Themes and Construction: The Great Gatsby

EXPLORING Novels, 2003

Themes
Culture Clash

By juxtaposing characters from the West and East in America in The Great Gatsby , Fitzgerald was
making some moral observations about the people who live there. Those in the Midwest—the newly
arrived Nick Carraway—were fair, relatively innocent, unsophisticated, while those who lived in the East
for some time—Tom and Daisy Buchanan—were unfair, corrupt, and materialistic. The Westerners who
moved East, furthermore, brought the violence of the Old West days to their new lives. Fitzgerald
romanticizes the Midwest, since it is where the idealistic Jay Gatz was born and to where the morally
enlightened Nick returns. It serves metaphorically as a condition of the heart, of going home to a moral
existence rooted in basic, conservative values. Further, the houses of East Egg and West Egg represent
similar moral differences. The East is where Daisy and Tom live, and the West is where Gatsby and Nick
live. Fitzgerald refers to the West as the green breast of a new world, a reflection of a man's dream, an
America subsumed in this image. The materialism of the East creates the tragedy of destruction,
dishonesty, and fear. No values exist in such an environment.

American Dream

Gatsby represents the American dream of self-made wealth and happiness, the spirit of youth and
resourcefulness, and the ability to make something of one's self, despite one's origins. He achieved more
than his parents had and felt he was pursuing a perfect dream, Daisy, who for him embodied the elements
of success. Gatsby's mentor, Dan Cody, was the ultimate self-made man who influenced Gatsby in his
tender, impressionable youth. When Gatsby found he could not win Daisy's love, he pursued the American
Dream in the guise of Cody. Inherent in this dream, however, was the possibility of giving in to temptation
and to corrupt get-rich-quick schemes like bootlegging and gambling. Fitzgerald's book mirrors the
headiness, ambition, despair, and disillusionment of America in the 1920s: its ideals lost behind the
trappings of class and material success.

Examples of the American Dream gone awry are plentiful in The Great Gatsby: Meyer Wolfsheim's
enterprising ways to make money are criminal; Jordan Baker's attempts at sporting fame lead her to
cheating; and the Buchanans' thirst for the good life victimizes others to the point of murder. Only Gatsby,
who was relatively unselfish in his life, and whose primary flaw was a naive idealism, could be construed
as fulfilling the author's vision of the American Dream. Throughout the novel are many references to his
tendency to dream, but in fact, his world rests insecurely on a fairy's wing. On the flip side of the American
Dream, then, is a naivete and a susceptibility to evil and poor-intentioned people.

Appearances and Reality

Since there is no real love between Gatsby and Daisy, in The Great Gatsby, there is no real truth to
Gatsby's vision. Hand in hand with this idea is the appearances and reality theme. Fitzgerald displays what
critics have termed "an ability to see the face behind the mask." Thus, behind the expensive parties,
Gatsby is a lonely man. Though hundreds had come to his mansion, hardly anyone came to his funeral.
Owl Eyes, Mr. Klipspringer, and the long list of partygoers simply use Gatsby for their pleasures. Gatsby
himself is a put-on, with his "Oggsford" accent, fine clothes, and "old boy" routine; behind this facade is a
man who is involved in racketeering. Gatsby's greatness lies in his capacity for illusion. Had he seen Daisy
for what she was, he could not have loved her with such singleminded devotion. He tries to recapture
Daisy, and for a time it looks as though he will succeed. But he must fail, because of his inability to
separate the ideal from the real. The famous verbal exchange between Nick and Gatsby typifies this:
concerning his behavior with Daisy, Nick tells him he can't repeat the past. "Can't repeat the past," Gatsby
replies, "Why of course you can!"

Moral Corruption

The wealthy class is morally corrupt in The Great Gatsby , and the objective correlative (a term coined by
poet and critic T. S. Eliot that refers to an object that takes on greater significance and comes to symbolize
the mood and world of a literary work) in this case is the eyes of Dr. Eckleburg, which preside over the
valley of ashheaps near Wilson's garage. There are no spiritual values in a place where money reigns: the
traditional ideas of God and Religion are dead here, and the American dream is direly corrupted. This is no
place for Nick, who is honest. He is the kind of person who says he is one of the few honest people he's
ever met, and one who is let down by the world of excess and indulgence. His mark of sanity is to leave
the wasteland environment to return home in the West. In a similar manner, T. S. Eliot's renowned poem
"The Wasteland" describes the decline of Western civilization and its lack of spirituality through the
objective correlative (defining image) of the wasteland.

