Marele Gatsby de Francis Scott Fitzgerald Si Sisul American

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Marele Gatsby de Francis Scott Fitzgerald Si Sisul American

Byadmin ianuarie 1, 2024

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”Marele Gatsby” de Francis Scott Fitzgerald și Visul American

The Great Gatsby by Francis Scott Fitzgerald and

The American Dream

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword

Chapter One: Francis Scott Fitzgerald – Highlights of his life and work

Francis Scott Fitzgerald – Life and work

Highlights of his work

The Jazz Age

Chapter Two: The Great Gatsby

2.1 Meaning of the title

2.2 Setting

2.3 Plot

2.4 Themes

2.5 Symbols

2.6 Motifs

2.7 Characters

Chapter three: The American Dream

3.1 Vision upon The American Dream

3.2 The Great Gatsby by Francis Scott Fitzgerald and the American Dream

Conclusions

Works Cited

Bibliography

Covers of the movie adaptations of the novel

Foreword

In the following paper I will talk about the novel The Great Gatsby by Francis Scott Fitzgerald and about the American Dream presented by the author in the novel and about my perception about the American Dream.

Even if in the period of the twenties and thirties, Fitzgerald didn’t attracted many attention upon his work, nowadays they are very important in literature and they are included in every schools bibliography around the world.

My paper consists in three main chapters. In the first chapter I will focus on Francis Scott Fitzgerald regarding highlights from his life and work; the second chapter is about the novel The Great Gatsby and the analysis of the novel, the themes, motifs, symbols and the characters that helped at the development of the novel. The last but not the lest, in chapter three it is provided a comparison between the American Dream presented in the novel and my personal opinion and view on the American Dream.

Francis Scott Fitzgerald provided with the novel The Great Gatsby one of the most important novels of the the twentieth century. In his novel Fitzgerald is presenting us the life of Jay Gatsby, Nick Caraway , Tom Buchanan, Myrtle Wilson and Jordan. But he concentrates more on the life of Jay Gatsby and all his struggling’s trough his life just to conquer Daisy’s heart. The writer is presenting us trough Jay the way how a person can fulfil his American Dream.

There are various movie adaptations of the novel. The film adaptations are very helpful for the readers because after watching the movie they can imagine the period from the 1920’ and 1930’s with extravagant parties and a life without any worries. Although there are differences between the novel and the film, all the adaptations play an important role in the transmitting the vibe of the parties and life of that period.

Chapter One

Francis Scott Fitzgerald – Highlights of his life and work

1.1 Francis Scott Fitzgerald – Life and work

Twenty years after his death F. Scott Fitzgerald, in his life and in his writing, is almost as fascinating to his audience as he was in the 1920’s. Once again, he defines the Jazz Age. If his readers are far away from the actuality of that time, they are close to the myth, exposed repeatedly to recreations of its songs and styles, its stock figures and its stock excitement’s, its partying and its violence (Kenneth Eble, Preface, F. Scott Fitzgerald).

When Scott wrote the phrase

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past (Fitzgerald,193).

the world was in 1925 the year of grace. The Earth was ravaged by the passage of the First World War and American was living on quicksand a combination of opulence, poverty and uncertainty, the same sands that had to bury it in the Great Depression of the 1930s.

The phrase from above, is the phrase that ended the Great Gatsby one of the finest novels ever written, it can be regarded as a miniature characterization of the author. In that year, Fitzgerald’s look was turned towards the past. While the world looked forward and seek solutions to economic recovery and the pride of victory over Germany was still at its peak, Fitzgerald seemed hopelessly stuck in a romantic past, built on the game of colors and shades, like a painting from another century. The quote above is in fact is the characterization of the enigmatic destiny of this character whose life seems a long string of setbacks, the Sisyphean labors and terrible disappointments, periodically supplemented by a burst of genius that throw in oblivion the whole literary world of the time.

Seen from distance, as in a spyglass, Fitzgerald's life has all the ingredients of a Hollywood movie: financial problems, depression, illness, an extremely tumultuous affair, alcoholism. As evidence is that, although highly praised by literary critics, Fitzgerald never had the success of the public of a Hemingway or a Salinger. Even his most important novel, The Great Gatsby was received after publication, rather reluctantly, and with a slight cold. When Fitzgerald died in 1940, was almost forgotten. His obituary from The New York Times noted his great novel as evidence of the talent he had, but the talent that it would never fulfill. Today, the book is considered a masterpiece and placed in the key mandatory reading at all high schools in the world. Somehow, only time has managed to do justice.

Scott Fitzgerald was born on September 24, 1896, in Saint Paul, Minnesota (USA), in a middle class Irish Catholic family.

Over the years, Fitzgerald wrote:

My mother lost two other children, three months before I was born. I think that’s when I became a writer.

The future writer spent the first decade of his childhood in Buffalo, New York, permuted among various Catholic schools at the request of parents, both devout practitioners. The child portrait of Fitzgerald briefly outlines the image of a boy with an above average intelligence and a strong interest in literature.

When his father was fired by the company Procter & Gamble in 1908, the whole family returned to Minnesota, where Fitzgerald attended the St. Paul academy. At 13, he saw his first writing published in a local newspaper: a detective short story. After he finished high school, he chose New Jersey and Princeton University courses. He came here with one purpose, to devote his full time, to develop his technique and to become a writer. The new autodidact program seriously interfered with the curriculum. In 1917 he was temporarily suspended from school.

Disappointed, Scott leaves school and joins the U.S. Army troops. Frightened by the idea that he might die in the World War without seeing his literary dreams realized, Fitzgerald writes, in the weeks before enrollment, an entire novel, The Romantic egotistical. Although the manuscript is rejected by the publisher, he is encouraged with a letter sent by the publisher to continue to write.

Fitzgerald is appointed lieutenant of infantry and sent to Camp Sheridan, two steps from the town of Montgomery in Alabama. Here, one evening, while going with colleagues in a bar, he meets Zelda Sayre, the daughter of an Alabama Supreme Court judge. The writer named her the golden girl (No – golden girl). The war ended in 1918, before Scott was sent to the front.

The writer moved to New York, desperate to get a job to assure Zelda that he has financial means to maintain her. He is hired at a press agency, Barron Collier. He proposes to her muse, and she accepts. In a few months, however, the financial problems of Fitzgerald's blow up all the plans of the two youngsters. Scott return to his parent’s home, where he reviews The Romantic Egoist, renamed This Side of Paradise, working in parallel as a car mechanic. Finally, the novel is published and Zelda and Scott resume their covenants. Marriage takes place in New York on March 26, 1920. A year later was born the only child of the couple, Frances Scott Scottie Fitzgerald.

In the next decade, the Fitzgerald husbands spend their majority time in Paris, the place where an entire generation of American writers developed their activity. It would be the most important period of Fitzgerald’s career. Here, in Paris he became friend with Ernest Hemingway, in a friendship relationship that would turn to be a very strong one. Hemingway disregarded Zelda, he called her crazy, accusing her that she pushes her husband to drink, to distract him from writing his great novels, in place of the easy stories, destined for the American magazines, for certain amounts of money.

The stories for a source of living weren’t a technique invented by Fitzgerald. All of the American writers of that period were using it, but the slow rhythm in which his major works were going, comparatively with the stories sent every month in America, made Hemingway accuse his friend of prostitution. Because Scott announced that he will no longer write easy stories destined for American magazines, for certain amounts of money.

