ready for a long time, even then. His parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people—his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents at all. The truth was that Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself. He was a son of God—a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that—and he must be about His Father’s business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty. So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen-year-old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end" (Fitzgerald 104).

…Gatsby made himself completely separate by changing his name and his whole idea of himself. It was like he saw that Daisy should be marrying, a rich, prosperous man, and he was determined to become this man. [ The "son of God" part also plays into the theme of the American Dream in The Great Gatsby, showing how Gatsby feels he must achieve wealth and secular prosperity]…he is so ashamed of [his unsuccessful family heritage] that he can’t keep their name, nor accept them as the family he was born into.

…It’s as though he was set on staying James Gatsby no matter what it cost him or how his life changed (for the worse, most times). This idea of reinventing himself reflected his need to always want something more than what he had; something better than how he started.

…During the Progressive Era, which was an extremely disillusioned period, people made their money from illegal activities, just like Gatsby did. I picked up a slight hint of criticism in Fitzgerald’s comment of God’ work, according to the new Jay Gatsby, as being this colossal, illegitimate and cheap beauty, which ironically, isn’t beautiful at all. I think the author was acknowledging the disappointment of supposedly successful lives during his time Fitzgerald also proved the phoniness of certain figures, like Gatsby, who gave up their old, yet legitimate, lives for new, fake ones.

Laura Bruno

 

Gatsby is an admirable person in that he becomes what he desires to be. He didn’t like the lifestyle he was born into, he didn’t like being James Gatz, he wanted to be one of the wealthy, and so he became the person he wanted to be mentally by changing his name to Jay Gatsby, then acted physically to succeed in becoming the rich person he created in his mind. In this way, he assumed the role of being the “son of God,” by taking the powers normally assigned to a deity and creating his own fate.

Eunice Pak

 

 

This passage is provides Gatsby’s insight into his obsession with social mobility and the security he sought in wealth.

 

“An instinct toward his future glory had led him, some months before, to the small Lutheran college of St. Olaf in southern Minnesota. He stayed there for two weeks, dismayed at its ferocious indifference to the drums of his destiny, to destiny itself, and despising the janitor’s work with which he was to pay his way through. Then he drifted back to Lake Superior, and he was still searching for something to do on the day that Dan Cody’s yacht dropped anchor in the shallows along shore"( Fitzgerald 105). 

…it was ironic that Gatsby leaves college because he finds his work as a janitor degrading. In the 1920s, or even now, a college education provides great stability and notability. However, Gatsby acts perversely as he drops out of college because he is embarrassed that he supports himself by working as a janitor. His decision to leave reveals Gatsby's extreme sensitivity to class and his sensitivity on how others view him. Gatsby wishes to be a part of this opulent high-class society and believes a janitor is a job his former self, James Gatz, would have. His work as a janitor is a gross humiliation because it is at odds with his ideal of himself. It is quite satirical that Gatsby is willing to sacrifice his education, a chance that would have allowed him to gain credibility, to save him from embarrassment. This passage also reminded me of how easily Tom distinguished that Gatsby did not really attend Oxford. Just by his mannerisms and the way he talks, people can identify who is from an upper class. Fitzgerald suggests that no matter how much money a person has, if it is not " old money", they are not upper class. The use of the different dialects proves to show the differences between the working class and upper class. 

            Education is one aspect in society that distinguishes the upper class from those below them. In addition, alumni status provides connections within the wealthy, present in Tom and Nick’s relationship. In Gatsby’s dream of wanting to become this self made man, I believe that education should have been a more prominent goal to attain. He continually makes an effort to say that he is an “ Oxford Man” because he knows that higher education exalts power, wealth, and security. However, Gatsby’s pride stood in the way of getting a college degree and earning money in a more honorable manner. By abandoning his education, Gatsby continues his struggle to be accepted into the upper class. I think its interesting how important education was in the 1920s and how times have not changed since then. It reminds me of how competitive students are to get into a college because they believe their degrees will set their entire path for their future. This passage forced me to ask myself the same question we talked about in class. Is Gatsby interested in Daisy or her wealth? In some aspects, I feel that Gatsby is in love with the idea that he can be accepted into society by just marrying into an established respectable family. This passage is great because it exemplifies several of the themes in the book. It provides different facets of old and new money, the social stratification of the era, and the shallowness of the upper class.  

Ary Park 

 

 

Chapter 8

 

I have an idea that Gatsby himself didn’t believe it would come, and perhaps he no longer cared. If that was true he must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream. He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass. A new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about . . . like that ashen, fantastic figure gliding toward him through the amorphous trees. (169)

 

            This passage could have been at the end of the book because it sums up the overarching theme of the disparity between Gatsby’s dream and reality. Gatsby convinces himself of the beauty of life but because Daisy leaves Gatsby, he is heartbroken and is forced to accost the reality of his situation. Because he stuck with one dream for the past five years he doesn’t know what else is in the world. Everything was enhanced by Daisy’s presence in his life; at one point the rose was beautiful and the grass was lush and green, not “scarcely created” and sparse. His rose colored lenses through which he saw his life are confiscated because of his lost love. The world becomes a lot harsher and inhospitable to him and seems to alienate him from any emotional connection to people or places; I wouldn’t have been surprised if he committed suicide. The gap between reality and fantasy finally closes up and Gatsby finds real life to be devoid of any real ambition or beauty. The way his world turned upside down is evidence of how much he loves Daisy.

