The Great Gatsby: A

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is far more than a tragic love story. It is a seminal literary classic that dissects the American Dream, the rigidity of social class, and the destructive power of obsession. Published in 1925 to modest acclaim, it has since ascended to its status as a contender for the "Great American Novel," its resonance undiminished by time. At its core, the novel presents a masterful deconstruction of the Jazz Age’s glittering facade. It captures the profound emptiness beneath the era’s rampant consumerism and hedonism, exposing the inherent corruption and inevitable disillusionment of a dream predicated solely on material success and social ascent. The unbridgeable chasm between "old money" (embodied by Tom and Daisy Buchanan) and "new money" (Jay Gatsby) forms a central conflict, illustrating how entrenched privilege protects itself. Ultimately, Gatsby’s tragic flaw is his magnificent, delusional obsession—his attempt to recapture a romanticized past and redefine his future through the acquisition of wealth and the love of Daisy Buchanan, a symbol as beautiful and insubstantial as the light he venerates.