The little details that Gatsby does reveal are in the form of actions, as opposed to the reactions of other people in the story. Actions like showing off his house show how Gatsby wants to be accepted by the people who matter to him most. As Carraway introduces the information that Gatsby gives him, we can gather that Gatsby’s character is quite opaque and somewhat stubborn. The search for the truth behind Gatsby’s character is not aided by the fact that Gatsby himself is quite secretive and is quite image conscious as part of his pursuit of Daisy. When Carraway attempts to discover more about the origins of Gatsby’s money he is rebuffed by a sharp ‘That’s my business’. In that passage, while showing Daisy around his ‘palatial mansion’, he displays a tendency to boast about his wealth and stature. This is probably the result of pride that he has achieved what he has, but it also demonstrates that his wealth has not been a permanent feature in his life as established wealthy people do not need to be ostentatious with their wealth. More obvious things that Gatsby does offer more insight. To Carraway who is still present at this, it must have shown a great deal of superficiality from both parties. The way that Gatsby is visibly ostentatious with his wealth and the symbols of the achievements that he has made demonstrate how Gatsby can be endlessly trying to prove himself to others. But much of the wealth and shows that he puts on are just a façade as his own behaviour at these events is quite overshadowed by the nature of the parties. Many people who attend these parties admit to not having met him in person. The muted personality that Gatsby emits does not fully show his true feelings and opinions. Carraway describes him as an ‘elegant young roughneck’ meaning that he was essentially a poorer person who had been taught how to speak and therefore overused various phrases in order to sound more sophisticated than he truly was. However, on later knowledge of Gatsby such as the incident in which they together meet Daisy at Carraway’s house, and also through his reactions when they go into New York with Daisy and Tom after that, he then changes his view to a more valuable assessment of him, ‘You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together’. This demonstrates that a substantial shift in opinion appeared in Carraway’s mind due to the events occurring in the run up to and also the aftermath of the death of Gatsby. His shift shows the reader that something about Gatsby had changed his mind because as Carraway knows, the reader must also know something about Gatsby’s character.
Carraway tries to demonstrate how Gatsby grew as a person due to the dreams that he had about success. The phrase, ‘The truth was that Jay Gatsby … sprang from his Platonic conception of himself’ is meant to demonstrate that the lifestyle that Gatsby lives now and the way he achieves his success is simply due to the perfect vision of himself that he envisioned as a young boy. This dream reflected many of his idealistic beliefs and the need for all of the things that we come to accept as part of an affluent lifestyle such as what Gatsby leads. The implications of this are that he can be easily misled by what he may perceive as more outlandish. As he tries to meet more people like Tom Buchanan, who are essentially nasty, he may be manipulated into an alter ego. Having the encounter with Dan Cody, who we learn took Gatsby under his wing and showed him how to succeed, really changed Gatsby and this is one reason why I believe that he has had two separate lives with the same ultimate goal - to be successful. Before he met Cody, many of his dreams were purely to focus him and give him guidance. After he met Cody, this changed and he had the means with which to implement his plans for success. When Cody died, Cody’s mistress Ella Kaye cheated Gatsby out of a substantial amount of money. These events helped Gatsby’s visions of how to be a successful man to take shape and enabled his transition from a dreamer to a man of action. From that point forward, Gatsby vowed to recover what had been taken away from him and in doing that, fulfil his potential and live up to the persona created by himself.
However much we know about how Gatsby acts in his social life, not much is revealed about his business dealings. Small talk at the parties he hosts tells Carraway that some believe he is a bootlegger, whilst others believe that he has killed a man. We later find out that the former is more likely to be true as what we later discover is that Tom Buchanan has carried out his own investigations and he believes that Gatsby is a bootlegger. In the same sequence, Gatsby confronts Tom about his affair in front of Daisy and his actions show us that when he needs to be, he can be quite strong about his feelings. But when business is involved, he is most secretive. All attempts to discover how he made his money are sharply rebuffed. At a party where Carraway and Gatsby were talking, a worker comes up to Gatsby and informs him that a friend from Chicago is on the telephone and that he should take the call. We know that at the time the book was set, prohibition was in order and many gangs which originated in Chicago were making large profits from the illegal trade in alcohol. For Gatsby to be talking to anyone in Chicago means that they were quite important and in this society, they were most likely to be gangsters, fuelling talk of his profession. His secretive nature on the matter also asks questions about the legality of his business. At the time of his funeral, his father gave Carraway his childhood diary that demonstrates that even as a child, his life was strictly regulated.
“General Resolves
No wasting time at Shafters or [a name, indecipherable].
No more smoking or chewing.
Bath every other day.
Read one improving book or magazine per week.
Save $5 [crossed out] $3.00 per week.
