The Great Gatsby and the American Dream

The Great Gatsby and the American Dream
Published in 1925 and written by one of the most prominent authors in the history of American literature, F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby is a novel set up in Long Island during the summer of 1922. As it is a very intriguing and controversial yet an appealing and interesting book, it garnered a lot of attention and later on had numerous adaptations on film and television. It is actually considered as the greatest masterpiece of Fitzgerald because of its relevance and relation to the American Dream (Wulick, 2016).
The centre of the story, as obviously stated in the title, revolves around Jay Gatsby and his overly unrealistic manic obsession and fascination with Daisy Buchanan (Maurer, n.d.). But while it is a love story with a tragic ending in the front, most critiques agree that it is actually more of a pessimistic representation of the realism behind the American Dream (Wulick, 2016). The Great Gatsby revolved around the themes of decadence, self-indulgence, opposition to change, idealism, and social turmoil – the heart of the Jazz Age and Roaring Twenties, which is known to be the age of revolution of the American Dream (Maurer, n.d.).
In the novel, the story was narrated by Nick Carraway, Gatsby’s neighbour who was a writer trying to unfold the mysteries of life after he served for the army during the First World War. He tells the story of Jay Gatsby, a very mysterious multi-millionaire who always held big parties in his mansion, but actually never showed up in any of them. The story begins when Nick moved into the house near the mansion of Gatsby. Meanwhile, Daisy Buchanan, Gatsby’s muse and Nick’s cousin, live across the bay with her husband, Tom. When Nick came to visit the house of Daisy and Tom, he met Jordan Baker, who later on became his love interest.
Gatsby and Nick started to have a great connection after realizing that they were both heroes who served the Army during World War I. This connection gave room to a very meaningful friendship and later on became the gateway to the relationship of Gatsby and Daisy (Maurer, n.d.).
Aware of Tom’s infidelity, Nick decided to reunite Gatsby and Daisy after discovering that both had some sort of an interrupted affair before. Daisy, also aware of the infidelity of her husband, rekindled her feelings for Gatsby and so the two started to have an extramarital affair. Tom discovered this relationship and although he has his own outside love affair, he grew a feeling of rage toward Gatsby and tried everything to get revenge (Maurer, n.d.).
The conflict in the finale took place when Gatsby and Daisy accidentally encountered a fatal car crash with Myrtle, Tom’s mistress, wherein the latter died. Daisy was the one driving the car and unintentionally killed Myrtle, but Gatsby took the blame. So, Myrtle’s husband, upon knowing what happened, took revenge on Gatsby. It was only at the latter part of the story when Nick discovered that the violence and rage felt by Myrtle’s husband was intensified only because Tom told him that Gatsby was Myrtle’s lover. Tom’s lies and deceits became the tragedy of Gatsby (Maurer, n.d.).
The Great Gatsby is not your typical tragic love story....