Great Gatsby the Slow Unraveling

¶ … Great Gatsby

The Slow Unraveling of Gatsby's Character Exhumes his Failed Attempt to Capture the Superficial Glory of the American Dream

Jay Gatsby was known for his luxurious opulence in an era where money was everything. In the Roaring Twenties, where many fortunes where made through illicit means, the American Dream was distorted to encompass the superficial nature of America's elite upper class. Through several relationships with other characters, the reader is tuned in to Gatsby's extreme desire to attain the life he had created for himself in his dreams. Through his relations to other people around him, especially Daisy, Gatsby proves to be the creator of his own image. Until he actually emerges in the novel, it is his reputation which precedes him. However, his true motivations are revealed, the reader sees right through his facade to his true consciousness. After this is revealed to the reader, his life is destroyed by the very means and people which he desired. F. Scott Fitzgerald in his masterpiece the Great Gatsby shows the downward spiral of the American Dream within the context of greed and desire.

Gatsby grew up in an environment much different than the lavish East Coast lifestyle which is represented in the beginning of the novel. The initial hype of his reputation which the reader is introduced to is a far cry from his rural beginnings in North Dakota. There he lived in desolate poverty, and as he grew up he began to dream of another existence. He dreamt of a life of luxury, far away from the horrors of poverty. He eventually achieved his outlandish dream, however through questionable means. His first attempt in college was a disaster due to his embarrassment of having to work on campus in order to pay for his tuition. The embarrassment and feeling of inferiority in his self comparison of his fellow privileged classmates quickly led him to leave St. Olaf's. Later, through slipping into the thriving underground world of organized crime in the era of prohibition, Gatsby made sure he lived out his lavish childhood dreams.

Gatsby's obsession with Daisy Buchanan was a major influence in his motivation to acquire great wealth. He originally met Daisy in Louisville, far out of the Eastern context where he later found wealth. The two fell in love, and planned to marry on his return from the First World War. After he left, she broke her promise and married another, a rich Easterner who brought her into the life of an eastern socialite. When Gatsby returned to find Daisy already married to a man with money, he became obsessed with winning her back through the only way apparent, becoming rich himself. Daisy had always had money. He had lied to her in Louisville about his worth, and after returning from the war he became obsessed with getting her back,

He talked a lot about the past and I gathered that he wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy. His life had been confused and distorted since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what one thing was..." (Fitzgerald 117).

He took notice to the love of her new luxurious socialite lifestyle. He decided to truly embody the life he had created to appease Daisy.

However, Gatsby failed to see the darker side of his young love. Below the beauty and grace was a spoiled and shallow brat who used her money as a shield to avoid truly living in the real world. She proves her true character in the most dire of circumstances. Her betrayal of Gatsby when he needed her most revealed the falsehood of her character, essentially showing him that he had lived his life trying to obtain something which did not exist, "That was it. I'd never understood before. It was full of money -- that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals' song of it...High in a white palace of the king's daughter, the golden girl..." (Fitzgerald 127). Despite reuniting with Gatsby, she eventually returned to her rich husband. She also lied about who was driving, essentially selling Gatsby out for the murders of Myrtle and Wilson. Rather than owning up to her own mistake, she showed Gatsby and the reader the detrimental qualities of the rich elite.