“The Great Gatsby” is a classic example of the great American novel and widely considered as one of the best American works of fiction ever written. Created in the 1920’s by esteemed writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, the book explores the American dream and our society’s lust for success and wealth. The characters in the story get spun up in this quest for American materialism, and this is a major cause for the downfall of a majority of the individuals involved in the story.
The setting for the book takes place in a wealthy neighborhood on Long Island, called West Egg. Nick, the book’s narrator, has just come to New York after graduating from college and serving in World War I. He rents a house next to the mysterious and eccentric Jay Gatsby, who routinely hosts lavish parties that Nick can see and hear from his home. Eventually, Nick gets sucked into the Gatsby household, meeting up with Tom and Daisy Buchanan, his cousin who lives nearby. Daisy is glamorous and beautiful, but a bit emotionally unstable. Her husband Tom oozes machismo, keeping a mistress in Queens whom he is physically violent toward.
The lives of each character overlap and intertwine, as multiple affairs and past relationships reveal themselves throughout the story. This free love aspect is used to characterize the roaring twenties as a time of excess, where scruples and moral standards are thrown out in lieu of personal gratification. This is shown overtly through the various romantic entanglements, and more subtly through Daisy’s relationship with her young daughter. The child is used as an accessory, brought out to entertain at parties then quickly shooed away to be looked after by her nanny.
Similarly, the characters continually show an inability to take responsibility for their own actions. When Daisy’s reckless driving causes the death of Tom’s mistress Myrtle, Gatsby takes the blame himself. Tom in turn lets it slip to Myrtle’s widowed husband that Gatsby was the owner of the car that killed his wife, leading to Gatsby’s murder while he relaxes in his pool. This domino effect captures the way these characters carelessly impact one another’s lives, even though they show no awareness of their actions.
Imagery plays a major role in the book. The use of New Egg and West Egg to separate the two major neighborhoods creates an instant separation between the “old” and “new” money, a social distinction that plays a major part in the story. The green light beckoning to Gatsby from Daisy’s dock emphasizes how he is drawn to her by reemphasizing the greed for money. A fading billboard for an ophthalmologist has two eyes constantly watching the characters of the book, acting as the only witness and judge to the goings on. In the end, these eyes are one of the few guests at Gatsby’s funeral. The eyes stay even when Nick leaves the town, thoroughly disgusted and disillusioned with what he found there.