 

Chapter 9

 

In chapter nine, we see some of the symbols that have been recurring throughout The Great Gatsby gain definition. The very landscape seems charged as Nick reflects on what happened during the summer, and muses over the significance of Gatsby’s dream. Fitzgerald shows, in the final pages of the book, the centrality of that dream, and its connection to the mythic “American Dream.”

What does Fitzgerald have to say about the American Dream in the Jazz Age? How does he respond to his contemporaries, members of the “Lost Generation”, who have become disillusioned with the present and lost faith in the future? Is his message grim or hopeful? In the following passages, readers have attempted to shed light on the final pages of The Great Gatsby.

 

 

“And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away and gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailor’s eyes—a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its 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 a 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 for wonder.” pg. 189 

This passage is the root of Nick’s fascination with Gatsby. Gatsby is an extravagant dreamer. Like the Dutch sailor in the passage, he embodies man’s capacity for wonder. In the beginning of chapter 1, Nick introduces the reader to Gatsby for the first time. He speaks of Gatsby’s by speaking of his “extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again.” A poor Midwestern boy, he dreamed that he was someone else entirely, and became Jay Gatsby, who was destined for success and riches. He fell in love with Daisy as Daisy fell in love with his dreams—and she became the dream he couldn’t let go of.

Nick repeatedly states that he despises everything that Gatsby represents. So how can his irresistible fascination with him be explained? Nick elaborates, in the first passages of chapter 1. It is not Gatsby, the man, that he scorns, but “what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams” (6) that made him become so profoundly disgusted with the “abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men”(7). In chapter 8, Nick reiterates his disapproval, when he pays Gatsby a compliment (“They’re a rotten crowd. You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together”) (162) and tells the reader that it was the only one he ever gave him because he disapproved of Gatsby “from beginning to end.”

In the passage above, Fitzgerald expands Nick’s sense of disillusionment to encompass the entire continent, as Nick reflects on the summer’s events with the awareness of “the vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night” (189). This passage provides a larger, macroscopic context for the conflict between East Egg and West Egg, East and West, old and new. Gatsby embodies the extent of man’s capacity for wonder, and as a dreamer, he embodies the American spirit. Fitzgerald seems to be saying that America, since its discovery, has been the west’s last, great dream.

Throughout the book, Fitzgerald makes grim references to the decline of the West. The idea of the West’s decline is amplified and parodied in Tom’s unreasoning fears: at a dinner table conversation, Tom makes reference to Goddard’s The Rising Tide of Color , (Fitzgerald’s nod the work of nordicists Stoddard and Grant) and later, after it becomes clear that he’s been cuckolded, be embarks on an impassioned, racist rant about the dissolution of marriage as an institution.  (“‘I suppose the latest thing is to sit back and let Mr. Nobody from Nowhere make love to your wife. Well, if that’s the idea you can count me out…Nowadays people begin by sneering at family life and family institutions and next they’ll throw everything overboard and have intermarriage between black and white.’”—to which Jordan Baker response by saying, timidly, “ ‘We’re all white here.’” ) (137). There are other subtle references to race: as Nick crosses the bridge with Gatsby, their car passes a limousine driven by a white driver “in which sat three modish Negroes” and Nick giddily reflects that “anything can happen now that we’ve slid over this bridge…” (73). Essentially, Fitzgerald reveals a vague and unarticulated sense of disillusionment in each of his characters that informs their deep insecurities, their selfishness, and their cynicism.

Gatsby, with his impossible dreams, seems to be an antidote to that kind of disillusionment and insecurity. Despite his amorphous past, despite the way he masks it with his wealth and lavish parties, Nick sees Gatsby’s love for Daisy as something real and sincere. It’s impractical, extravagant, incandescent, and impossible, but it is something real that gives his life meaning. It makes Gatsby believe in “the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us” in a time when everyone else seems to have forgotten it, or given up on it, or given over to despair. 

Hannah LeClair

 

Nick notices the green light at the end of the Buchanan’s dock, and muses on its significance to Gatsby. For readers, the light gains further significance as a symbol of what Gatsby was striving to grasp.

 

      "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning—So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." (pg. 189)  

 

As the last lines of a novel should do these sum up the very ideas of the book and the nature of people. The green light is representative of many things but mostly of the American Dream and of love long lost. Gatsby lived the American Dream he was a self made man and truly believed in determination. Gatsby can be described as a hopeless optimist, he was a dreamer who believed that the American Dream was tangible just as his dream of Daisy was tangible.

The green light also is Daisy. He was always looking towards her to be with her and to feel the love that she once had for him. He longed for the future that they would together have but based his ideas on the past. How is this possible? In the end Gatsby never got to reach the green light and never was able to live the future he hoped he would have. Everything he did was for Daisy all the money and the house and the party was all for her yet in the end it was not meant to be.