During this uncertain climate, Fitzgerald would send in 1925 the manuscript of what today is known as The Great Gatsby. The novel was received with chronic rather warm and with an easy reticence, a fact which emphasized the depression and the uncertainty of the writer. Beside, at his death, a few people from America where still mentioning his name. The posthumously luck came during the World War II, when the House Armed Services publishing decided to distribute 150.000 copies of the novel for the soldiers, opening the road for Fitzgerald to a new generation of readers and the posthumous adulation.

The most pain full thing came in 1930, when Zelda was diagnosed with schizophrenia. From that point the emotional health of Zelda would be an extremely poor one, until the end of his life. After the hospitalization of Zelda, in 1932, Scott withdraws in Baltimore and he resumes his work on the new novel, a love story between a psychiatrist and a patient of his. In many ways the relationship between the two of them eased like the relationship between the Fitzgerald husbands: alcoholism, the unfulfillment of dreams and emotional blackmail. The book was published in 1943, under the title Tender is the night. The critics, the ones that waited nine yeas for a dignified outcome of The Great Gatsby, they destroyed the book, naming it a joke. Just like the last novel Tender is the night is considered today a masterpiece.

In 1927 Fitzgerald moved to Hollywood, were he will obtain the biggest annual salary from his entire life: 29,757 dollars. Beside the short stories, Scott began to write movie scripts, a job that he considered very degrading, but he followed it because of financial reasons. In parallel, he began the work at what it will become his last novel named The Love of the Last Tycoon.

At this moment his health and the relationship with Zelda were in chaos. Fitzgerald accepted that he transformed into an alcoholic, and Zelda was still further hospitalized in different psychiatric hospitals. Fitzgerald starts a new relationship with a journalist named Sheila Graham. In one year he wrote 17 short stories, joined after in a short stories collection named The Pat Hobby Stories, in which he was self quizzing his life in Hollywood, becoming a character. The short stories were published in The Esquire magazine and they were very well received by the critics of that time.

At the end of the 1930’s, his problem with alcoholism entered the pathological area. The author started to invent diseases, tuberculosis for example just to justify his Bacchus escapades. At the end of the 30’s, Scott suffered from two heart failures, his doctor advice him to stop drinking and to make a pause from writing. He moved near the apartment house of his new girlfriend, Sheila Graham, in Hollywood. In the night of 20 December 1940, after he was at the movie premier of This Thing Called Love, Fitzgerald suddenly fainted, finding him self unable to get up from the cinema seat. He told to his girlfriend looking upset towards the others and saying: Everybody thinks that I’m drunk, isn’t it?

The next day, after he eaten a chocolate bar and taking notes in his notebook, his girlfriend saw him suddenly get up trying to reach his coat and collapsing. The doctors dd near the apartment house of his new girlfriend, Sheila Graham, in Hollywood. In the night of 20 December 1940, after he was at the movie premier of This Thing Called Love, Fitzgerald suddenly fainted, finding him self unable to get up from the cinema seat. He told to his girlfriend looking upset towards the others and saying: Everybody thinks that I’m drunk, isn’t it?

The next day, after he eaten a chocolate bar and taking notes in his notebook, his girlfriend saw him suddenly get up trying to reach his coat and collapsing. The doctors diagnose was hat failure. Fitzgerald was buried in Rockville, Maryland. At the ceremony attended less then twenty persons, including his daughter (who already turned 19 years) and his former editor. Zelda died in 1948, in a fire that had place at the Highland Mental Hospital. His last manuscript The Love of the Last Tycoon, was published in 1941 and was immediately compared with The Great Gatsby.

1.2 Highlights of his work

Francis Scott Fitzgerald wrote about things that were quite common in his life, such as the opulence of the 1920’s, the superficial society from that period, the extravagant parties and the problems that came along with the extreme way of living in that period. In his novels he talks about things that were meaningful for him and the society he was living in. For example he wrote about the need of money, the drinking problems, the problems that couples encountered in their relationships and about how hard is to find happiness and to have a happy life alongside your family.

Fitzgerald’s novel had a very strong relevance with the time of his experience, a lot of things were related with his life and with the Jazz Age.

However people from that period considered his work not very important, but along time he became the most important writer from the Jazz Age, and he is the one that showed best the life from that era.

1.3 The Jazz Age

Welcome to the exceptional 1920’s, the Jazz Age. A period of time in which the beliefs and the purity of the past generations and passive behaviors, were put aside to create space for the changes that America was going to suffer. The changes that happened were the permission for women to vote, luxurious parties and where happiness and excitement were to be found in every corner because the war was over, this period is also characterized as a period of new aged philosophies and of liberal prosperity. This period was considered the Lost Generation period, but from this era a great writer was born. Francis Scott Fitzgerald. This wonderful, special and glorious Jazz Age as Scott himself said, was an age of miracles, and age of art, an age of excess, and it was an age of satire (Echoes of the Jazz Age, F. Scott Fitzgerald).

After the First World War was over in 1918, the society of America suffered a very bold period of cultural and economic miracles. What was at some point a country full of mess and despair had a very quick rising into prosperity, power and wealth. Along side these extreme changes, a very big transformation of the American way of living came on. The most famous novel of Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby captured very well the evolution with the representation of the West Egg and the East Egg.

This new Americans insolent generations also lead a fresh new vision upon society and culture. America’s hunger for amusement amplified, a lot of young musicians, artists and actors answered to the call of these very bright and colorful forms of delight. The brilliant age of art had begun and in many cities around the country like Chicago and New York the charisma and charm of the jazz music became the most important choice for the luxurious parties and for dancing.

The Jazz Age was actually a period of superficial prosperity, the truth that we know about today. Although, back then a lot of Americans thought that this glorious period of time will last forever. Along the 1920’s, the economy of U.S.A had a dramatic boost and it was known as the age of excess. The American’s way of living changed at 180 degrees, in that time America had over 40% of the entire world’s wealth.

At some point Fitzgerald said that the Jazz Age is an age of satire, this words turned to be true. Bellow the extravaganza and the elegance of the Jazz Age was stretching an era of illegal businesses, double standards and troubled relationships.

The most obvious way in which the Jazz Age had a very important influence in Fitzgerald’s life is especially in his writings and in his life to.

Written in 1925, The Great Gatsby is one of the most important novels of the Jazz Age, a decade which tried to compensate with luxurious parties and extravagant lifestyle for the chaos the World War I has brought upon America. Within its narrative it provides a critical social history of the 1920’s America, the Roaring Twenties, characterized by extravagance, luxurious private parties, a time in which the economy soared, bringing higher levels of prosperity to the nation. Unfortunately the seemingly endless parties lasted only until the stock market crash in 1928 and the Jazz Age gave place to the Great Depression.

We can see the influence of the Jazz Age in his writings especially in the novel The Great Gatsby. The luxurious parties, the differences between the east egg and the west egg, the illegal businesses of Jay Gatsby, the way in which Daisy and Tom Buchanan used their social status and money to manipulate and ease their troubles but this was the way that every person from east egg society used their money and social status. The parties that Jay threw every Saturday with plenty of food and drink, good music and good people just to demonstrate that he is just as good as the ones from the East Egg.

