Having made enough money, he begins to implement his plans, step by step, to buy
Daisy’s love.
Firstly, he buys an expensive mansion at West Egg, proximate to Daisy’s at East Egg so that he can always glaze at "the green light that burns all night at the end of your [Daisy’s] dock" (P.90). Actually, he also buys a luxurious "yellow car", a deluxe yacht, many ornate clothes and stacks of bona fide books, not only to show off his wealth and social and educational status, but also to impress Daisy. Gatsby is so proud of his great attire that when Daisy visits his lavish mansion:
He took out a pile of shirts and began throwing them, one by one, before us, shirts of sheer linen and thick silk and fine flannel… While we admired he brought more and the soft rich heap mounted higher – shirts with stripes and scrolls and plaids in coral and apple-green and lavender and faint orange, with monograms of indian blue. (P.89).
Effectively, Daisy is so dazzled by his opulent mansion and in particular his rich apparel that she bends her head into the shirts and exclaims marvelously: "They’re such beautiful shirts!" (P.89). Moreover, he throws numerous extravagant parties in the hope that Daisy will turn out in one of them. Assuming that he can buy Daisy’s love by exhibiting his wealth, Gatsby becomes committed into doing these all. However, money is not God. Nor is it a salvation for mankind. Therefore, Gatsby’ deliberate deeds are doomed to be in vain.
Indeed, there is a hint foreshadowing the futility of Gatsby’s desire for Daisy. Early in the novel, when Jordan is talking about Gatsby, Daisy demands, "Gatsby? What Gatsby?" (P.16), inferring that Gatsby no longer occupies an important position in Daisy’s heart, and is bound to be fruitless of his hopefulness about Daisy.
The loss of Daisy by Gatsby has been taken for granted to be perceived as the equivalence to the failure of his dream for his predominant impetus to success is Daisy. This is not wrong; but a deeper analysis will yield a better, more thorough perception. In the first place, it can be argued that after Gatsby has set a course of action for realizing his dream early in his life, he fails to mature beyond that point, so much so that:
His dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him… And Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. (P.171).
Besides, he also fails to achieve the status he has been searching for. He throws extravagant parties aiming at spreading his wealth and increasing his social reputation, but cannot achieve the intended effects. People coming to his parties uninvited often fail to meet him. No one actually knows who Gatsby is and what he did. They just harbor the suspicions that "he killed a man once" and he is a bootlegger. That’s all. And their feelings are rather negative and injurious.
Not even Tom shows respect for him. In Tom’s eyes, Gatsby is his social inferior. He was born rich and always belongs to the rich and the highly reputable. Gatsby, however, has just happened to be rich and is always below him in the social hierarchy. He is incredulous and contemptuous of Gatsby’s educational attainment. When somebody tells him that Gatsby was an Oxford man, he is outright disdainful and opprobrious of Gatsby, insofar as he makes such abusive remarks:
"An Oxford man! Like hell he is!" (P.116).
"Oxford, New Mexico, or something like that." (P.116).
Later, when he suffers unfavorably in the wrangle with Gatsby over Daisy’s affection, he discloses from where Gatsby attains his state of wealth, rather despicably:
"Who are you, anyhow? You’re one of that bunch that hangs around with Meyer Wolfshiem… I found out what your ‘drug-stores’ were. He and this Wolfshiem bought up a lot of side-street drug-stores here and sold grain alcohol over the counter. That’s one of his little stunts. I picked him for a bootlegger the first time I saw him, and I wasn’t far wrong." (P.127).
Indeed, Gatsby makes a fortune in illegal dealings with Meyer Wolfshiem, to which we will come back later in the essay. These sorts of social discrimination and divisions among classes, which are contradictory to the principles of the American Dream, really abound in American society at that time. And this accounts to the failure of the American Dream at large.
A second culprit to the failure of the American Dream is the moral decadence of people in general. In essence, spiritual improvements are concomitant with material improvements. They are mutually complementary. However, with the material part too easily achieved (perhaps thanks to the emergence of a new concept called ‘easy money’ – the selling of bonds, insurance, automobiles, etc.), people begin to lose their spiritual purpose as material achievements blindfold people’s spiritual aspirations. As a consequence, the society shows a decline in spiritual life of its inhabitants, and their lives become lacking in meaning and ideal. And this is often identified as the ‘Jazz Age’, during which the overwhelming atmosphere of careless gaiety and wild celebration is prevalent. This becomes almost evident when Gatsby throws an enormous number of lavish parties where its wild extravagance and the shallowness and aimlessness of the guests are by no means implicit:
Five crates of oranges and lemons every party… every Monday these same oranges and lemons left his back door in a pyramid of pulpless halves. (P.41)
There was dancing now on the canvas in the garden; old men pushing young girls backward in eternal graceless circles, superior couples holding each other tortuously, fashionably, and keeping in the corners – and a great number of single girls dancing individualistically or relieving the orchestra for a moment of the burden of the banjo or the traps. By midnight the hilarity had increased… happy, vacuous bursts of laughter rose toward the summer sky. (P.47-48).
