F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

This study will examine F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, specifically focusing on the novels negative portrayal of American values through his depiction of self and society, the American dream, and class differences.

Goldhurst writes that the novel is an example of works which "clarify the process by which one fictionist of the era derived from his reading the materials of his art, and how those materials crystallize brilliantly an episode in actual national experience" (Goldhurst 36). Goldhurst argues that the example of the character of T.J. Eckleburg is used by Gatsby to illustrate the social milieu of Fitzgerald's era, including "the pronounced interest in the aspirations of the different classes (and)... their motives and values" (Goldhurst 36). The Eckleburg character is used symbolically to demonstrate the emptiness of those values.

Eckleburg is introduced in relationship to the background of the "valley of ashes" which serves the book's theme concerning the Waste Land aspect of the novel's portrayal of the results of the disillusionment inevitably tied to the American Dream. In fact, the American Dream itself is shown to be an illusory bubble full of false values.

Eckleburg's eyes are what dominates the landscape in the novel, wearing glasses on a billboard bearing the caption, "Doctor T.J. Eckleburg." It is an advertisement, but it is also a symbol: "Fitzgerald suggests that Eckleburg's brooding presence has a larger significance, that the gigantic

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hard work of the pure form of the American Dream is a part of that dream because it is expected that it will have a beneficial impact on the moral fiber of the individual. Gatsby is a false character because he has won his wealth without hard work, through apparently unethical means, and without the moral strength that is supposed to result from the traditional way of pursuing that American Dream. Accordingly, his internal and external worlds are artificial. Still, as we see in the narration by Nick, Gatsby is meant to be not as much a victimizer as a victim. He is an innocent in that he has been seduced by the darker form of the American Dream and believes that if he copies the behavior of the rich he will be as they are. The problem, as we see in the novel, is that the rich themselves are not as they appear or as they try to appear. As Donaldson writes, Gatsby is like a child who has been led to believe to expect a world which he has been promised but which does not truly exist. It is a false world which he believes he can buy into, but he is scorned by those whom he would have as equals if he could. Donaldson writes that "This Gatsby is almost totally inept in dealing with social situations. His lavish parties are

Category: Literature - F