The influence form his life was in his drinking and partying and not carrying about the next and in the way that he wrote just to have enough money to live from one day to another.

Chapter Two

The Great Gatsby

2.1 Meaning of the title

Before you start reading the novel The Great Gatsby, the meaning of the word great is ambiguous and it refers to the thing that Jay Gatsby is a wonderful person, or it may imply that he is great in the sense that he has bad luck. Just after you finished reading the entire novel you may be able to catch on the ironic title on the novel and that many of the themes, characters, motifs and the setting of the novel helped to develop Jay Gatsby’s great character.

Although the narrator of the novel is Nick Carraway, the title puts the multimillionaire Jay Gatsby in the spotlight, as if Nick’s only purpose is to tell us about him. The definite article the highlights his importance: he is not A Gatsby, but rather THE one! The adjective great can be read in many ways. First, it can have a positive connotation, meaning that Gatsby is a kind, generous and loving person, with a great heart, his impressive quest for Daisy, the hospitality he shows towards every guest make us forget about his shady past and love him for his great heart. Secondly, the adjective great talks about his status: he is a wealthy local celebrity, who hosts stunning parties, who is known by everyone (even the police) and is gossiped everywhere. Thirdly, it can have an ironic touch: Gatsby is nothing else than a cheater, a bootlegger who has risen to the top in a dishonest way. And like it wasn’t complicated enough, the name (Jay) Gatsby is a false name: James Gatz changed his real name when he met with his mentor-to-be Dan Cody; since he has presented himself under this alter-ego for which

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 (Fitzgerald, 105).

The title is clever: instead of exposing the main character, it presents us the side everyone knows about him, the great businessman Gatsby, and lets us find out more about his mysterious life.

Irony is the mane key that Francis Scott Fitzgerald used for the readers to understand the title of the novel The Great Gatsby. These happenings and themes from the novel seem to take in derision the greatness of Jay Gatsby’s. Many of these can be taken at the level of society and this things imply in general also their account. Jay is the symbol of the dream of becoming rich and of state idealism that the society from that period had and from when the novel was published. His life is the ideally reckless showed trough greed, thirst of money and fame, carelessness. This features show two very different meanings of the title of the book.

The first meaning that the social values from that period were awful and desperate and by this meanings he brought the brilliance of the tragedy. The second one has a more sarcastic meaning, Fitzgerald tried to show to the audience how great was the great Gatsby with irony. One of the most ironic things is that even he had much wealth and fame he didn’t stopped doing illegal business and didn’t stopped from giving various parties just to get the attention of married woman when out there where hundred of women dying to get his attention and to see him.

The biggest irony of the novel’s title is that it can be derived trough the analysis of the greatness of Jay: a moral fiasco is that he is successful just in the eyes of the others but he only being a downfallen of the individuals of society and being extremely lonely and abandoned.

2.2 Setting

The place and time where the novel The Great Gatsby takes place is in New York City of the 1920’s. The city is associated both in real life and in the novel with high social status, big illegal businesses, wealth, luxurious parties and finance.

The setting from the novel The Great Gatsby is very important and significant because it shows the lifestyle, attitudes and values of that period of time. One example is the West Egg and the residents from there representing the noveau riche, showing that they are normal and average people that just recently become wealthy. Since they acquired a new social status and wealth it doesn’t change their personality they are just as normal and with the same personality as they where before.

However, the inhabitants of the East Egg are displaying that they come from very old families with money, status and class from very long generations. Because of this reason the East Egg residents are looking upon with pride at the inhabitants from West Egg.

Yet the inhabitants from both the Eggs are greedy, obsessed with material things and money and they are equally shallow. This things are showing the attitude of the 1920’s and where the wealth and love took place over the moral standards and personal values. In this period from the American history, people were interested only in living their life, partying, money and having a good time.

In the novel The Great Gatsby is a very strong connection between social values and the geographical location, The Valley of Ashes, West Egg and East Egg are a very good example of that. This discrepancy are obvious in characters like Tom and Daisy Buchanan (East Egg), George and Myrtle Wilson (the Valley of Ashes), Jay Gatsby (West Egg). Even if the two Eggs are separated only by a small amount of water, the difference between the people from this two places are the new money that represents the families with a strong descent in aristocracy with very refined manners and the old money. The inhabitants from the East Egg are used with large amounts of money and they were spoiled from their childhood, just like Daisy Buchanan, Nick’s cousin that was spoiled with the gentlemen’s attitude towards her. In most part the best representatives of this region are Tom and Daisy Buchanan.

Whereas the West Egg is the place and home of those who got rich quick by illegal businesses and affairs, Jay is the most important representative of the ones that are pretending that have a correspondence with the people that come from the aristocracy. The East and West Egg guests are not very communicative, they only communicate and interact with each other only if they are in need and if they are not with those with who they came at the party. Fitzgerald describes Jay’s very luxurious car in the way that everybody should recognize the layer and place of society from where he came.

Later on the author gives a look upon the modest way of living of the people from the Valley of Ashes, their cars and modest houses. The Valley of Ashes is situated between the two Eggs and is the place where the poor live and is the place created by the throwing if industrial ashes. A very good example from the Valley of Ashes is the family of Wilson and Myrtle Wilson that is poor, Wilson is just a simple mechanic with a simple service station that doesn’t produce a big amount of money. In the Valley of Ashes the life of the inhabitants is blended with a very strong poverty.

2.3 Plot

The narrator of The Great Gatsby is Nick Carraway, who tells Gatsby’s story after returning to the West, wishing that he will never

When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart… (Fitzgerald, 4).

Everything he learns about the eponymous character is fed to the reader bit by bit: first the gossips about him, then Jay’s version of the story, and finally the reality. The first person narration as Dalton and Mary Jean Gross mentions, brings up the question whether the author wishes us to accept Nick’s point of view, his judgments, or not. The answer is yes. We find Nick to be an honest young man

Every one suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known (Fitzgerald, 65).

and his opinions about the characters are accurate. He is intelligent and non-judgmental, so people trust him and we get to learn about their background. Yet sometimes Nick has a foggy memory or because consuming alcohol, or because he has been alienated by others, left alone without a family, without a goal in life. The single, authoritative, omniscient point of view is rejected in favor of a narrative focalized through the consciousness of Nick, who’s vantage point is narrowed. He is not the objective narrator of the realist novels, who knows in advance the background, thoughts, wishes of the characters, but the subjective, limited modernist storyteller, who gets to know his partners as the novel evolves.

The story starts with Nick, a young man from Minnesota, renting a house in Long Island’s wealthy West Egg district, next to the titular character’s humongous mansion. We find out that Gatsby is a mysterious man who gazes at a green light across the bay. One evening Nick meets for dinner with his cousin, Daisy, and her husband, Tom Buchanan, at their house in the elite East Egg. Here he meets Jordan Baker, a beautiful young woman, golf-champion, with whom she falls in love with (later he tells he is more curious than in love) and starts a romantic relationship. Also we get to know about Tom’s mistress, Myrtle Wilson, whom Nick later meets when traveling to New York with Tom. Getting upset because of Myrtle whining about Daisy, Tom breaks her nose.

