The Dreamers; Reviewing The Great Gatsby

THE DREAMERS

(Review of The Great Gatsby)

THE DREAMERS;

THE GREAT GATSBY

  The Great Gatsby is a novel among the most popular classics of American literature, written by the American author F. Scott Fitzgerald, one of the most celebrated authors of the twentieth century. The Great Gatsby was published in the year 1925. Fitzgerald has put his own life experiences into Gatsby’s life; he was enlisted in the US army during World War 1 this detail about his past is woven into Gatsby’s past as well. Fitzgerald’s was abandoned by his fiancée who refused to marry him as she thought him not quite capable of supporting her, however they got back together after some time, he has put this part of his life too into the novel.   In  this  book,  Fitzgerald  has  written  about  dreams  or  rather  the  American  Dream.  Fitzgerald  talks  about  the  narcissism  of  Daisy, a  woman  who is self obsessed and shallow enough to not care even for her young child. The betrayal of the woman based on reasons purely material and the obsession of wealth. Fitzgerald tells the reader about the flaws of the world through the characters of the novel, how desires of obtaining wealth, comfort and power weaken you as a human being. The emotions fade away and become meaningless faced with the desires of luxury. The author summarizes the entire American dream in his characters which represents all Americans or better put as American Dreamers. It is the greed of man that can give him the ability to direct his emotions to wherever he finds more ease, comfort, wealth and a higher standard of living.

  One may say that Gatsby is the most wavering of all the characters, he is the one who disguises the truth of his personality and profession but one needs to ask why he does this. It is because of his love for the woman who left him for money, he wants her back in his life, he is not under the pretence of falling in love for money but instead he is pretending to be the one he is not just to conquer his love. It is in different ways that one can perceive this character to be, some may take it to be deceiving and dishonest and some may take him to be a passionate lover.

  There is an air of mystery built around the character Jay Gatsby, the other characters are inquisitive and there are rumors that surround Gatsby, he is different from the rest of the characters, he represents hope to start with life anew and hunt for wealth, ultimately to pursue the American Dream. Through the spirit and determination of Gatsby, Fitzgerald shows the hope that can draw man to do things that he could never imagine to have done before, for seeking his passion and love which can lie either in people or in mere objects. As we read more, it unfolds that Daisy is the kind of woman who does not deserve to be loved so dearly and to inspire a man so much, it is her seductive nature and outward appearance that wins Gatsby’s love, much too shallow for such strong a passion. But when has man ever escaped temptation, here he falls straight into the trap which is Daisy’s deceiving beauty. She’s way below what Gatsby perceives her to be, blinded by love and unable to see that she’s simply human like the rest of us and cannot risk losing what she has by running off with him.  As very rightly Fitzgerald says “No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart”. She would rather stay with her husband, unhappy as she was, yet more satisfied than she can ever be with Gatsby.  

Daisy is real and like the rest of us who cannot fully let their emotions take control of them, she is an intelligent woman who is practical and her practicality gives her personality a negative aspect in the novel. However, it’s not a sin to think for one’s own self, but to think only for one’s own self can lead to many sins, the biggest of them can be hurting those who love you and being disrespectful to them. The American society plays a great role in the novel, it’s a society where people are taken as individuals, and there is no love except the love for success, there are no familial bonds and ties, nothing like sacrifice and compromise, it can be immoral and unethical to an outsider but for the person living in the society, one has to do it for one’s survival.

Tom is one character that shows great negativity and violence, his impatience, dominating and selfish qualities make him highly detestable yet Daisy chooses him for her husband as he’s wealthy and able to provide more. Tom is an unfaithful husband and does not care in the least for those he appears to love, be it his wife, mistress or even his daughter.  It is the lack of emotion and excessive violence in his character that turn him into a brute.

Myrtle Wilson is in absolute contrast with the character of Daisy, though she too like Daisy has her dreams, but she dreams differently, her life in a way is similar to Daisy’s as Myrtle too is unhappy in her marriage. She is a woman who is attracted to the dominating nature of a man, the violent nature of Tom which is repulsive for others, attracts her and she falls for him. She does not think very highly of her husband, she considers him to be too meek for a man.

George Wilson is the husband of Myrtle, the mistress of Tom, he is the only character in the book who believes in being true to one’s self as he says to his wife “You can’t fool God”, he is poor and weak and despite the fact that his wife cheated him and was not concerned about him in the least possible manner, he still takes revenge for her death by finishing of Gatsby, then ends his own life also. He is one pitiful character, one cannot help but feel sorry for him, the world surely was not a suitable place for such a man, one might think, as he was too weak and innocent.

 The novel is a combination of characters and not a mere series of events, it is the effect that different forces coming together can create, these can be emotions of love, desire for money, desire to control, fears of being abandoned and the wish to dominate and influence the rest. With the passage of time, as the story takes shape, the characters open up and show their true colors transforming as they mature as humans.

  Nick is the narrator of the story and the reader sees all the characters through his eyes, he is not part of the race, he is in a way connected to all the people in the story. He is the character most suitable for narration as he is not one of “them”, as one may put it. He is without doubt one of the main characters to have changed immensely during the course of events and interactions, he may have been influenced by the other characters or by the system he is living in that introduce the readers to a different Nick towards the end of the novel. He comes as an outsider who becomes a part of the story and gets molded into the environment.

 Jordan, being another individual, is mature and smart enough to be fooled by appearances and to fall in love like a foolish girl of seventeen. She is driven by power, fame and fortune, she does not take into consideration the people around her, and she has an ‘I don’t care’ attitude for everyone very like Tom and Daisy.

  The flaws of all the characters make them believable and not ‘magical’ or ‘out of this world’, in fact the characters can be found well within our world, they are everywhere around us. The novel can be realistically compared to the world we live in today despite the fact that it was written in another century when times were different. The comparison would show how we are becoming more like the characters in The Great Gatsby and quickly adapting the negative characteristics of the characters in it.

Every man dreams to be bigger than what he is at present, it is good to dream big but when in order to fulfill those dreams you have to take paths that drive you to do wrong, to cheat and lose the true essence of what we are, then your dreams can become too destructive. It can harm you and others too when you give first priority to material aspects of the world and while doing so keep relationships, friendships and love aside.                                            Fitzgerald has given an analysis of the American Dream through his novel and once you read it, it will dawn upon you that the purpose behind our actions is to take us one step closer to our ultimate dream. Fitzgerald talks about the complicated life of a robust dreamer, he does not say what is moral and immoral, it is left over to the reader to decide by reading through the characters. The beauty of Gatsby lies in being real, no man can ever be perfect and man was never meant to be perfect anyway, so it is natural to accept Gatsby the way he is, dishonest or immoral as it may seem, that’s how we all are.

  As we go on pouring out our critique, we must keep in mind what Fitzgerald says in the beginning of his novel;

“ In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me an advice that I have been turning over in my mind ever since, ‘Whenever you  feel like criticizing anyone’ he told me, ‘just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had’.”

This certainly has been useful to keep our boundaries of discussion broad yet limited in a way, as we are bound to take these words of Fitzgerald and stop ourselves from unnecessarily thrashing his characters just because we think they’re immoral. Immoral as they may seem at first, there is a depth to each one of them and we are able to look into them and realize that certainly! We ourselves in some way are like them.

REFERENCES

1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

2. Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi