A Brief Analysis of the Great Gatsby

本文主要是对于Great Gatsby在小说中人物形象以及生平进行浅析的essay范文。文中从当时的社会背景、人物的心理形象以及人物之间的牵连进行分析并进一步得出美国梦最初是为精神和物质改善的愿望，但是在某种意义上说，物质的东西的梦想可以更容易地获得和实现。其结果已经迅速超越甚至消除精神理想的早期阶段。
Introduction
In The Great Gatsby, the author F. Scott Fitzgerald displays the emptiness and recklessness of 1920s and explores the decline of the American dream by portraying the class and wealth struggle in the novel. Jay Gatsby, an incredibly wealthy young man living in West Egg of New York, has a great passion for the beautiful lady Daisy Buchanan who he met five years ago when he was an officer in Louisville. He strives to be become wealthy and throws parties in order to attract Daisy’s attention. He is willing to do anything to gain money and high position in society. Despite of having so much fortune on making money, the poor born Gatsby can never be the same as those aristocrats like Tom Buchanan, Daisy’s husband who lives in East Egg. The death of Gatsby symbolizes his failure of achieving American dream. The class struggle and wealth in the novel reveal a larger truth: although people seemingly live happily, there exists a certain corruption of values and the decline of spiritual life behind the prosperous life in America which lead to tragedy, ultimately suggesting the underlying danger and decay of American dream. This notion can be illustrated throughout upper-class’s money squander, money and class and disillusionment of American dream. 
Body
Upper-class money squander reveals corruption and emptiness for the new and traditional aristocrats, which are vividly illustrated in the novel. And Gatsby is a good example of new aristocrat. Even though he was born in a poor family, he had a strong attempt to climb to the upper class society [4]. As the story rolled out, the writer gradually made Gatsby’s true identity public bit by bit. He was born in James Scott’s farm in the United States of North Dakota and worked for a millionaire Dan Cody. This working experience made him feel strong to have great wealth. He was willing to do anything to strive for social status. He participated in organized crime, including trafficking illegal wine and distributing illegal securities. He thought that he must become a nobleman."SCHEDULE" written by Gatsby when he was very young at the time was to show us his great determination of aspiring to become an aristocrat who had good behavior, self-control ability and strong physique. What became Gatsby's pet phrase was originated in the United Kingdom's “old sport”, of whose habit might be shaped in his Oxford’s life. This was fully shown that Gatsby had a strong desire to study of the rich people’s behaviors. With strong contrast of Dan Cody's abundant life, it pushed Gatsby to make great internal changes. Particularly when he saw the noblemen's various living habits, his pursuit of ideal life forced him not to satisfy with originally dull life. It should be understandable for people, who didn’t have prominent family backgrounds and receive any higher education, to take a shortcut to get rich. However, these effortless ways of making money made Gatsby become a very pompous man. In the third and fourth chapters, there were plenty of descriptions of illustrating Gatsby’s hosting of luxury and extravagant parties. To a person, it would be indeed extravagant to hold such large parties two times in a week. On a schedule’s blank margins wrote a long name list, which includes all the “traditional and new aristocrats” from the “East Egg" and “West Egg”. Over and over again, these guests came without having any kind of shames whether they were invited or not. The story wrote, “Beneath bright lights, the laughing guests smoke, eat, get drunk, and then go away. Rumor has it that the host of the parties got rich by boot-legging and once even killed a man.” Gatsby’s ascension into upper-class society had been realized step by step. 
In that American society, money and class are the mostly desirable stuff for all people to seek for. Desires for social status and wealth were not the only reason for Gatsby to take illegal means to make money. Another important reason was that he was also eager to rekindle his dream of love with Daisy. The concept of the society at that time had turned out for the pursuit of money. Originally, the American dream was about discovery of individualism and the pursuit of happiness. In the hustle and bustle of the twentieth century, however, the dream had been wrecked by wealth. All the Americans had a belief that as long as they had money, they could manipulate time, stay young forever and buy consumption materials to make them happy. In the fiction, this concept completely ruined Gatsby’s love for Daisy who was once Gatsby’s lover. But at that time, Gatsby was a very poor support staff only, so he couldn’t marry Daisy. Therefore, Gatsby tried to obtain wealth through illegal means to impress her. When they were in love, Gatsby regarded Daisy as his goddess. As Gatsby was vulgar, pompous and always talking louder than others, Daisy was very attractive to him as she was looking so graceful and elegant on social etiquettes and tastes. Gatsby’s affection for Daisy was not just ordinary, but it’s also worship that caused Gatsby to have a strong desire for dignity and noble status. Daisy was his goddess who’s on the other side of the "green light". Here the "green light" represents his ideal, hope, direction and signal. But Gatsby, just like a ship, was alone drifting aimlessly in the vast sea. When he stretched out his arm in a strange way towards “a curious but unknown place”, the “green light” will guide him to the right direction. In the darkness, he made Daisy as a pilgrims worship goddess for a pursuit of some spiritual comfort. In this sense, we can say that Gatsby’s love for Daisy was not that mature. So, Gatsby’s dream of love was doomed to end in tragedy.
The disillusionment of American dream is doomed to end in tragedy, with no exception for Gatsby. The poor people's purpose was to gain more money in order to improve their quality of life. By contrast to them, the rich people had a sense of superiority that money could bring to them. However, it’d be short of enough social morals binding. Even in the material things they were satisfied in their American dream, the spiritual world of the rich people was still so scarce. Gatsby had dreamt to attract Daisy with his money. However, to earn money through illegal means could not be same as Tom Buchanan’s wealth, which they had an essential difference. In fact, this was the difference between “traditional and new aristocrats”. New aristocrats was a vulgar and pompous who was talking louder than others and lacking social etiquettes and tastes, which could be seen from Gatsby’s luxuriant mansion. But for the traditional aristocrats, their elegance, tastes and smartness were clearly manifested in the Buckens’s elegant house, Daisy and Jordan who’s wearing a long white dress. The story wrote, “Gatsby asks Daisy to tell her husband that he, Jay Gatsby, is her only true love. But Tom accuses him of lying, and says his “glorious” past is false. Then, the cruel truth comes out: Daisy only loves Tom. Gatsby’s dream falls apart.” Therefore, Gatsby’s loyalty, sincerity and true love couldn't win Daisy's love. Gatsby realized the dream of his wealth and social status, but his dream of love was already disillusioned.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the American dream was originally a desire for spiritual and material improvement. But the situation is like that, in a sense, the dream of material things can be much easily obtained and realized. And the results have quickly surpassed or even eliminated the spiritual ideals in the early stage. Therefore, some countries have emerged with good material benefits, but lack of spiritual life or purpose. Therefore, when Fitzgerald created the character of Gatsby, he pointed out that the old dream became an illusion and the American dream was already gone. In the process of turning Gatsby’s dreams into a nightmare, it also revealed the danger of American dream and setbacks, suffering and awakening that the “lost generations” in the United States were suffering after the First World War.
Reference
[1] Malcolm Cowley and Robert Cowley. Fitzgerald and the Jazz Age [M]. New York: Scribners, 1966.
[2] Elisabeth B. Booz. A Brief introduction of modern American literature [M]. Shanghai foreign language education press，1984.
[3]. Qin Shoushen, Renowned selected readings in English literature[M]. Higher education press, 1999
[4]. Zhang Boxiang and Long Jiang, British and American classic novel appreciation [M]. Wuhan university press, 2005.

[5]. Zhu Tongbo, British and American modern literary theory [M] Shanghai translation publishing house, 1989.

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