The Novel ‘The Great Gatsby’ by F.

Scott Fitzgerald demonstrates that the American

Dreams is an illusion. This universal theme is brought out through the characters of
Gatsby, Myrtle, Jordan and Wilson with a symbolic approach as they are having
American Dream of achieving complicated relationships.

The main character Gatsby who really is James Gats from North Dukora, a son of
‘shiftless and unsuccessful farm people’ spends his youth with the dream of being away
from the monotonous life. So he leaves his family and then, his life is changed after
meeting Dan Coordy. Gatsby with his American dream of marrying his lover Daisy,
needs to be a wealthy person with a high social standard and succeeds in earning more
and more money but his effort becomes a total failure due to Daisy’s shallowness over
having a husband with old money rather than true love and affection.

Gatsby’s success in wealth, possession and independence is depicted through his frequent
parties where he provides his guests with only the finest food, drink and entertainment,
his luxurious mansion and his yellow car which causes the death of Myrtle in an accident
and the same reason causes Gatsby’s death as well, indicating that materialism causes
great harms.

In the meantime, Fitzgerald presents how deep Gatsby’s American Dream of achieving
his romantic love for Daisy is, through the way he became rich, hinting us about the
mystery of his carrier.

‘Someone told me they thought he killed a man once.’

The novelist presents many rumours regarding Gatsby’s richness that once he killed a
man, he was a ‘German spy’ and he was a bootlegger. Anyway, Gatsby becomes a hero
in the reader’s minds because he has done everything due to his genuine and innocent
love for Daisy.

However, on the part of Daisy she doesn’t have any dream except only having a
luxurious life with high social standard. That is the reason for her to marry a person like
Tom Buhanan who doesn’t have any principle, morality or spirituality only having wealth
and high social background through hereditary ownership. Daisy’s extreme greediness
for materialism is seen at the scene of her weeping at Gatsby’s expensive shirts saying;

‘I never seeing such such beautiful shirts before’

It vividly reveals that she is not weeping for her lost love but weeping at over display of
Gatsby’s wealth when she sees. Even though she is aware of her husband’s bad behaviour
and that he doesn’t love her, Daisy rejects her true lover Gatsby in the climax of the story
 ‘I can’t say I never loved Tom’

At the last chance of achieving Daisy, she is not ready to leave her husband as she is
greedy for Tom’s Old money and social standard which cannot be achieved by Gatsby.
Thus, Gatsby’s hard effort of being an aristocratic in order to win Daisy is in vain.
Therefore, Gatsby’s American Dream causes his downfall mentally and physically where
he happens to sacrifice his life for the sake of his love. Therefore, it is clear that Gatsby
spends his whole life blindly in a meaningless dreamy world in order to fulfill his
American Dream of having a meaningless relationship with Daisy proving the fact that
American Dream is an illusion.

In the same way, the character of Myrtle, wife of poor garage owner Wilson is also
having American Dream of having materialistic life. In order to achieve this dream, she
goes beyond the social boundaries maintaining an illegal relationship with the rich Tom
Daisy’s husband neglecting spiritual values of purity as a wife. She completely neglects
her honest and innocent husband who truly loves her;

‘I married him because I thought he was a gentleman.’

Due to her husband’s lower social class and poverty, Myrtle condemns Wilson and finds
a superior life with the secret affair with Tom which suits for her extravagant lifestyle
which can be seen through buying a puppy on a whim, spending in the drugstore. It is
quite visible that she has distanced herself from socially accepted norms and morals for
the dream of having free and rich lifestyle by cheating her loving husband. But the total
failure of her dream is that what she doesn’t realize is that Tom and his friends never
accept her into her possession;

‘Tom Buchan broke her nose with his open hand’

Once Tom brakes her nose at his party. It vividly reveals Myrtle as well as Tom lacks
human values except the need of material things. Therefore, on the part of Myrtle,
American Dream is an illusion since Tom Buchanan abuses and mistreats her due to her
ignorance and greediness for money.

At the same time, George Wilson represents the illusion of American Dream as he wants
to establish his own business and also to have a meaningful family life with his wife
Myrtle. What he wanted is to be married to a good woman and having his own business
but ironically the woman he married is not satisfied with what she is having and be
distant from him. Wilson’s innocent dream dies with the unexpected death of his wife
and he becomes the murderer of Gatsby as a result of Tom Buchanan’s hypocritical
words. So Gatsby has to scarify his life for the sake of his love indicating his total failure
and also Daisy’s selfishness.
Thus, the three characters of Gatsby, Myrtle and Wilson represent the dark side of
American Dream collapsing moral and spiritual values which causes their downfall. The
fact that, three of them acting in an extraordinary way - Gatsby by earning money
illegally, Myrtle by having illegal relationships and Wilson by murdering Gatsby shows
us clearly the downfall of them due to their meaningless dreams. Gatsby with Daisy,
Myrtle with Tom and Wilson with Myrtle try to live in a romantic dreamy world
completely blind to the reality which ends up with destruction. Though three of them,
Gatsby, Myrtle and Wilson are succeeded in achievement of wealth, having money from
Tom and establishment of own business, they are unable to fulfill their dream of
meaningful relationships.

The novelist depicts the greatness of Gatsby who does not betray Daisy for Myrtle’s
death and becomes the target of Tom’s revenge gunned down by Wilson indicating the
deepness of his great love foe Daisy. It vividly shows that American Dream is an illusion.
Thus, the illusion of his dream is symbolically presented through the image of green light
several times at the end of Daisy’s dock in East Egg representing Gatsby’s unattainable
hopes and dreams. And also the symbolic image of ‘valley of Ashes’ represents moral
and social decay of America in relation to American Dream.

Thus the novelist is very successful in presenting the illusion of American Dream.

References

Basu-Zharku, I.O. (2011). “The Great Gatsby’s Relation to and Importance as a Work of
Art.” Inquiries Journal/ Student Pulse, 3(01). Retrieved from
http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/a?id=354

Fitzgerald, F.S. (1994). The Great Gatsby. London: Penguin Books.

Pumphrey, Kimberly (2011). God Bless America, Land of The Consumer: Fitzgerald’s
Critique of the American Dream. Undergraduate Reiew,7,115-120.