One day Nick gets invited to his mysterious neighbor’s party where the two meet for the first time and Nick is surprised how young and good-looking Gatsby is. Later Nick finds out from Jordan that Gatsby met with Daisy in 1917, fell in love with her and his extravagant lifestyle is only an attempt to win her back. Being asked, Nick arranges an “accidental” meeting between the two at his house which ends with them reestablishing their connection.

We find out more about the mystery-man: Gatsby grew up in a poor family and changed his name at the age of seventeen from James Gatz to Jay Gatsby when he met the wealthy Dan Cody, who took him under his arms; after Cody’s sudden death Gatsby inherited $25k, a little chunk of the millions’ the old man had.

After finding out about their affair, Tom confronts Gatsby at the Plaza Hotel and tells his wife about Gatsby’s notorious background. Daisy realizes that she cannot break up with Tom and goes home to East Egg with Gatsby. In the way home, Nick, Jordan and Tom discover that Myrtle has been ran over by Gatsby’s yellow car. Gatsby wants to take the blame for the murder although Daisy was the one driving the car. George, Myrtle’s husband, suspecting that the multimillionaire was his wife’s lover and later on her murderer, shoots Gatsby and commits suicide. Nick arranges the funeral, breaks up with Jordan, finds out that Tom told George that Gatsby ran over her wife and moves back to the Midwest to tell us the story of Jay The Great Gatsby.

2.4 Themes

The surface theme of the novel is love, the force that drives Gatsby on his suicidal quest and the one that leads Wilson to take revenge for his dead wife. We are presented to many couples: Jay – Daisy, Tom – Daisy, Tom – Myrtle, Wilson – Myrtle, Nick – Jordan. Which of these is a happy one? Neither. Pure, fulfilled love is impossible in a world where money corrupts people. Even Nick’s feelings for Jordan change from love to curiosity then to disinterest. The only genuine love we encounter is that of George’s. Gatsby’s love, although powerful, is not for Daisy, but for the woman on a pedestal that took shape in his mind during those five years he has been yearning for Daisy. Tom the womanizer Buchanan probably enjoys the sexual act but is incapable of caring for the feelings of his women.

A more subtle theme is hidden beneath this one: the differences between the classes. From the beginning of the story we find out that even if little, there is a difference between the newly rich living on West Egg and the elite society from the East Egg. Money does not buy you the family background needed to be an East Egger and the American dream Gatsby tries to live is impossible: you cannot jump from one class to the other, and you cannot have a relationship with someone from another class. It is interesting how there is no direct conflict between two people from the same social class (Tom and Gatsby are not from the same social class) and the two murders happen between two classes: Daisy runs Myrtle over, Wilson shoots Gatsby. The only element found in every social class is unhappiness; everyone is equally sad in the novel.

The superficiality of the upper class is also a predominant theme. The newly rich people are vulgar, flashy, ostentatious and tasteless, while the aristocratic East Eggers are elegant and gracious. The multitude of colors used to depict Gatsby’s parties as well as the ostentatious way his guest dress are in contrast with the Buchanan’s simplicity and taste for beautiful. However, the aristocratic elite lacks the vitality of the others, they prefer to stay in their mansion alone than to attend one of the parties (with only a few exceptions). They are also more careless, used to giving orders and expecting them to be executed immediately, while Jay born in poverty Gatsby, has a golden heart.

As we have already stated above luxury is everywhere in The Great Gatsby: the interiors of the houses, the sumptuousness, people’s cloths and drinks, all are marked by luxury and depict the life of many wealthy people:

There was music from my neighbor’s house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and he champagne and the stars. At high tide in the afternoon I watched his guests diving from the tower of his raft, or taking the sun on the hot sand of his beach while his motor- boats slid the waters of the Sound, drawing aquaplanes over cataracts of foam. On week-ends his Rolls-Royce became an omnibus, bearing parties to and from the city between nine in the morning and long past midnight, while his station wagon scampered like a brisk yellow bug to meet all trains. And on Mondays eight servants, including an extra gardener, toiled all day with mops and scrubbing-brushes and hammers and garden-shears, repairing the ravages of the night before (Fitzgerald, 43).

Thus, in my opinion, it is but a false image of a society that is constantly lying to itself. It is all artificial, shallow, lacking in content.

Linked to this or as a result if it, another theme is the lack of character. This theme can be found in the characters: Tom Buchanan and Daisy, because Daisy commits crime and she does not feel guilty about it. And even if she knows that the Great Gatsby is suffering, she does not care and she continues her plain life. She is a self-sufficient woman and the words stated by her proves this:

What’ll we do with ourselves this afternoon,’ cried Daisy, ‘and the day after that, and the next thirty years?’ ‘Don’t be morbid,’ Jordan said. ‘Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.’ ‘But it’s so hot,’ insisted Daisy, on the verge of tears, ‘And everything’s so confused. Let’s all go to town!’

Her voice struggled on through the heat, beating against it, moulding its senselessness into forms (Fitzgerald, 126).

An important role is played in the novel by society. There are two societies constructed in antithesis. The society is presented in connection to racism, material goods, the darker side or face of the ”Jazz Age”, a world of abuse, of too much, of dangerous addictions, marked by lack of religious awareness, lack of axiology and lack of humanity.

In some ways, Scott wrote about gender roles in a very rich manner. In the novel men are presented in way that they work to earn money just to make provisions for their women. Men dominate women, just like in Tom’s case who demonstrates trough his physical strength that he is the one in charge. The only relationship that is contrast with the others is of Nick Carraway and Jordan. Just her name symbolizes that he is cool and that she has a very masculine style beside the other women from the novel. But in the end Nick is more dominant by ending the relationship with her. The women from the novel The Great Gatsby are a very interesting group, because they are not like the traditional groups women that are taking care of their families even if they are not working to get money and they are not that pure as they like to induce. The most obviously sensual women from the novel is Myrtle who is poor but she is happy because she is loved and she loves, from this things she is more pure than Jordan and Daisy who are wearing white to shown their brightness but this thing only highlights their corruption and impurity.

Violence seems to a be a very big theme in the novel The Great Gatsby and the character that shows these better is Tom Buchanan. He is an ex-football player that uses his huge physical strength to intimidate the persons that surrounds him. When his mistress Myrtle takes his wife name in derision, he slaps her. In that time when The Great Gatsby was published, Fitzgerald used the cars to show the dangers of the new era and the dangers of wealth. The apogee of the novel that shows violence is the accident that kills Myrtle, showed in the discussion between Jordan and Nick that are explaining how a violent and bad driving can show a very explosive violence. The end of the novel shows again a very violent way to die. The murder with a handgun suggests that Jay had a very shady past, but it is symbolic in his love affair not in his illegal business life, and his love affair kills him in the end not the businesses.

Decay is a word that appears constantly in the novel, this word is very appropriate word in the novel because is showing the death of the American Dream. The decay is very obvious in the Valley of Ashes. With a very strong virtuosity, Scott describes the Valley of Ashes like a place forgotten by God, a wasteland that probably has very little to do with New York and the inhabitants of the East and West Egg, this description shows the downfall of the American society from what it will be on the period that will come with The Great Depression.

Another thing with what Fitzgerald shows decay is trough Tom, a man that is put in a very negative light and his beliefs that only the white people have wrights and black people should still be slaves and servants. Fitzgerald’s conclusion is that society seems to have already decayed and that society needs a new turning.

