I Hope she’ll be a Fool: Illusions and Ethics in ‘The Great Gatsby’

From Dreams to Reality: Unpacking the Grandeur and Gaps in 'The Great Gatsby'

The Great Gatsby is one of America’s biggest novels in the history of literature. It expands across various different themes that are universally dreamt about over the world. People from all around gather to read this book on its vision of the American Dream and romance. Close to “42 languages across the world have translated this masterpiece”(USA Today) for its own school, upcoming writers, and regular people to read.

The book is, however, unethical to what really takes place in the “place of possibilities” and doesn’t exploit the factors that really happen in the other classes besides the wealthy. The Great Gatsby is a story worthy of being read by the eleventh-grade students at Buena High School because of its idealization of the American Dream, the romantic conflict of drama, and Fitzgerald's impeccable use of wording the story together. The wondrous story follows a man named Nick Carraway coming to New York from the Midwest to make a title for himself in the bond business.

Gatsby's Mansion and Ambitions: The Complex Web of Desire, Wealth, and the Elusive American Dream

The house he pays for “$80 per month” is right next door to a wealthy millionaire named “Gatsby,” whose mansion always has parties. When Nick gets an invite to a party that he agrees to go to, he is pulled into a world revolving around his second-removed cousin Daisy; her husband, Tom; Daisy’s friend, Jordan (a famous golfer); and Tom’s mistress, Myrtle. During the story, we get to learn that the man “Jay Gatsby” is a person who was of the middle class and, after entering the war, did whatever it took to get his former love “Daisy Buchanan” to come back to him. Gatsby clearly represents the American Dream that we all hope to accomplish one day in wealth. Leading Fitzgerald scholar James L. W. West III said in the article, “ Five Reasons 'Gatsby' Is the Great American Novel.', USA Today”, “But in honest truth, he is a lovesick fool that makes our hearts weep for the loss of losing the love of his life. 'It is our novel, how we present ourselves. ... He captured and distilled the essence of the American spirit.' The author, Fitzgerald, makes Gatsby the embodiment of all the men in the world succeeding at their goals of being at the top, not only in wealth but also in the outcome of struggling through a time of patriotism to hopefully lead to a very prosperous life. The same article by USA Today said that “The Great Gatsby also captures money's power to corrupt, to let the rich escape from the consequences of their actions. Here's Fitzgerald's description of that original 1% couple: 'They were careless people — Tom and Daisy — they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money ...'(Chapter 9, Nick Carraway).

I Hope She'll Be a Fool: Gatsby's Obsession, Daisy's Dilemma, and the Toxic Allure of Wealth

Emphasizing to us that, indeed, Gatsby was an innocent man that had to delve into some illegal prospers in order to get back Daisy, but that the cruelty of the wealthy class, especially ones who have lived in that one urbane, whereas Gatsby did some wrong but never should have died the death that was ultimately Daisy’s to sacrifice. Because it was she that, in the end, killed Myrtle by driving in Gatsby’s car. Where the American Dream becomes the book’s theme in Chapter 8 when Nick says, ” They're a rotten crowd,' I shouted across the lawn. 'You're worth the whole damn bunch put together.” This sentence altogether explains to us the meaning of Gatsby's role in the story: A man who has become the dream of every American and a person that wants to grow up to find himself in the ecstasy of wealth. The romantic display of corrupt drama in The Great Gatsby is one of the many reasons that it's worthy as an all-time playing book. The story encapsulates the essence of what real drama we crave when we visualize the upper-wealth classes. In the same article by USA Today, the author, Donahue, Deirdre., says, “ The Great Gatsby isn't a romance about how a nice millionaire almost wins back the girl of his dreams. It's about a narcissistic obsession with the past. “ In the past, before Nick Carraway entered, Gatsby was a man in the army almost heading for war, who caught himself in the mesmerizing lady of Daisy. They fell in love and supposedly “made plans to run away” because of the impression that he purposefully made of his “wealth.”

I Hope She'll Be a Fool: Gatsby's Pursuit, Daisy's Dilemma, and the Delicate Dance of Deception

After coming back from the war, Gatsby finds Daisy married to a very wealthy man, Tom Buchanan, who lavishes Daisy with gifts and falls for her like Gatsby until Myrtle comes along. During his time away, they also happen to bore a little daughter, whom Daisy says, “I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool--that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.'(Chapter 1). Throughout this entire time, Gatsby does whatever it takes to become the man He made Daisy envision in him. He held parties every day at his house, which was parallel to hers across the bay, and desired that she would walk into his house during one of them. When they finally become reunited through Jordan begging Nick over tea, the affair starts off with flair, followed by the destruction of beautiful drama. The book holds an aspect that draws the audience, like when Nick says through Gatsby’s words in Chapter 6 about him and Daisy, “Then he kissed her. At his lips' touch, she blossomed for him like a flower, and the incarnation was complete.”The element of romance in the book is followed by the quick assumption that Tom makes us stand on our toes, waiting for the big hit to happen. Reading Throughout the novel, the author, Fitzgerald, makes a point to curve the words in a way that we think that Nick is, in fact, a debatable/ reliable narrator.

Polished Illusions: Materialism, Melancholy, and the Gloss of Gatsby's World

As the story progresses, we continue to see the growth of Nick Carraway through words like,” I bought a dozen volumes on banking and credit and investment securities, and they stood on my shelf in red and gold like new money from the mint, promising to unfold the shining secrets that only Midas and Morgan and Maecenas Knew.” (Chapter 1). Quotes like these display to us the materialism that filled Gatsby’s house through NIck’s mind and the indescribable amount of love between Daisy and Gatsby. During the flashback of Daisy’s marriage to Tom, we see the amount of pain and anguish that was following her on her wedding day, from the pearls being broken to the crying and the drownage of Gatsby’s note in the tub. In the article, 'The Serious Superficiality of The Great Gatsby.' by The New Yorker, “Fitzgerald’s novel is cool, sexy, stylized, and abstract; there’s a dreamlike falseness, a hollowness, an unreality to it, and that apparent superficiality is part of what makes it fascinating.” What the article continues to convey is that Fitzgerald sculpts The Great Gatsby in such a way that the characters almost seem like they're untouched or glossed with polish to the greatest extent. Once again, showing us part of the reality that is the wealthy class. However, this argument does have some holes that we might not forget.

Between Dream and Reality: Unmasking the Ethical Layers of 'The Great Gatsby'

It is not really ethical to what is really happening in “the land of the free.” In the same article by the New Yorker, “; its plot is absurd, and it examines only the thinnest wedge of American life....continues to be an object of skepticism.” This quote emphasizes how this story is just one very tiny slice of the pie that the “Roaring 20s” displayed. Throughout history, the 20s were a time of ravishment but also debt. The book shows the two extreme sides but never the sight of the ordinary middle-class man that we all are today. For example, in Chapter 9, Nick says in the ending, ”Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us.” This quote shows me the fact that the world we live in is not a wish-making production; in fact, there are ideas that the world is conspiring against us as we live through each breath we take. The books make an understatement in the way that though the book is legendary, it only shows us the tiny parts of the whole truth, which, when revealed, is very gruesome to look at. The Great Gatsby is a book that holds ideas/themes of The American Dream, romantic drama, and the ever-so-clear smoothness of Fitzgerald's connection. Though the book stands in the way of unethical proportions of the plot itself, it is still an amazing act of literature to be read by the students of Buena High School. The book not only illustrates the controversy of an unreliable/ unreliable narrator but also stretches the horizon between a selfish class and a broken fool's wish for the false embodiment. 

References:

1. Fitzgerald, F. S. (1925). The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner.

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