Great Gatsby the American Dream

¶ … Great Gatsby

The American Dream of Self-Creation through Wealth

Finding Identity in the Great Gatsby

Start him! I made him!"(133). Despite this proclamation from one of the shady characters Jay Gatsby knew while he was making his fortune, this not really the case. The title character of F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel the Great Gatsby is a work of his own creation. More than any other character in the novel, either Daisy Buchanan or the narrator Nick Carraway, Jay Gatsby embodies the confusions of the American Dream and its false promises. Gatsby begins life as a poor person in obscurity. Believing in the American gospel of wealth equaling happiness and because he aspires to make himself worthy of the love of Daisy Buchanan, Gatsby resolves to change his entire identity. He hopes that he can buy class, just like he buys a closet full of new shirts, and that Daisy will admire him the way she admires his shirts. But money cannot buy happiness -- or Daisy -- for Gatsby ("The Great Gatsby," Study Guide. Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District, 1999)

Gatsby falls for the lie promised by American Dream that anyone who works hard and makes money can buy class and respect ("Who Wants to be a Millionaire: Changing Concepts of the American Dream," American Studies Online, 2007). But Gatsby's new self is founded upon deceit and crime. He makes his money illegally, through bootlegging during Prohibition. He buys a beautiful house that looks like an old, wealthy estate, but everyone knows that it is new, not rooted in old money. True, on the surface, Gatsby seems to have realized his aspiration of attaining both money and social status, as people go to his parties. He pretends that he went to a good school, but this is a fiction that everyone only accepts on the surface, to his face, because he is wealthy. People of status enjoy his parties but snub him behind his back. One drunken man at one Gatsby's party is surprised that Gatsby's books are: "absolutely real -- have pages and everything. I thought they'd be a nice durable cardboard. Matter of fact, they're absolutely real. Pages and -- Here! Lemme show you'" (38). Of course the fact that the man is drunk and crass, and looks down at Gatsby because Gatsby is a bootlegger, even though he is drunk goes unrecognized in the high society of West and East Egg. Tragically, Gatsby cannot see these contradictions in social snobbery.

Because Daisy does not love Gatsby, at least not enough, Gatsby ends the novel feeling miserable and unfulfilled, as if his hard work meant nothing. In some ways it is unclear if Gatsby originally desired Daisy because she represented social success and financial fulfillment, or if Gatsby aspired to financial success and social status to win Daisy. Of course, he would say that he did everything for Daisy. But whether Gatsby is being honest with himself is ambiguous. Even at the end, he cannot see Daisy for what she really is: "You must remember, old sport, she was very excited this afternoon. He told her those things in a way that frightened her -- that made it look as if I was some kind of cheap sharper. And the result was she hardly knew what she was saying" (118). Notice how even at the end, Gatsby pretends he is from high society, as he uses the slang of the upper class like 'old sport.'

Daisy is a much less complicated character than Gatsby. In fact, other than her beauty and her high class status, it is hard to see why Gatsby loves her so much. But Daisy's materialism, for Gatsby, is not a negative quality. "Her voice is full of money," he says (94). This indicates that Gatsby sees Daisy's obsession with wealth as a good thing, a kind of a way to egg him on to make something of his life. Daisy is Nick Caraway's second cousin but unlike Nick, she is obsessed with money to the point that she ignores human feelings. When Gatsby left to go to war, she ended their relationship. Tom Buchanan at the time was much more financially stable than Gatsby, and even though Tom strikes almost everyone who comes in contact with him as a rich, superficial person, Daisy loved Tom's money.

Daisy has aspirations to be loved and appreciated, of course, but between love and material goods, material and external trappings are ultimately more important, even though she is unhappy. When her daughter is born she says: "All right,' I said, 'I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool -- that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool" (17). Better to be rich than to know one's folly in marrying a man for his money. But she does not leave her financial and social security with Tom. Although Daisy's life also embodies the American Dream in the sense that she aspires to greater wealth, sexuality and desire are less confused for her, than they are for Gatsby. Money will always win, in Daisy's mind, even if it does not provide happiness like the American Dream promises.