The Great Gatsby and Society

There is a symbolic interaction between the Long Island world of money and leisure and the more frenetic and working-class image of the city of New York, and the characters in the novel can move between the two realms as much of the working class cannot. The city becomes a metaphor for a mechanistic and materialistic society. The city is also a source of ambivalent feelings, for the writer is both attracted to the energy and life of the city while also seeing it as a microcosm for all the ills of American society. The ideal of the American dream is another symbol shown to be an empty dream. For Fitzgerald, the artist is equated with the romantic, and the romantic--such as Jay Gatsby--is lost in that sort of society. For Gatsby, the dream proves illusory, and the reality is the hypocritical society of West Egg. One of the primary symbolic actions in the piece is represented by a physical symbol in the form of a long forgotten ad for an optometrist.

This is a novel of observation, and the ever-present eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg only emphasizes this fact. Indeed, eyes are symbolic throughout the novel. Ga