This paper examines F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby as a literary and historical document of 1920s America. It traces Fitzgerald's biography and writing career before analyzing the novel's central symbols—the green light, the billboard eyes, and the color white—alongside its major themes of moral corruption, superficiality, and the illusory American Dream. The paper also profiles key characters, particularly Nick Carraway, Daisy, and Gatsby himself, exploring how each embodies or undermines the dream of material success. A brief account of Fitzgerald's personal decline and death rounds out the discussion, situating the novel within its author's own tragic arc.
The Great Gatsby is considered one of the most brilliant works of literature in America, and as such it is worthy of research and study. Fitzgerald's novel is not only regarded as an excellent work of fiction; studying it is also an appropriate way to examine the historical and social conditions of 1920s America.
The author, F. Scott Fitzgerald, began his writing career by submitting stories to his college newspaper, then joined the U.S. Army, after which he worked for an advertising agency. After working for a time in New York, Fitzgerald returned to his home state of Minnesota in 1920, and from there he wrote and published his first novel, This Side of Paradise.
Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby was a far stronger novel than his earlier works. Critics have written that Gatsby represented a "vastly more mature and artistically masterful treatment of the themes" he had explored in his initial novels.
The Library of Congress claims that the concept of the "American Dream" was first put forward by James Truslow Adams. Adams wrote The Epic of America in 1931, in which he stated that "The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer for everyone."
If the Library of Congress is correct, Fitzgerald did not originate the concept of the American Dream — but his writing certainly embraced the theme thoroughly. The Great Gatsby stands as one of the most enduring literary explorations of that ideal and its ultimate failure.
The first major symbol in the novel is the green light, introduced in Chapter 1. The green light is associated with Daisy's dreams and hopes. Nick also compares the green light to how America must have appeared to the early pilgrims — a distant, tantalizing promise.
An old billboard overlooking the valley of ashes bears a pair of enormous eyes staring downward. This image has been widely interpreted as a symbol of God surveying the moral wasteland of a corrupt society. Similarly, a man described as having "owl eyes" is astonished to discover that the books in Gatsby's library are real — yet he also notices they have never been read. The irony is pointed: owls are symbols of wisdom, yet Gatsby is not at all what he appears to be.
The color white is used throughout the novel to create a mood of innocence whenever Daisy is involved, though this innocence ultimately proves to be illusory.
"Roaring Twenties, Jazz Age, and Lost Generation themes"
"Nick, Daisy, and Gatsby's identity and relationships"
"Fitzgerald's alcoholism, decline, and death in 1940"
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