An Interrogation of Dream and Disillusionment in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby

Abstract

This essay aims to demonstrate that F. Scott Fitzgerald is interested in dream and the disillusionment that follows from it in his The Great Gatsby. The wealthy gangster, Jay Gatsby, the protagonist, longs for a beautiful, upper-class woman but eventually loses his heart. The tragedy of all dreamers is also exemplified by the story of the gangster, a youngster from the Midwest who is chasing the American dream of success. The rise and fall of a handsome bootlegger who became obsessed with the wealthy and attractive Daisy Buchanan was recounted in this novel. Whether the paradise lost is a Midwestern boyhood, Paris in the 1920s, or Gatsby’s platonic ideal of Daisy, it is the quintessential American story of social aspiration and the frequently terrible results of innocence betrayed. The novel explores American themes and presents a portrayal of the new social reality that the moralist tradition in America fears. The world that the story explores is one of strained relationships, one that prioritises wealth and success over societal duty, and one where people have much too much control over their own lives. In this novel, Fitzgerald has combined the American dream with the American disillusionment.