The scenario is made more explicit by Daisy’s lament:
"What’ll we do with ourselves this afternoon?" cried Daisy, "and the day after that, and the next 30 years?" (P.113).
After all, this period is characterized by some kinds of new culture, for example the emergence of jazz music, the Charleston dance, movies and the automobile.
Accompanying the degradation of spiritual life and purpose is the corruption of values. In order to bring their dreams closer to reality, people are prepared to do whatever possible, even resort to criminal activities. In fact, in the so-called Roaring Twenties, organized crimes ran rampant. Cheating, bribery, bootlegging and illegal gambling were rife in society at that time. Even murder is no rarer. In the novel, it is bootlegging that Gatsby commits, as revealed earlier in the essay. At that time, law in the United States, spawning some kind of gangster called bootleggers, who smuggled liquor illegally, forbade the production and sale of alcoholic drinks.
Lastly, it is the disparity between reality and ideals that prompts the failure of Gatsby’s dream and the American Dream by and large. Perhaps the love affair between Gatsby and Daisy in the past is such a memorable experience of bliss that he always longs for the past, even though it seems impractical for him to regain Daisy’s affection:
"Your wife doesn’t love you," said Gatsby. "She’s never loved you. She loves me… She only married you because I was poor and she was tired of waiting for me. It was a terrible mistake, but in her heart she never loved anyone except me." (P.124).
From the above example, it is clear that Gatsby’s desire for Daisy is so obsessed that he talks wildly. In addition to his naivete and impracticality, Gatsby is over-sentimental. After the knockdown of Myrtle by Daisy, he tries to take the blame for Myrtle’s death without a word of complaint. He watches over Daisy on her way home lest she may be hurt. Even after she has arrived home, he is no less heedful. He still insists on guarding outside her house for safety’s sake. Probably, Gatsby cannot desert Daisy after the accident until he knows what she is going to do. He is snatching at some last hope. To his disappointment, his attempt to recapture the past eventually withers in its pursuit. Thus, Gatsby’s dream is an illusion. It also reminds us that having strong ambition and faith as well as being hardworking by no means guarantee success – after all, ideals are ideals; reality is reality!
Gatsby is the living embodiment of the American Dream in many respects because of his extraordinary gift for hope, his Platonic conception of himself, his faith in life’s possibility and his commitment to his aspirations. He represents the general public who is poor but has hopes and dreams for which they are to strive to give meaning and purpose to their efforts. His dream symbolizes the larger American Dream in which all have the equal opportunity to get what they want. Nonetheless, the fiasco in his personal dream also typifies the collapse of the American Dream on the whole in which social discrimination and class divisions, spiritual voidness and hollow gaiety, and the decadence of values and ideals prevail. The novel is a great reminder that money cannot make the world go around, after all.
Failure of Jay Gatsby of The Great Gatsby
A society naturally breaks up into various social groups over time. Members of lower statuses constantly suppose that their problems will be resolved if they gain enough wealth to reach the upper class. Many interpret the American Dream as being this passage to high social status and, once reaching that point, not having to concern about money at all. Though, the American Dream involves more than the social and economic standings of an individual. The dream involves attaining a balance between the spiritual strength and the physical strength of an individual. Jay Gatsby, of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, fails to reach his ultimate dream of love for Daisy in that he chooses to pursue it by engaging in a lifestyle of high class.