2.5 Symbols

The novel Great Gatsby has a lot of symbols, many of them are used for representing a lot of different things, some of them are representing the novel. The colors that Fitzgerald is using in the novel in a special way are the colors green, yellow, white, grey, every one of these colors have a special meaning, a different meaning from what we know in the day to day life.

The color white appears a lot of time trough the novel, at first it is used for describing Daisy Buchanan. Nick Carraway mentions that when he first sees Daisy in East Egg, she was wearing a white dress, this color represent her, and she even says that white is “her” color. All of her clothes are white, her car is white and she even speaks about her “white childhood”. The white color represents her innocence, purity, her undisturbed self. But not always “white” is as innocence as it seems to appear. When Jay Gatsby takes Nick for a ride in his car and he is stopped by a policeman, Jay shows to the officer a white card, and the card immediately excuses himself. Jay makes Nick think that the card was a simple Christmas card at first sent to him by the commissioner, but later we find out that Gatsby paid off the officer. So in contrast with the innocence of Daisy represented by the white color Fitzgerald shows us that can represent corruption to.

This color can be also related to Tom Buchanan, Daisy’s husband, ho is the perfect example of a racist man. He is very anxious about a book that he has recently read called The Rise of the Colored Empire and he believes that all the black people should disappear. Tom believes that the white people is a superior race, so the colors black and white are used to show to people how racism affected the high classes from that time. While riding in Jay’s car, Nick’s attention is captured by a white limousine driven by a white chauffer and ridden by black passengers that are members of the high society. This scene shows how black people fought to conquer or attend their so called “American Dream”, which in that period was even more difficult for them being former slaves than for white ones.

The symbolical green light shining at the end of her dock makes Gatsby hope (green color – hope) that eventually all things will work out in their favor. When meeting her, his count of enchanted objects diminishe[s] by one (100) and the lamp becomes just a green light on the dock.

But, Tom the polo player Buchanan, seemed not to agree with their plan. Tom is the antihero of the story, whose presence gave the evening its peculiar quality of oppressiveness (111). He is the typical, arrogant rich-boy, who likes to mess with the poor people. Although he is unfaithful to her wife, he gets mad when realizing that Daisy is having an affair with the pink suited Gatsby. He confronts the multimillionaire not because he loves Daisy but because his ego and male pride were injured. He becomes suspicious about Gatsby and begins to make investigations of him. He crushes Jay’s dreams when exposing him in front of Daisy then lies insolently to Wilson – whose wife he has been sleeping with – leading to the death of the titular character. Unlike Gatsby, Tom was born with a silver-spoon in his mouth and inherited not only the wealth but the feeling of being superior to everyone.

His relationship with Daisy is symbolical for the whole society. He talks about his escapades as if something normal but cannot accept that he gets cuckolded. He disagrees with the idea that women party so much and is evidently perturbed at Daisy’s running around alone (111). On a larger level we can see that these infidelities can be found everywhere, couples fight and quarrel:

Most of the remaining women were now having fights with men said to be their husbands. Even Jordan’s party, the quartet from East Egg, were rent asunder by dissension (Fitzgerald, 56).

Modernist writers saw the decline of civilization instead of progress.

Yellow and blue are also very important colors in the novel. Gatsby’s car is yellow and Tom’s car is blue. If both of the cars had been black as they usually were in those times, Jay would have not been killed by George Wilson, so yellow, in some way lead to Gatsby’s death.

Another very important symbol in the novel are the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg on the billboard from the Valley of Ashes. The eyes are the most representative symbol of the spiritual values that America has lost. The billboard was made to promote and to make publicity for a photometrist from Queensborough.

The eyes of T.J are representing development of businesses in America, the life in America is all about making money and having relations with people who have money and class, the men’s power and success is measured in how much wealth and money he has no on what kind of person he is and what moral aspects he has an very good example is Tom Buchanan. Just like the moral aspects the billboard is neglected too.

But his eyes, dimmed a little by many paintless days under sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping ground (Fitzgerald, 26).

Beside the eyes are also symbolizing the corruption of people. Dr. T.J. Eckleburg eyes are staring down on the characters as they go underneath them on their way to New York where they have all kind of outrageous businesses and affairs. The eyes look like they are frowning at these characters, Wilson compares Dr. T.J. Eckleburg’s eyes with the eyes of God.

‘I spoke to her,’ he muttered, after a long silence. ‘I told her she might fool me but she couldn’t fool God. I took her to the window—’ With an effort he got up and walked to the rear window and leaned with his face pressed against it, ‘—and I said ‘God knows what you’ve been doing, everything you’ve been doing. You may fool me but you can’t fool God!’ (Fitzgerald, 170).

The eyes are representing the untruth of the American Dream. There is a wrong idea that if a person who comes from humble origins and has few money, with great work and if they are ready to take advantage of opportunities they will become rich. The frowning eyes of T.J looking down on the Valley of Ashes are suggesting that the American Dream is a very big lie. The American Dream was just for few persons, but for the majority is just a big fat lie.

Another symbol is the alcohol. Set in the prohibition era, the level of alcohol in The Great Gatsby is surprisingly high. People bought the booze illegally and drank to forget the present, to feel better, to get in the party mood. Only two characters are mentioned not to drink alcohol: Gatsby, who learned from Cody’s case, and Daisy, who managed to keep her reputation, Jordan philosophizes, because she never drinks.

2.6 Motifs

The story is set in New York City’s prosperous Long Island’s two peninsulas West Egg and East Egg (Great Neck and Port Washington in real life). The geography is an important motif in the novel. Places are associated with people, themes and ideas. The East (New York, Long island) is associated with a decadent lifestyle, immorality, decadence, while Nick’s hometown in the Midwest is associated with traditional moral values, purity. The difference between the two Eggs is not only geographical but also financial and one of class. The West Egg is

… well, the less fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them. My house was at the very tip of the egg, only fifty yards from the Sound, and squeezed between two huge places that rented for twelve or fifteen thousand a season (Fitzgerald, 7).

Nick states, where the newly rich people live, while the East Egg gives home to the wealthier and more elite society. The water separating the two peninsulas also draws a line which cannot be crossed: the access from one world into the other is impossible. This foreshadows Gatsby’s failure in his quest for his lost love. The impossibility of crossing is mentioned even by Nick at the end of the novel, when he says:

I see now that this has been a story of the West, after all—Tom and Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan and I, were all Westerners, and perhaps we possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life (Fitzgerald, 188).

Cheating represents a trivial quality of the characters life. The rich and wealthy have everything they want and don’t want but they are not happy. But cheating is not limited just at the wealthy class it is present in every social class out there. For example all the relationships in the novel have a purpose, like Tom’s with Myrtle he is having this affair only to satisfy his boredom and fastidiousness and to escape from his relationship from home.

‘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’(Fitzgerald, 138).

This statement of Tom is very hypocrite because he is cheating but he will see the moral aspects of family when his marriage is threatened. On the other side, Myrtle is using Tom just to escape from her life in poverty, her life from the Valley of Ashes and to use him to make her on path and to have an excessive life. Daisy is cheating on Tom just to captivate his attention because he is neglecting her most of the time, and in the end Jay wants Daisy just to complete his dream, but he doesn’t realize that he only wants Daisy for her beauty and for her image, for being the most beautiful girl that every man ever desired, he wants her just to be proud around his so called friends.

