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Jay Gatsby- The Dissolution Of A Dream

Essay, Research Paper


Jay Gatsby: The Dissolution of a Dream


A dream is defined in the Webster’s New World Dictionary as: a


fanciful vision of the conscious mind; a fond hope or aspiration; anything


so lovely, transitory, etc. as to seem dreamlike. In the beginning pages


of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway, the


narrator of the story gives us a glimpse into Gatsby’s idealistic dream


which is later disintegrated. “No- Gatsby turned out all right at the end;


it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his


dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows


and short-winded elation’s of men.” Gatsby is revealed to us slowly and


skillfully, and with a keen tenderness which in the end makes his tragedy


a deeply moving one.


Jay Gatsby is a crook, a bootlegger who has involved himself with


swindlers like Meyer Wolfsheim, the man who fixed the 1919 World


Series. He has committed crimes in order to buy the house he feels he


needs to win the woman he loves. In chapter five Nick says, “…and I


think he revalued everything in his house according to the measure of


response it drew from her well-loved eyes.” Everything in Gatsby’s house


is the zenith of his dreams, and when Daisy enters Gatsby’s house the


material things seem to lose their life. Daisy represents a dreamlike,


heavenly presence which all that he has is devoted to. Yes, we should


consider Jay Gatsby as tragic figure because of belief that he can restore


the past and live happily, but his distorted faith is so intense that he


blindly unaware of realism that his dream lacks. Gatsby has accumulated


his money by dealings with gangsters, yet he remains an innocent figure,


he is extravagant. Gatsby is not interested in power for its own sake or


in money or prestige. What he wants is his dream, and that dream is


embodied in Daisy. Ironically, Daisy Buchanan, is a much more realistic,


hard-headed character. She understands money and what it means in


American society, because it his her nature; she was born into it. Gatsby


intuitively recognizes this, although he cannot fully accept it, when he


remarks to Nick that Daisy’s voice “is full of money.” Gatsby will not


admit this essential fact because it would destroy his understanding of


Daisy. In the end, this willful blindness helps lead to his ultimate tragedy.


Gatsby is a romantic, a man who began with a high and exalted


vision of himself and his destiny. He aspires to greatness, which he


associates with Daisy. If he can win her, then he will have somehow


achieved his goal. Gatsby’s wealth, his mansion, his parties, his


possessions, even his heroism in battle are but means to achieve his


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ultimate goal. Gatsby is mistaken, however, in his belief that money can


buy happiness or that he can recapture his past if he only becomes rich.


One of these examples is when the epigraph becomes clear: the four-


line poem of Thomas Park d’Invilliers that Fitzgerald quotes on the title


page describes exactly what Gatsby has done. He has symbolically worn


the gold hat; he has bounced high, accumulating possessions for this


moment, so that when Daisy sees them she will cry our, like the lover in


the poem, “I must have you.” And Daisy does. These shirts move Daisy


not because they are mad of such fine fabric, or the shirts look very


well; they move her because of what the shirts symbolize Gatsby’s


extraordinary dedication to his dream. This dedication separates him and


makes him morally superior that the materialistic society with which he


lives in.. In this case one could consider Gatsby as morally superior


even when he commits an error of judgment because of a flaw in his


character.


Gatsby is indeed morally superior to the other characters in the


book, but this superiority is another factor which contributes to Gatsby’s


ultimate misfortune. No matter what we think of Gatsby or of his


dream, we are drawn to him by the sad apprehension that dreams


themselves are often more beautiful than dreams fulfilled. Nick realizes


this, too, when he says: “There must have been moments even that


afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams -nor through her


own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone


beyond her, beyond everything.” What Gatsby and Daisy have is so


much more than an endeavor; it’s beautiful, more intense, and finally


more painful in the end. There is both a joy and sadness in a love as


great as theirs. In some ways Gatsby is morally superior than the society


at the time, but this moral superiority is the cause of Gatsby’s


dillusionment dream, and inevitable fate.


Finally, Nick’s approval is what allows Gatsby to be called “great,”


but his greatness has a curious, puzzling quality to it, since it cannot be


easily or completely defined. Gatsby certainly lacks many of the qualities


and fails many of the tests normally linked with greatness, but he


redeems this by his exalted conception of himself. Gatsby has dedicated


himself to the accomplishment of a supreme object, to restore to himself


an illusion he had lost; he set about it, in a pathetic American way.


Gatsby is a man with a dream at the mercy of the “foul dust” that


sometimes seems only to exist in order to swarm against the dream. It


is a strange dream, Gatsby’s but he was a man who had hopes and


aspirations. He was a child, who believed in a childish thing.

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