Jay Gatsby epitomizes one of the main characteristics of the American dream, everlasting hope. Gatsby’s desire to win Daisy’s love is relevant to his version of the American dream. His desire for Daisy symbolizes the basis of the old dream as it is an incredible goal and a constant search for the opportunity to reach this goal. This is shown when Gatsby is first introduced into the novel. “He stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and far as I was from him I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward and distinguished nothing, except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock”. The green light that Gatsby reaches out for symbolizes his longing, his desire for Daisy, for money, for acceptance and no matter how much he has, he never feels complete. This green light is part of the American Dream. It symbolizes our constant searching for a way to reach that goal, long in the distance, as Nick described it. “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us”.
Gatsby’s goal gave him a purpose in life, which sets him apart for the rest of the upper class. He is constantly chasing his dream of being with Daisy, from the moment he stretches towards her house, to his final days of life when he patiently waits for hours outside her house even though shed has already abandoned her affair with him. Gatsby is a man who has all of the purest traits of the old American hero, hope, perseverance, hard working ambition and a thirst for adventure, but he loses them by wearing the dream’s modern face.
F. Scott Fitzgerald credits the destruction of the American Dream to wealth, privilege and the lack of humanity that those aspects create. Money is clearly identified as the main culprit in the dreams death. It becomes easily entangled with hope and success and replaces their positions in the American dream with materialism. This is shown through Gatsby’s use of illegal practices and underground connections to make money. His lavish parties, huge mansion and giant collection of clothing all represent his corruption.
But there are worst qualities of the dream’s modern face that are relevant to Tom and Daisy Buchanan, who live their lives without any hopes or regrets because the foundation of their character, is money and wealth. Nick describes the Buchanan’s as “careless people”. “They smashed things up and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together and let other people clean up the mess they had made”. An example of the Buchanan’s carelessness and lack of regret comes when Nick runs into Tom one last time. When confronted with Gatsby’s death Tom merely responds “I told him the truth. What if I did tell him? That fellow had it coming to him”. Even though Tom admits to the fact that he is responsible for Gatsby’s murder and Wilson’s suicide, he continues to claim innocence because he has never known guilt or shame as a member of the established elite. This upper class is shown to be made up of heartless citizens who have achieved success at the cost of dehumanization and the selling of their souls.
There is a sense of hopelessness at the end of the novel to prove that the purity of the American dream is dead with examples of Daisy’s baby, Gatsby’s murder and Wilson’s suicide. The first hint of tragedy begins at the introduction of the Buchanan’s daughter, whom Daisy refers as “blessed precious”. When the girl is introduced to Gatsby, Nick observes an obvious disturbance in Gatsby’s attitude and thinking. We see this when Nick says “Gatsby and I in turn leaned down and took the small reluctant hand. Afterward he kept looking at the child with surprise. I don’t think he had ever really believed in its existence before”. Daisy then calls her child an “absolute little dream”, crushing all of Gatsby’s hopes of recreating the past.
The American dream with materialism is pointed out moments later when Nick and Gatsby try to discern the charm in Daisy’s voice. At that moment Gatsby says, “her voice is full of money”, this attracts Gatsby’s attention as Daisy’s aura of wealth and privilege, her many clothes, her perfect house, her lack of fear are qualities that allows Gatsby to be obsessed with Daisy.
With this revelation all of Daisy’s charm and beauty is stripped away and only money is left to be admired. Gatsby then realized that his dream he has been pursuing is not that of love but of money hidden behind a human face. Afterwards, when Gatsby dies any chance of the old American dream of surviving in the modern world is destroyed with him. All of the hopes and dreams that strengthened and uplifted Gatsby are shattered as he lies in his pool, dazed and confused about the world which he no longer understands. After shooting Gatsby, George Wilson, a common man who is trying to achieve his own success in the modern dream, commits suicide. George represents in a distilled way the ruthless proposition that in a society built on the worship of the dollar, having is all, not having is being like nothing. This is relevant to his moral and social decay that results from the uninhibited pursuit of wealth, as the rich indulge themselves with regard for nothing but their own pleasure, George survives his day to day basis, within valley of ashes, the plight of the poor. The deaths of both the rich and poor man trying to achieve their goals symbolize the death of the old American dream. The dream is now completely lost and can never be restored.
Through the tragic story of Jay Gatsby and his failed attempt to reach his dream, F. Scott Fitzgerald describes the need for hopes and dreams to give meaning and purpose to a man’s efforts. Striving towards some ideal is the way by which a man can feel a sense of involvement, a sense of his own identity. Fitzgerald goes on to state that the failure of hopes and dreams, the failure of the American dream itself is unavoidable, not only because reality cannot keep up with ideals, but also because the ideals in any case are too fantastic to realise. Gatsby is naïve, impractical and sentimental, which makes him attempt the impossible, to repeat the past. Therefore “The Great Gatsby” is not about the life and death of Jay Gatsby, but about what Jay Gatsby stood for. It is about the life and death of the old American dream.