Cars seem to be a status of wealth in the novel, just like Gatsby, he has countless cars but one of them and the most important is a yellow Rolls – Royce .

I’d seen it. Everybody had seen it. It was a rich cream color, bright with nickel, swollen here and there in its monstrous length with triumphant hatboxes and supper-boxes and tool-boxes, and terraced with a labyrinth of windshields that mirrored a dozen suns. Sitting down behind many layers of glass in a sort of green leather conservatory we started to town (Fitzgerald, 69).

The most important reason for his car being yellow is to capture Daisy’s attention and to show his achievements and his wealthy status. There is a conflict in the materialistic view of car. The conflict begins when Myrtle is hit and killed by a car, this thing is a very good example of irony, because Myrtle thinks that the person who was driving the care was Tom, and Tom was her ticket out from the Valley of Ashes and to the living of a new good and wealthy life, in the end this desire is what kills her.

The parties that Gatsby throws are very extravagant just by the number of lights, the number of guests, the food and the very extravagant entertainment from there. The main reason Jay is giving this big and flashy parties is because he wants to catch Daisy’s attention either by hoping she sees from across the like the bright lights or by word of mouth. None of the guests from them seem to know who really is Jay Gatsby, some of them are inventing all kind of stories to explain his mystery, most of them are there to enjoy the glamour and the free liqueur and food. If we examine the people from the parties we can see very good the corruption. During Nick’s first attendance at one of Jay’s parties, he is making a very important observation.

I looked around. Most of the remaining women were now having fights with men said to be their husbands. Even Jordan’s party, the quartet from East Egg, were rent asunder by dissension. One of the men was talking with curious intensity to a young actress, and his wife after attempting to laugh at the situation in a dignified and indifferent way broke down entirely and resorted to flank attacks—at intervals she appeared suddenly at his side like an angry diamond, and hissed ‘You promised!’ into his ear.

The reluctance to go home was not confined to wayward men. The hall was at present occupied by two deplorably sober men and their highly indignant wives. The wives were sympathizing with each other in slightly raised voices (Fitzgerald, 56-57).

Beside at some point the guests from his parties are going just to show their social status and to enjoy what they have perceived, not a single person from the party is showing just a very poor curiosity in Jay’s character, this thing is revealed at the end of the novel when just a few persons are attending his funeral when there should have been at lest hundreds of people who attended the parties.

It is very ironic that the only purpose of Gatsby’s parties is just to capture Daisy’s attention and to show her that he is rich and he can offer her everything that she wants. At some point Daisy attends one of Jay’s parties but she is not impressed, she doesn’t feel like she belongs there because she is not used to this kind of life, this thing shows that she will never leave Tom for Jay because she is to used with the life that she has with him.

2.7 Characters

The main character of the story is the eponymous Jay Gatsby, a farm boy born in a poor family who in his imagination had never really accepted (105) his unsuccessful farm parents and always tried to escape from poverty, dreaming about the good life. When asked about his uprising, he lies to Nick, telling him that he is

… the son of some wealthy people in the middle-west—all dead now. I was brought up in America but educated at Oxford because all my ancestors have been educated there for many years. It is a family tradition’(Fitzgerald, 70).

But the ever-attentive Nick felt that he was lying because of the way he hurried the phrase educated at Oxford (70), swallowing it, choking on it. The reason for Gatsby’s dishonesty is mentioned by him later. Being ashamed of his provenience, Gatsby aspired for more than what he had and

A universe of ineffable gaudiness spun itself out in his brain while the clock ticked on the wash-stand and the moon soaked with wet light his tangled clothes upon the floor. Each night he added to the pattern of his fancies until drowsiness closed down upon some vivid scene with an oblivious embrace. For a while these reveries provided an outlet for his imagination; they were a satisfactory hint of the unreality of reality, a promise that the rock of the world was founded securely on a fairy’s wing (Fitzgerald, 106).

The plan he wrote on the last page of a book – that his father saved and later shared with Nick Carraway – proves that Jimmy not only believed in the American dream – that with hard work and determination, everyone can get on the top -, but “was also bound to get ahead” and make it happen.

The opportunity for a better life came in form of a yacht: at the age of 17 he reinvented himself, undressing the poor James Gatz and becoming Jay Gatsby, who

…borrowed a rowboat, pulled out to the TUOLOMEE, and informed Cody that a wind might catch him and break him up in half an hour (Fitzgerald, 105).

He was taken under the arms of the businessman and worked for him as steward, mate, skipper, secretary, and even jailor (107) and learned how to act and talk as a gentleman. After Cody died, and Jay was left penniless by his mentor’s family, he enrolled in the army, earning many medals and recognitions. During these years he fell in love with the 17 years old Daisy, who instantly became the center of his universe. After returning home from the war, he finds out that Daisy has married Tom Buchanan. But Gatsby does not give in, and a new dream takes contour in his mind: winning the love of his life back.

Motivated by this noble dream, he makes a fortune from bootlegging and other illegal activities with the help of Meyer Wolfsheim, who calls him a handsome and perfect gentleman ,

… a man of fine breeding after I talked with him an hour. I said to myself: ‘There’s the kind of man you’d like to take home and introduce to your mother and sister’(Fitzgerald, 78).

He doesn’t even think about the morality of the business, but rather concentrates on the goal. The newly rich Gatsby moves to West egg, right across the bay to Daisy where

He had waited five years and bought a mansion where he dispensed starlight to casual moths so that he could ‘come over’ some afternoon to a stranger’s garden (Fitzgerald, 85).

hoping hat one day she drops by. Seeing that this plan doesn’t work, makes him rethink his strategy and ask for help in a very cautious way, by asking Jordan to ask Nick to ask Daisy to come over to Nick’s place – the meeting happens in a neutral territory. The preparations for the meeting are carried out meticulously, proving how perfectionist Gatsby is: he gets the grass cut and the yard arranged, buys flowers, tea and cake, dresses elegantly in

a white flannel suit, silver shirt and gold-colored tie (90) – he even checks the weather, quoting from the Journal magazine that the rain would stop about four (90). The long-awaited meeting takes Jay through three phases: embarrassment, unreasonable joy and doubt, each of these lived intensely.

Feeling that his plans are working out well, Jay gives up the lifestyle he has enjoyed earlier, putting a halt to the parties and enjoying the presence of Daisy, for whom he had fought so much. New plans take shape in his head: in order to live happily ever after with Daisy, she must admit that she never loved his husband and so erase the past and make space for a Tom-free future. But just as a house built on bad foundation, Gatsby’s American dream collapses. When Tom exposes him in front of Daisy, telling her about his notorious background, Daisy realizes that a life with Gatsby would be impossible, Gatsby panics and feels lost again. What is his life worth if Daisy doesn’t want to be part of it?

Deserted, exposed and heart-broken, Gatsby still continues the fight and wants to take the blame for Myrtle’s death. He confesses to Nick, telling him about his uprising, clearing his conscience before death. They’re a rotten crowd. You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together (164), says Nick before leaving him. His death is the last piece of domino of a long row of actions and wrong decisions: Gatsby becomes the scapegoat for all the problems caused by the rich people.

