The American Dream and Privilege in The Great Gatsby
This essay examines F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby as a critique of the American Dream filtered exclusively through the lens of white male privilege. The paper argues that while Fitzgerald uses characters like Jay Gatsby and Nick Carraway to expose the hollowness of wealth-driven ambition in 1920s America, this critique is ultimately self-undermining because it is leveled from the same privileged vantage point it purports to analyze. Drawing on the fates of Myrtle and her husband, the essay demonstrates that Fitzgerald's moral judgment on wealth and aspiration rings hollow for those outside the privileged class, rendering The Great Gatsby's broader commentary on the American Dream incomplete and socially limited.
- Introduction: Gatsby and the American Dream: Gatsby as symbol of the corrupted American Dream
- Writing from Privilege: Fitzgerald's Narrative Framing: Fitzgerald's white male perspective limits his critique
- Myrtle and the Limits of the Critique: Myrtle's fate exposes hollowness of privileged judgment
- A Critique by the Privileged, for the Privileged: Carraway mirrors Fitzgerald's own ideological blind spot
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What makes this paper effective
- The argument is tightly focused: every paragraph returns to the central claim that Fitzgerald's critique is self-defeating because it originates from within the privilege it critiques.
- The use of Myrtle Wilson as a counter-example is well chosen — her fate directly exposes the limits of a moral judgment on wealth-seeking that only the already-comfortable can afford to make.
- The essay avoids plot summary and stays analytical throughout, treating characters as vehicles for a structural argument about class and perspective.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates positional critique — evaluating not just what an author argues but from where (socially and culturally) that argument is made. By identifying Nick Carraway as a mirror for Fitzgerald himself, the essay collapses the distinction between narrator and author, showing that the novel's limitations are ideological, not merely narrative.
Structure breakdown
The essay opens by establishing the novel's central symbols (Gatsby as the embodiment of the Dream, his death as its death). It then escalates the critique in stages: first exposing Fitzgerald's privileged framing, then grounding the limitation in a specific character (Myrtle), and finally broadening back out to a structural conclusion about who the novel's critique actually serves. The final paragraph ties Carraway's hypocrisy explicitly to Fitzgerald's own, closing the loop opened in the introduction.
Introduction: Gatsby and the American Dream
F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby examines the concept of the American Dream, understood by the protagonist Nick Carraway as the pursuit of success and individuality. The character of Gatsby is the embodiment of the Dream, and his death is symbolic of the death of the dream itself. Gatsby's death arose from his hollow pursuit of Daisy, and Carraway likens this to the death of the American Dream as it had been corrupted into the pursuit of wealth for its own sake. The conclusion of the novel mirrors the views expressed at its outset about the garishness of the newly rich in West Egg.
Writing from Privilege: Fitzgerald's Narrative Framing
The Great Gatsby reflects a view of the American Dream as told through the white male experience of the day. This framing allows Fitzgerald to focus on the finer details of wealth and success. From the outset of the story, Nick Carraway expresses scorn for the manner in which the residents of West Egg display their wealth and imagines himself superior, thereby expressing the privilege enjoyed by white males — they not only can achieve wealth but are obligated to act in a certain way in order to avoid the scorn of others.
Fitzgerald's efforts to highlight some of the more repugnant elements of this privilege — such as Tom's enthusiasm for the book The Rise of the Colored Empires — are to an extent undermined by the fact that he is writing from the same position of privilege from which Carraway views the world. The judgment that money should be earned and consumed in a decent manner is one that can only be made by a white male of privileged background.
Myrtle and the Limits of the Critique
For others, both in the story and in America more broadly, the judgment on the American Dream that Fitzgerald passes rings hollow. It is easy for someone in a position of privilege to suggest that the pursuit of the American Dream has become empty. This critique carried strong appeal, particularly because the 1920s were an era of significant wealth expansion, and Fitzgerald argues that at some point the pursuit of success had lost its meaning and purpose. For those without access to society, however, such a critique holds less validity.
While most of the female characters in the story come from the privileged class, Myrtle does not, and her fate highlights the absurdity of people in positions of privilege leveling a critique on the pursuit of wealth. Myrtle's fate as a poor woman is not equivalent to that of the other characters — she dies, as does her husband. They both suffer from her desire to pursue elements of the Dream. For Gatsby, critiquing the pursuit of the American Dream is easy because he has largely attained it. For those like Myrtle, it seems disingenuous to critique their desire to gain a measure of wealth and power in their lives.
In the 1920s, people like Myrtle and her husband would have had no financial security of any kind. They pursued the American Dream not to make garish displays of wealth but simply as a means of building a better life. The inclusion of these characters seems intended to show that Myrtle's pursuit of a better life is fatally flawed. However, someone in a position of privilege like Fitzgerald was in no position to pass judgment on the poor and underprivileged classes. The pursuit of the American Dream may have had adverse consequences for some, but it remained vital for millions of Americans of the era.
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