"Gatsby is said to be not quite credible for Gatsby, divided between power and dream, comes to inevitability to stand for America itself." This statement is true, but only from the viewpoint that its basic premise is correct.

Authors Avatar

By B Murray 12B

“Gatsby is said to be not quite credible for Gatsby, divided between power and dream, comes to inevitability to stand for America itself.” This statement is true, but only from the viewpoint that its basic premise is correct. Gatsby isn’t credible as a character if he comes to stand “for America itself”, true, but I believe that Gatsby represents the American Dream. James Gatz is America. Jay Gatsby is the reincarnation of the idealism of the early pioneers. This is because Gatsby, like the Dream, stems from an idealist’s ‘platonic self-conception’.

When the Dutch pioneers first saw America, they saw “a fresh green breast of the new world … face to face … with something commensurate to [their] capacity for wonder.”. This New World was huge and full of possibilities for the pioneers – this is the same way James Gatz sees the world through his 17-year old eyes. This New World, however, was so full of possibilities that their path must be cautiously plotted to achieve maximum fulfilment from the new Continent. And so, the American Dream is born. Success and pleasure in a classless society are its primary components. History repeats itself with James Gatz (as history is wont to do) as he meticulously carves his life out of the edifice of endless possibility his young mind perceives ahead of him. The carving takes the shape of Jay Gatsby, and Gatz is well pleased. The carving, and the platonic self-conception, is complete to the smallest detail.

Join now!

The primary flaw, leading to its destruction, in the American Dream is that one stipulation to its actualisation is money. Money breeds success, but it also breeds contempt. This breeds class distinction, materialism, and carelessness – the antithesis of the Dream’s conception. This ‘foul dust’ floating in the wake of the Great Dream is what aids in its own, and Gatsby’s, destruction.

The Dream creates a careless society that is only out for personal gratification, by any means necessary. This means that the ‘dream’ is only achieved by the few, whilst the many suffer for it. But this ...

This is a preview of the whole essay