Be better to parents.”
With resolve like this we can assume that Gatsby would do anything in order to become the self made moneymaker, although why he chooses to disguise the origins of this money is somewhat of a mystery to the reader.
In chapter 6 after Gatsby’s reunion with Daisy, we learn from him that when he was 17, Gatsby changed his name from James Gatz to Jay Gatsby. He may have done this for many reasons, but the most likely is that James Gatz had a name of German origin. This is made more likely as many of the German immigrants to America finally settled in the Mid-West. This migration to what can be perceived as a desolate part of America makes Gatsby trying to disguise his origins slightly more understandable. As Gatsby met Cody, he changed his name to the slightly more English and refined name of Jay Gatsby. When moving to the more affluent areas in the East (such as New York) combining the name and wealth gave Gatsby a higher chance of being accepted by those already there.
The book’s first-person viewpoint allows for many details to be learnt as the novel goes on. The news and information can only be learnt as outside sources give the information to Carraway. The parties that Gatsby holds demonstrate this. Carraway starts to assume things and passes them on to the reader. One example is where at the beginning of the book he assumes Gatsby to be arrogant and then changes his mind later on to him being better than the people he has ambitions to be. The book’s first person viewpoint provides these problems and this is what can confuse many as Carraway, the narrator, can change his views and lead to confusion. The way the book is set out means that the book does not relay all the information quickly and makes it more of an enigma. The problem emerges when we realise that the novel only tells us his character, and not Gatsby’s true motives for his actions. Fitzgerald gives the reader a limited, first person point of view to tell his story. The narrator’s detached position gives him the chance to retell as well as comment on the characters and events going on around him. The fact that Nick Carraway stands outside the society he observes due to the fact that he himself is only a visitor shows that how. We witness the romantic affairs that form the core of the novel from a presumed impartial view, although Daisy and Carraway are cousins so that might influence his views earlier, before he had a chance to know her further. One of the problems with this is that we are limited by the information that Carraway gives us and in this case, he may well be open to prejudice, or may not even tell us some of the information at all. To gain a great deal of information on a basis such as this is quite a risky thing to do. One of the other problems for the reader to establish is that Gatsby lies to Carraway in much of the things that he says. His shady business dealings and conflicting stories about the origins of his money also force the reader to pay closer attention to it. Though Gatsby himself is this shady to disguise this dealing. Later in the book the truth does emerge from him and this is an indication of their growing trust, ever enhanced by the trust that they start to extend.
At the beginning of the novel and also Carraway’s final message at the end of the book, the green light plays a great role in symbolising the meaning of the book. Situated at the end of Daisy's East Egg dock and barely visible from Gatsby's West Egg lawn, the green light represents Gatsby's hopes and dreams for the future. We associate it with Gatsby’s pursuit of Daisy and in Chapter I he reaches toward it in the darkness as a guiding light to lead him to his goal. Because Gatsby's quest for Daisy is broadly associated with the American dream, the green light also symbolises that more generalised ideal. Gatsby’s hopes and drams for his future elevate him in Carraway’s opinion and lead him to see Gatsby as an archetype of the American dream. In Chapter IX, Nick compares the green light to how America, rising out of the ocean, must have looked to early settlers of the new nation and their own vision of a perfect new life. This, as to the other early settlers, is exactly what the ever hopeful and forward thinking Gatsby must have perceived also.
Superficially, The Great Gatsby is a story of the interrupted love between a man and a woman. The main theme of the novel, however, encompasses a much larger, less romantic scope. Though all of its action takes place over a mere few months during the summer of 1922 and is set in a comparatively small geographical area in the vicinity of Long Island, New York, The Great Gatsby is a highly symbolic view on 1920’s America as a whole, in particular the disintegration of the ‘American dream’ in an era of unprecedented prosperity and material excess. The ash heaps that rise above during the journey to New York symbolise that gap between the glitz of the rich and those beneath them. In the book The Great Gatsby, we encounter many different views of this man. Is he a criminal in his business dealings, or simply a shy person always longing to meet the love of his life again? What I believe is that he is simply a good person trying to be accepted among those to whom he would like to become accustomed. However, in his naïvity, many of the people around him are nasty people. As Carraway puts it, ‘They were careless people, Tom and Daisy — they smashed up things 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…’. Such a strong statement fully shows how these people could have taken in Gatsby. Trying to hide business dealings cast doubt for the reader but for any man to go to all the trouble of arranging to meet his true love shows his romantic side. One thing that this novel shows to the reader is that although Carraway is told some details by Gatsby, what we know eventually turns into a great deal of information. I believe that Gatsby is overall a good person trying desperately to achieve the two things that his life has desired - Daisy and the pursuit of money, which were denied to him earlier.
