The Great Gatsby: False Illusions and Utopian Dreams
宦澍雨
In his novel The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald describes many of the less alluring characteristics, despite its unprecedented prosperity, of the 1920s and the superficial pursuit of the American Dream including wealth, status and power.
It goes without saying that the American Dream is deeply rooted in American ideals. This dream implies that an individual can accumulate wealth, power, and inner happiness through one's own diligence and perseverance. It creates an equal ground for everyone to attain spiritual and material fulfillment and especially encourages the aspirations of lower class to rise to higher status. In short it is a dream that promises exceedingly flexible social mobility and tremendous opportunities to whoever expects glorious success. And allegedly, nothing is unachievable with the quality of hard work.
But here F. Scott Fitzgerald argues that the American Dream was fading away. Or in the narrator's words, "His dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him..." Gatsby, who deeply desires to live out the American dream, eventually succeeds in every area except in finding a true love and all his dreams therefore become mere illusions.
On the outer appearance, Gatsby seems to be a shining example of how hard work can lead to material success. The fact is simply appalling that such a young man can "drift coolly out of nowhere and buy a palace on Long Island Sound". Moreover, as his history is revealed later, he seems to have successfully risen from rags to riches, and being a self made, wealthy young man, he seems to be living a real American Dream.
As we take a deeper look at this character, however, we find that his great dreams are not perfect and ideal. Despite his enormous wealth and privilege, being one of the newly rich, Gatsby fails to attain the acceptance and acknowledgment of the old aristocracy in the upper class. He tries to be flashy and impressive with his money by throwing fancy parties and enjoying a lavish life, but he is still the focus of malicious gossip and is despised because of his ignominious involvement in the bootlegging business.
Furthermore, Gatsby fails in a relationship of unrequited love. Gatsby clearly expresses his intense and profound love of Daisy, and even an obsession with her. Yet the whole relationship is uneven, in which Gatsby has literally poured his heart and soul, while Daisy is only impressed by his wealth and life of luxury. For Gatsby, Daisy has come to represent all of his hopes and dreams about wealth and a better life and she is to some extent the incarnation of his dreams. In contrast, Daisy is obviously human and fallible and can never realistically live up to Gatsby's inflated images of her. His dreams, because of "the colossal vitality of his illusion", 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." Gatsby has fallen in love with Daisy and the wealth she represents and has therefore created himself this Utopian dream and then aspired to live this dream.
The ability to create meaningful symbols constitutes a central component of the American dream. And in this case, Gatsby instills Daisy with a kind of idealized perfection that she neither deserves nor possesses. Gatsby's American dream is ruined because of its unworthiness. For Daisy, her marriage with Tom guarantees her continued membership in the exclusive circle of the 'old money' class, something Gatsby cannot offer. For such a selfish, vain and shallow girl as Daisy, class is a much stronger bond than love. Therefore, despite the lying, cheating, and murdering that occurs during the summer, Daisy chooses to continue her relationship with Tom just like they began it, careless, restless, and yet, firmly united. Therefore, the American dream pursued by Gatsby "is, in reality, a nightmare," bringing nothing but discontent and disillusionment to those who chase it as they realize that it is unsustainable and ultimately unattainable. And the whole book precisely tells the story about the downfall of those who attempt to reach its illusionary goals.
The American dream was originally about improvement, advancement, and the pursuit of happiness. Yet as is depicted in the novel, easy money and misleading social values might have corrupted this dream. The original dream about elite class, equal opportunities and hard work did not, though, go wrong. Gatsby's failure does not prove the folly of the American Dream. Rather it proves the folly of short-cutting that dream and the danger of the act of corruption and materialism.
The American obsession with wealth, power, and privilege is the chief cause of the decay of dreaming. And in Gatsby's case, his tragedy lies in the fact that he naively misinterprets Daisy's love of fancy parties and lavish clothes as her affection for himself and deems her love as his realization of his Utopian dream.
After all, the decay of the American dream only verifies the fact all too well, that money and fame are merely illusions rather than the solutions they promise to be.
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