The delayed revelation of Gatsby, we meet him for the first time in the 3rd chapter, builds up the tension in the reader and shrouds the eponymous character in the thick mist of gossips that precedes him. He is a theatrical character, who reinvented himself and transformed his dreams into reality. But no matter how hard he tries, he can’t hide his background and Fitzgerald drops a few clues throughout the novel from which we can find out that Gatsby isn’t as great as people think he is. First of all, he lives in West Egg, “the least fashionable of the two” Eggs; his social status is lower than that of Daisy’s, meaning that the fulfillment of love between the two can never happen. Secondly his way of speaking, his catchphrase “old sport”, which annoys Tom Buchanan, gives him away, and it sounds like he practiced to speak the language of the elite instead of being born with it. Thirdly, he gets a few suspicious calls from Chicago, Philadelphia and many of his business partners. Also his relation with Meyer Wolfsheim and the peculiar incident at the diner is dubious too and makes the reader ask himself about Gatsby’s good reputation because we are as uninformed as the characters regarding Gatsby’s source of income – whenever asked about his work, he gives vague answers or switches subject. In the end, when Tom exposes him, he feels his loss but still naively hopes in the realization of his dreams.

It is interesting how Fitzgerald deconstructs Gatsby. The first contact with him are the rumors about his luxurious lifestyle, his astonishing parties. We assume that he is an intelligent, snob gentleman (like Tom Buchanan) and are as surprised as Nick when we find out how young and direct Gatsby is. After having met him half a dozen times (69), the mysteries surrounding him are solved one by one and his greatness had gradually faded and he had become simply the proprietor of an elaborate road-house next (69-70) to Nick. Gatsby has his weaknesses that brings him closer to us, transforms him into one of us: he is afraid of engaging a conversation with Daisy, acting like a little boy (94), lies to Nick about his past, has a criminal background, isn’t as intelligent as he appears to be and goes through sudden changes of state. An even so, we love him because we can empathize with him. Despite all his these flaws, Gatsby is a great person, the type who never gives up on his dreams. His endless unconditional love for Daisy – the woman he put on a pedestal and whose image he worshipped – pushes him towards his sometimes seemingly pointless and infeasible goals, even when Jay The Great Gatsby broke up like glass against Tom’s hard malice (158). Gatsby is a modern character, he’s image cannot be contoured as of a Dickens character, because he is ambiguous and multiple – he is neither Jay nor Jimmy, but the two in one: the young dreamer and lover and the self-confident businessman.

The other characters we encounter in the novel are the brushes used by Fitzgerald to depict Gatsby. They are the author’s eyes, ears and mouth. The choice for Nick as narrator seems obvious: he is a trustworthy person, the cousin of Gatsby’s love and the only character who befriends him. Blessed with sharp eyes and good observation skill, he soon learns a lot about everyone. We find out about Myrtle’s, Jordan’s, Tom’s, Jay’s background because people trust him enough to share it with him.

Representing the beautiful young woman of the 1920’s, Daisy. Unsurprisingly she was by far the most popular of all the young girls in Louisville (80), courted by many officers. The young Jay Gatsby, as Jordan mentions, looked at her in a way that every young girl wants to be looked at sometime (81). After saying good-by to a soldier who was going overseas (81), she married Tom Buchanan and so forced Gatsby on his journey to winning her back. During the 5 years spent separated, her image grew larger than her, making her incapable of competing with the vitality of the Daisy Gatsby has created.Her only trump card is her voice which

… held [Gatsby] most, with its fluctuating, feverish warmth, because it couldn’t be over-dreamed – the voice was a deathless song (Fitzgerald, 103).

The way she walked around Gatsby’s huge house made him

… revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from her well-loved eyes” (Fitzgerald, 98).

Chapter three

The American Dream

3.1 Vision upon The American Dream

What is and what represents today the American Dream? The concept of American Dream is a kind of morality followed by millions of people who are trying to make a name for them.

I personally think that a short definition of the American Dream can be the saying from rags to riches. The American Dream is considered to be a steady home, a happy and healthy family and a very good paid job. A lot of people from all around the world are dreaming about this things and they are using all their opportunities in their way to achieve it.

A more sophisticated definition of the American Dream was given by the American Constitution: Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happines.

The question arises then – with this definition, whether this ‘dream’ is only – or so specifically American. Is there not a Romanian Dream or a Russian Dream?

The American Dream has a very important influence in the life of people because we can see it in books, movies, in T.V commercials, at the news, news papers, magazines, etc. And once again a very good example of the influence of the American Dream is among the students who during they’re years at the University can apply for a visa to go to U.S.A for a period of three months to fulfill their American Dream.

I think that in many cases we are fooled about these dream, because we are trying to imagine an illusion showed to us in movies and books about the way of living that people around there have and if we manage to get there these illusion is shattered because is hard for an immigrant to get to the achieving’s that an American inhabitant has. I don’t say that you can’t achieve as many things as they do, yes you can but through many work and many sacrifices.

The American Dream has his origins from the Old War. In the Revolutionary War many of the America’s resources were unclaimed and undiscovered, this things allowed people to make fortune in a very short time and with few efforts by investing in industry or land. The accession of the Industrial Revolution defined the wealth in the land and minerals.

Many of the west Europeans emigrated to America to escape the famines and all the abominations. They all wanted to find financial security and the freedom that they all heard about that exist in America.

In the twentieth century, the new model of the American dream where the industrial personalities, that where very poor at the beginning of their life but during their life they managed to control enormous fortunes and corporations. The best examples given here can be the great American capitalists John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie.

These examples of great fortune appeared for those who were willing to work extremely hard and had great intelligence and talent so they will have success in life as a result.

Martin Luther King gave a very good example of the American Dream in his most important speech :

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends. And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. ( I have a dream – speech)

In the 20th century, the American Dream had his up and downs. The Great Depression caused chaos during the Twenties and Thirties, and was the opposite of the American Dream. Racial instability was still there, has not disappeared and in some parts of the U.S.A racial violence was normal.

From the point that the World War II ended, the American families made a very peaceful life for them in the suburbs that they have build with their own hands. The possibility of becoming very rich and famous remained a very distant dream, because now the priorities have changed. The young families wanted to have a home, international and civil stability, financial security, these where the goals that replaced the common American Dream.

Education is a very important part of the American Dream. Education is what determines the freedom and the wealth you are going to make. Education is what gives to a person options about how they are going to act and to choose independently, the power to turn their aspirations and dreams into reality. I sincerely believe that freedom comes from education and from opportunity comes growth, from growth comes prosperity and progress.

3.2 The Great Gatsby by Francis Scott Fitzgerald and the American Dream

Francis Scott Fitzgerald’s most greatest and important works is the novel The Great Gatsby. A lot of persons seem to be very curious by the question raised by the American Dream.

M. Bewely writes that :

The Great Gatsby is an exploration of the American Dream as it exists in a corrupt period”. He points out that „critics tend to agree that The Great Gatsby is somehow a commentary of that elusive phrase, the American Dream (Scott Fitzgerald’s Criticism of America, Marius Bewley.)

he agrees with the fact that some critics tend to accept that the novel The Great Gatsby is a very good example of the American Dream.