Construction
Point of View

The Great Gatsby is told from the point of view of Nick Carraway, one of the main characters. The
technique is similar to that used by British novelist Joseph Conrad, one of Fitzgerald's literary influences,
and shows how Nick feels about the characters. Superbly chosen by the author, Nick is a romantic,
moralist, and judge who gives the reader retrospective flashbacks that fill us in on the life of Gatsby and
then flash forward to foreshadow his tragedy. Nick must be the kind of person whom others trust. Nick
undergoes a transformation himself because of his observations about experiences surrounding the
mysterious figure of Jay Gatsby. Through this first-person (``I'') narrative technique, we also gain insight
into the author's perspective. Nick is voicing much of Fitzgerald's own sentiments about life. One is quite
simply that "you can never judge a book by its cover" and often times a person's worth is difficult to find at
first. Out of the various impressions we have of these characters, we can agree with Nick's final estimation
that Gatsby is worth the whole "rotten bunch of them put together."

Setting

As in all of Fitzgerald's stories, the setting is a crucial part of The Great Gatsby . West and East are two
opposing poles of values: one is pure and idealistic, and the other is corrupt and materialistic. The
Western states, including the Midwest, represent decency and the basic ethical principles of honesty,
while the East is full of deceit. The difference between East and West Egg is a similar contrast in cultures.
The way the characters line up morally correlates with their geographical choice of lifestyle. The
Buchanans began life in the West but gravitated to the East and stayed there. Gatsby did as well, though
only to follow Daisy and to watch her house across the bay. His utter simplicity and naivete indicates an
idealism that has not been lost. Nick remains the moral center of the book and returns home to the
Midwest. To him, the land is "not the wheat or the prairies or the lost Swede towns, but the thrilling
returning trains of my youth, and the street lamps and sleigh bells in the frosty dark and the shadows of
holly wreaths thrown by lighted windows on the snow. I am part of that." He finds that he is unadaptable to
life in the East. The memory of the East haunts him once he returns home. Another setting of importance
is the wasteland of ash heaps, between New York City and Long Island where the mechanization of
modern life destroys all the past values. Nick's view of the modern world is that God is dead, and man
makes a valley of ashes; he corrupts ecology, corrupts the American Dream and desecrates it. The only
Godlike image in this deathlike existence are the eyes of Dr. J. L. Eckleburg on a billboard advertising
glasses.

Satire

Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby in the form of a satire, a criticism of society's foibles through humor.
The elements of satire in the book include the depiction of the nouveau riche ("newly rich"), the sense of
vulgarity of the people, the parties intended to draw Daisy over, the grotesque quality of the name "Great"
Gatsby in the title. Satire originated in the Roman times, and similarly criticized the rich thugs with no
values, tapped into cultural pessimism, and gave readers a glimpse into chaos. The Great Gatsby is the
tale of the irresponsible rich. Originally, the title of the book was "Trimalchio," based on an ancient satire of
a man called Trimalchio who dresses up to be rich.

Light/Dark Imagery

In The Great Gatsby, the author uses light imagery to point out idealism and illusion. The green light that
shines off Daisy's dock is one example. Gatsby sees it as his dream, away from his humble beginnings,
towards a successful future with the girl of his desire. Daisy and Jordan are in an aura of whiteness like
angels—which they are not, of course, yet everything in Gatsby's vision that is associated with Daisy is
bright. Her chatter with Jordan is described as "cool as their white dresses and their impersonal eyes " by
Nick. The lamp light in the house is "bright on [Tom's] boots and dull on the autumn-leaf yellow of her hair."
Gatsby comments to Daisy and Nick how the light catches the front of his house and makes it look
splendid, and Nick notes how Daisy's brass buttons on her dress "gleamed in the sunlight." Between the
frequent mention of moonlight, twilight, and the women's white gowns, Fitzgerald alludes to the dreamlike
qualities of Gatsby's world, and indirectly, to Nick's romantic vision. On the other hand, Meyer Wolfsheim,
the gambler, is seen in a restaurant hidden in a dark cellar when Gatsby first introduces him to Nick.
"Blinking away the brightness of the street, my eyes picked him out obscurely in the anteroom," says Nick.

Source Citation
"Themes and Construction: The Great Gatsby." EXPLORING Novels. Detroit: Gale,
2003. Student Resources in Context. Web. 26 Feb. 2014.

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