 

Nick tells the reader that no matter what we will always hope for the future and try harder with everyday to reach what we want but in the end just like Gatsby we can never reach that goal if it is rooted in the past.

Emily Gallagher

 

 “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms further... And one fine morning –

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” (pg. 189)

 

Fitzgerald finishes his book with a beautiful and magnificent paragraph that gives his readers hope, or at least it did for me.  Like Richard said, Gatsby may represent the American Dream.  And Fitzgerald believed that the American Dream was always faced with challenges “boats against the current.”  But like Gatsby did with his dream of being with Daisy, he believed in the future and that we should all “run faster, stretch out arms further… And one fine morning –” our dreams will be achieved.  The green light signals our future with our dreams.

            However, I don’t think this image fits in well with Gatsby.  Throughout the book, I always got a feeling that Gatsby wanted to turn the clock backwards not forwards.  He always wanted to go back to the time when he and Daisy were lovers without Tom in the way. I don’t remember seeing images where Gatsby was looking forward to the future. Or maybe the future he expected was his past (which kind of makes my head spin). And I don’t get the ending. Is it saying that however we may try we will be “borne back into the past”? There are many ways to interpret the ending to the Great Gatsby.  It seems to be interpreted the way the reader wants it to be interpreted. It seems to be filled with both hope and despair. The entire passage is a paradox. It seems to say to look forward to the future and run for to your goal, but it will be a losing battle (or maybe I’m just misinterpreting the entire thing). The "borne back ceaselessly into the past" is what confuses me the most. Some help? Is he just referring to Gatsby or society in general?

Billy Min

 

Laura Bruno

 

“Jimmy was bound to get ahead. He always had some resolves like this or something. DO you notice what he’s got about improving his mind? He was always great for that. He told me I et like a hog once and I beat him for it” (182). 

I am just going to reflect upon the idea of American Dream in chapter 9. Gatsby symbolize the American Dream, in which a destitute man with nothing can rise up the ladder of society and become a self-made millionaire. However, the way that Fitzgerald ends the story, he criticizes the American Dream. Gatsby is gunned down for what he didn’t do and left forgotten in his death.

 

The relationship between his father and Gatsby is estranged as we guessed from the little excerpt revealing his false identity and also shown in Gatz’s burying “Jimmy” in the East where “he always liked it better.” This shows that Gatsby, when he was 17, he cut off all ties from his poor family to pursue his dream. To him, it was easier to start as an orphan with no background than to start come from a poor family. So, Gatsby was ashamed of his dad, ashamed of his low class-etiquette, ashamed of his poorness. I’ve been wondering, if Gatsby was born into a rich family, would he have been less successful and would he still have fallen in love with Daisy? Gatz shows Nick a schedule that Gatsby kept when he was young, which shows his ambitious devotion to self-improve. It was on a piece of paper from the book Hopalong Cassidy. I did some research and Hopalong Cassidy is a Western adventure that shows where Gatsby’s dreamer spirit came from. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopalong_Cassidy

Richard Kim

 This post discusses how successful Gatsby was at truly attaining the "American Dream."

 

After a little while Mr. Gatz opened the door and came out, his mouth ajar, his face flushed slightly, his eyes leaking isolated and unpunctual tears.  He had reached an age where death no longer has the quality of ghastly surprise, and when he looked around him now for the first time and saw the height and splendor of the hall and the great rooms opening out from it into other rooms his grief began to be mixed with an awed pride.  I helped him to a bedroom upstairs; while he took off his coat and vest I told him that all arrangements had been deferred until he came. (Fitzgerald 176)

This passage shows the reaction of Gatsby’s father, Mr. Gatz, to his son’s house.  The giant beautiful house represents all of Gatsby’s wealth, but also his poverty.

The pride Mr. Gatz feels is clearly described as he sees all that his son had made of himself.  James Gatz set out many years ago to try to achieve his dream, and in the eyes of his father, he did.  Gatsby expertly built his fortune from practically nothing, and by this his ardor and skill is obvious.  Still, he was just as deprived as he was great.  What success he had in the business world he terribly lacked in his personal life.  We’ve all heard money cannot buy you happiness, but Gatsby epitomizes this, and in the end we feel truly sorry for him.   As he is laying in his pool, realizing he has “paid a high price for living too long with a single dream” (169), and so it seems Gatsby died a regretful, unhappy man – a “poor son-of-a-bitch” (183). 

Although Mr. Gatz’s pride is heartwarming, the irony mocks the sentimental moment.  Gatsby was lacking love and friendship, and from this we see how he was not truly wealthy at all.  Despite all his attempts, he was never truly accepted in the eyes of the East Egg rich.  His grand house represents his accomplishments, achieving the American dream in the economic sense, but the emptiness of it is a clear symbol for the remaining gap between him and the wealthy social class as wells as his loneliness.

Overall we see Gatsby gets the worst of both social worlds (the poor life he was born into and the new rich life he achieved) as he still seems to be discriminated against as an outsider and also experiences the crooked, morally depraving life of a “rags to riches” businessman .

How attainable is this “American dream” nowadays? Is our version any different? In America today, are we honestly more morally concerned/aware?

Karl Foley