The Great Gatsby...the Withering of the American Dream (essay)

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby effectively portrays 1920s America and its twisted, unsavory values. The novel has been lauded as “the American masterwork” by Jonathan Yardley of The Washington Post because of its characterization of the Jazz Age and all its unsatisfactory glory. One critic has written, “The theme of Gatsby is the withering of the American dream.” Fitzgerald’s work validates this statement. The symbolism and characters of The Great Gatsby support this contention by portraying the bleak pursuit of artificial happiness.
The Great Gatsby is rich with symbolism. Fitzgerald uses extended metaphors to portray the depravity of the Jazz Age. The green light across the bay from Gatsby’s home is a central symbol of man’s futile pursuit of unattainable satisfaction. The light shows how the American dream is ephemeral and evasive; it is lucrative yet eternally unreachable. The valley of ashes is another example of Gatsby’s effective symbolism. This area of New York, whose houses, buildings, and inhabitants are covered in ashes, symbolizes the mediocrity and monotony of the pursuit of the American dream. George and Myrtle Wilson, who live in the valley of ashes, have a dull marriage and lead dull lives. Their existence and relationship is symbolized by the ashes, which are simply remains of a once-lively past dream. Finally, Fitzgerald shows how the American dream has deteriorated by introducing the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg, an enormous pair of eyes on a large billboard in the valley of ashes. The eyes represent an all-seeing, absent god who does nothing to help his people achieve happiness. The withering of the American dream can easily be seen through the symbolic devices in The Great Gatsby.
F. Scott Fitzgerald constructs characters that embody the selfishness, confusion, and constant search for satisfaction that were all too prevalent during the Jazz Age.
Nick, the novel’s cool, detached narrator, is a prime example of a man whose life has passed him by. As he turns thirty, he realizes that he has little to his name: a mediocre job as a bondsman, an “eyesore” bungalow in West Egg, New York, and no wife or love interest. Nick’s second cousin Daisy, however, lives in a stylish house in East Egg, New York, with plenty of money to spare. She is married to a wealthy man named Tom, but she is miserable with him, as he is with her. Additionally, Nick’s next-door neighbor, Jay Gatsby, is the ultimate depiction of the withering of the American dream. Gatsby built his entire empire of wealth in order to gain the affection of his lost love, Daisy. Subsequently, he is crushed when he realizes that his expectations of Daisy are impossibly high and will never be satisfied.  of  Nick realizes that what should make him happy and fulfilled (a spouse and financial stability) only made his cousin and his neighbor miserable. The characters in The Great Gatsby and the relationships between them easily support the contention that the novel is central to the theme of the dying American dream.
1920s America was a place of turbulent change: the economy was booming, and people had more opportunities to earn money than ever before. The American dream, which can be defined as the ideal desire for happiness, seemed to be the greatest form of achievement that any citizen could attain. However, as F. Scott Fitzgerald claims throughout The Great Gatsby, the American dream was withering due to selfishness and twisted goals. Fitzgerald’s use of poignant symbolism and effective characterization centralizes his existential argument that life is vain and unsatisfying. As a whole, The Great Gatsby depicts the typical American prioritization of money over love as well as the confusion between the two. F. Scott Fitzgerald uses this novel to expose how the American dream is barely a dream, but rather a haunting image of lifeless aspiration.