Gatsby realizes that life of the high class demands wealth to become priority; wealth becomes his superficial goal overshadowing his quest for love. He establishes his necessity to acquire wealth, which allows him to be with Daisy. The social elite of Gatsby's time sacrifice morality in order to attain wealth. Tom Buchanan, a man from an "enormously wealthy" family, seems to Nick to have lost all sense of being kind (Fitzgerald 10). Nick describes Tom's physical attributes as a metaphor for his true character when remarking that Tom had a "hard mouth and a supercilious manner...arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face...always leaning aggressively forward...a cruel body...[h]is speaking voice...added to the impression of fractiousness he conveyed" (Fitzgerald 11). The wealth Tom has inherited causes him to become arrogant and condescending to others, while losing his morals. Rather than becoming immoral from wealth as Tom has, Gatsby engages in criminal activity as his only path to being rich. His need for money had become so great that he "was in the drug business" (Fitzgerald 95). Furthermore, he lies to Nick about his past in order to cover up his criminal activity. Gatsby claims to others that he has inherited his wealth, but Nick discovers "[h]is parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people" (Fitzgerald 104). Gatsby enters a world where money takes precedence over moral integrity. Materialism has already overshadowed a portion of his spiritual side. A quest for true love is doomed for failure in the presence of immorality. Once wealth has taken priority over integrity, members of the high social class focus on immediate indulgences, rather than on long-term pleasures of life such as love. Daisy constantly strives to keep herself busy by means of social interaction or physical pleasure. She presents her worry to keep busy when saying, "What'll we do with ourselves this afternoon...and the day after that, and the next thirty years" (Fitzgerald 125). In a society that relies on immediate physical indulgences, Gatsby simply feeds the appetite of the high class by throwing parties. He believes he can create an earthly paradise for others and himself. Unfortunately, this so-called paradise exists with physical pleasures and wealth being priorities. Furthermore, Gatsby expresses that same need to keep busy in a society of the elite. As a metaphor for Gatsby's necessity, Nick describes him as "never quite still; there was always a tapping foot somewhere or the impatient opening and closing of a hand" (Fitzgerald 68). Gatsby fills his house "full of interesting people...who do interesting things" (Fitzgerald 96). Gatsby no longer has to rely on himself for immediate pleasures. Gatsby's pursuit of wealth becomes so intense that it even takes priority over his yearning for love. Money and immediate pleasures become more important than being with Daisy. Gatsby's dream is doomed to failure in that he has lost the fundamental necessities to experience love, such as honesty and moral integrity.
True, binding relationships amongst individuals no longer exist once wealth has taken precedence. Family relationships exist superficially amongst high-ranking members of society. Marriages become simply labels of society rather than bindings between two individuals. Catherine observes the superficiality of marriages when remarking about the couples of the story, "Neither of them can stand the person they're married to" (Fitzgerald 37). The binding of a marriage has become very weak when Daisy "had told [Gatsby] that she loved him, and Tom Buchanan saw. He was astounded" (Fitzgerald 125). Gatsby accepts the fact that marriages rarely represent true love, and does not hesitate to tell his love to Daisy right in front of her husband. More than the institution of marriage, Gatsby loses all sense of family. His wealth has metaphorically become his family. He relies on his money rather than a family to bring comfort and security to his life. Gatsby's musician sings, "The rich get richer and the poor get - children" (Fitzgerald 101). Gatsby makes an attempt to regain the loss of family he experiences through his wealth. Nick describes a story about how Gatsby "agreed to pay five years' taxes on all the neighboring cottages if the owners would have their roofs thatched with straw. Perhaps their refusal took the heart out of his plan to Found a Family" (Fitzgerald 93). Yet again, Gatsby takes advantage of his wealth to replace his deteriorated spirit and emotions. As a result of superficial family relationships, all love for that matter becomes based on social status. Myrtle's love for Tom is ultimately doomed to failure due to her standing in a lower social class than Tom. This large social gap appears when Tom "had discovered that Myrtle had some sort of life apart from him in another world" (Fitzgerald 130). The couple is never meant to be. Gatsby had experienced this exact situation with Daisy when he was in the army. His love for Daisy was impossible in society because "he was at present a penniless young man without a past...he had no comfortable family standing behind him" (Fitzgerald 156). Gatsby encounters his dream of love at this point of his life. He knows that at present time a relationship of love is impossible with Daisy due to his low social standing. Gatsby becomes determined to breach that gap between them in order to have a loving relationship with Daisy. This dream is the representation of the American Dream. He does reach the physical circumstances necessary to love her, but he has focused too much on money and power the previous five years of his life. He wants his love with Daisy to flourish while occupying the rest of both their lives. Unfortunately, he has lost the ability to love. He no longer possesses moral integrity or the ability to handle a relationship. In resignation of his dream he can simply hope to prove that Daisy "never loved [Tom]" (Fitzgerald 116). Gatsby leaves his mark proving that true love is bound to fail amongst extreme wealth.
Gatsby possesses an extreme imbalance between the material and spiritual sides of himself. His ultimate goal of love swaps places with his secondary goal of becoming rich. He portrays the ultimate failure of the American Dream in that individuals tend to believe wealth is everything. Historically, America was the New World of endless opportunity and wealth. But a nation cannot operate solely on materialism. The spirits of individuals are the true composition of a nation.