As a social critique the novel The Great Gatsby is a critique in moral decadence in the society of the contemporary America. The ideas that are directly related with the American Dream are the decrease in the spiritual life and the corruption of the moral values. The novel of Francis Scott Fitzgerald brings the idealism of the first inhabitants that founded America.

The novel is a illustration of iriony which surrounds the concept of the American Dream. The story is related trough the eyes of Nick Carraway Daisy’s cousin, that has the mission to say the story of Jay Gatsby the main character from the novel. The story of Jay Gatsby is just a traditional example of what the American Dream really represents. Jay escapes poverty, made millions of dollars and made a name for himself in a very short period of time. Gatsby has the opportunity to experience and the chance to “suck on the pap of life, to gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder” (Fitzgerald, 109). But, he must stay on pedestal to experience the wonders of the dreams. This represents the irony of situation. Beside his popularity and fame, Jay is rejected by the rest of the society, and he remains completely alone with his wealth and money. He had a relationship with a young lady named Daisy Fay (nee: Buchanan) before he became rich and famous. When Daisy got married with a very rich man named Tom Buchanan he decides that he has somehow to make a fortune and reconquer her in some way but Gatsby doesn’t know how money really work in society, he thinks that can buy anything with money even his lost love Daisy. When he reviews with Daisy he has a very big disappointment caused by his big expectations made trough the time. Nick Carraway relates:

“As I went over to say goodbye I saw that the expression of bewilderment had come back to Gatsby's face, as though a faint doubt had occurred to him as to the quality of his present happiness. Almost five years! There must have been moments even before that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams – not through her own fault but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart” (Fitzgerald, 103).

If you can see the two-sides of the American you really know what to expect. In one way you can achieve a very big fortune but on the other side of the dream you can see that much wealth doesn’t bring happiness.

A lot of citizens of the U.S.A agree with the fact that if you work hard and if you have a honest way of living you can achieve The American Dream. I think is hard to see the relationship between Jay Gatsby and The American because he obtained his wealth trough illegal businesses and the concept of the American Dream is to try to achieve your goals tough honest businesses. But Jay’s story is in some ways a classic story of ‘rags to riches’ but he didn’t obtained his fortune trough honest work and integrity. The Declaration of Independence states “that all men are created equal” (Cross: 23). A man like Jay can not be given like an example because he made his ‘riches’ through unorthodox ways and the spend them very extravagant without thinking and taking in consideration the ‘rags’ from which he came, he cannot be considered a good example of the American Dream.

A very important role in the American Dream has the role of family. The perfect American family is made from a wife, a husband and two or three children. The main concern of the parents are their children and how to assure them a good future and a good life. A close example of family from the novel The Great Gatsby is the family of Tom and Daisy Buchanan and their daughter, but all the similarities end here at their daughter. Tom and Daisy have very little contact with their daughter, they see her when is more convenient for them and she is raised by a nurse not by her mother like in the case of traditional American families. Nick says very clearly that they don’t have time for their daughter when they are having a good time:

With a reluctant backward glance the well-disciplined child held to her nurse's hand and was pulled out the door, just as Tom came back, preceding four gin Rickey’s that clinked full of ice” (Fitzgerald, 125)

We can say that even if Tom and Daisy are belonging to a very old family with tradition and with an important name they can’t be taken as an example of the American Dream.

Francis Scott Fitzgerald that a man has to make efforts to fulfill his hopes and dreams, but this efforts have to be honest and not achieved trough illegal businesses.

Thomas J. Stavola says that:

“F. Scott Fitzgerald is among the most significant writers of the twentieth century who have struggled with the complex dimensions of the America cultural identity problem, as well as offered a tolerable solution. He did this so memorably in his works because his own life was so persistent a search of identity. The subject of his beast writing was always his own “transmuted biography”. It’s well documented that Fitzgerald wrote almost exclusively about his own divided nature, the achievements and hopes of the confident, romantic young man who was also fearful of himself and the world. This struggle was further complicated by the conflict between the seduction of the American Dream and his belief in the value of the traditional virtues of “honor, courtesy and courage” (Thomas J Stavola, 11, Scott Fitzgerald: Crisis in an American Identity ).

Conclusions

The book is very complex due to its conflicts. There are two important conflicts in the book: The first conflict to be discussed is the family conflict between Daisy and Tom. As a matter of fact, family life is an important part of the American Dream. The ideal American family consists of a husband, a wife, and two or three children. Even that Daisy and Tom had an apparent ‘good’ family life, they are not meant to be together and they do not fit one to another. Moreover, they had together a child, being absent from his life because the child is being raised up by the nurse. Thus, the connection between them is kept to a minimum and they are less important in their child’s life. Thus, Daisy seems to be a shallow mother and wife. Even the man she is in love with is treated shallowly by her.

The second conflict we should refer to is the inner, the internal conflict due to the unfulfilled love between the two lovers (Daisy and Jay Gatsby). I think that the origin of the inner conflict is the fact that Gatsby does not succeed to have Daisy only for him; she is the lacking-part of his life. Thus, we should refer here to the platonic love establish between them.

All in all, the book is not only worth-reading, but is also a good lesson, a life-lesson.

Works Cited

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby . http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/

Gross, Dalton. Understanding The Great Gatsby: A [anonimizat] to Issues, Sources and Historical Documents. Westport: Greenwood Press. 1998.

Mihaiu, Virgil. Between the Jazz Age and Postmodernism: F. Scott Fitzgerald. Timișoara: Editura Universității de Vest. 2003

Mizener, Arthur. The Far Side of Paradise: A Biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 1951.

http://www.learner.org/amerpass/unit11/authors-3.html

Eble, Kenneth. F. Scott Fitzgerald. New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1963

Stavola, J. Thomas. Scott Fitzgerald: Crisis in an American Identity. Vision Press Limited, 1980.

Bibliography

Kazin, Alfred. F. Scott Fitzgerald – The Man and His Work. Toronto: Collier, 1966.

Koster, de Katie. Readings on The Great Gatsby. San Diego, California: Greenhaven Press, 1998.

Cross, K.G.W. F. Scott Fitzgerald. New York: Capricorn, 1964

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner, 1925.

Stavola, J. Thomas. Scott Fitzgerald: Crisis in an American Identity. Vision Press Limited, 1980.

Eble, Kenneth. F. Scott Fitzgerald. New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1963.

Meyers, Jeffrey. Scott Fitzgerald: A Biography. HarperCollins, 1994.

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/

Gross, Dalton. Understanding The Great Gatsby: A [anonimizat] to Issues, Sources and Historical Documents. Westport: Greenwood Press. 1998.

Mihaiu, Virgil. Between the Jazz Age and Postmodernism: F. Scott Fitzgerald. Timișoara: Editura Universității de Vest. 2003

Mizener, Arthur. The Far Side of Paradise: A Biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 1951.

12.http://www.learner.org/amerpass/unit11/authors-3.html

13.F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby http://www.planetebook.com/ebooks/The-Great-Gatsby.pdf

Covers of the movie adaptations of the novel

( The Great Gatsby first movie adaptation from 1926)

(The Great Gatsby adaptation from 1949)

(The Great Gatsby adaptation from 1974)

(The Great Gatsby adaption from 2000)

(The Great Gatsby adaptation from 2013)