F. Scott Fitzgerald's famous novel The Great Gatsby is often considered one of the quintessential tales of lost love and social climbing. Indeed, Jay Gatsby's quest to win the heart of his beloved Daisy Buchanan once again is fueled by the social advancements that he has made in the five years since they last saw each other. Despite the fact that Daisy is now married to another man, Gatsby believes that his newfound wealth and social status will bring her back to him. In Gatsby's pursuit of Daisy, Fitzgerald depicts the universal pain of lost love, as the reader comes to understand the devastation that Gatsby has endured without his beloved. Yet, there is a broader message in The Great Gatsby as well, one that illuminates the specifics of American life during the 1920s. Thus, while Fitzgerald explores the story of Gatsby's love for Daisy, he also wishes to convey the idea that over time, the notion of the American dream has become hollow and meaningless, as Gatsby's ultimate demise proves that the 'good life' that so many Americans strive for does not bring the happiness that they imagine.
When one first examines The Great Gatsby, the universal nature of the narrative is inevitably what the reader first notices. Regardless of what generation one belongs to, the devastation of lost love is clearly understood, and thus Gatsby's struggle to win Daisy back is one to which readers have little difficulty relating. Yet, Fitzgerald's ambitions when writing the novel were far broader and more encompassing than merely chronicling Gatsby's ill-fated romance with Daisy. Indeed, as Ronald Berman contends, "F. Scott Fitzgerald wanted to make The Great Gatsby the great American novel of his century. He succeeded for certain reasons, among them was his understanding that a new novel required a new mode to be provided by modernism" ("Gatsby and Good Life" 52). In the novel, Fitzgerald is clearly committed to painting a picture of Amer...