Fitzgerald's Mimicry of Success in The Great Gatsby
Hannah Green
8 February 2013
Fitzgerald’s Mimicry of Success in The Great Gatsby The decade of the 1920s was defined by the pursuit of success and the “American ideal.” Following the end of the First World War in 1918, America was consumed by skepticism and hedonism stemming from emotional backlash from the dynamics of warfare. Americans were fueled by the promise of ascendancy and prestige that came with the image of the American ideal that defined success.1 Michael O’Neal describes in his history of the 1920s: “the decade of the 1920s thus started with dashed hopes for future world peace and ended with dark fears of economic ruin [...] a decade of greed, excess, and materialism” (O’Neal 7). However, this American ideal was restricted to those who came from older inherited money. For the disadvantaged, many would reinvent their identity in order to mimic those who defined that success. In the novel the Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the character Gatsby personifies this struggle by attempting to reinvent his own identity in order to mimic classifications of, and hopefully become, old money – what he believes to define success. Fitzgerald uses Gatsby 's self-invention to illustrate how an individual can try to mimic old money to achieve success but fails due to the impermeable class boundaries surrounding the image of the American ideal. F. Scott Fitzgerald creates the character of Jay Gatsby, a man desperate to win the affection and acceptance of Daisy – his past love and a symbol of the old money he strives for throughout the novel. He attempts this by stripping himself of his core identity and inventing a new persona, one he believes reflects that of old money: “Just why these inventions were a source of satisfaction to James Gatz of North Dakota, isn’t easy to say. James Gatz – that was really, or at least legally, his name” (Fitzgerald 94). Gatsby relies on his fake name and reputation to stand as a placeholder for the past he has tried to
8 February 2013
Fitzgerald’s Mimicry of Success in The Great Gatsby The decade of the 1920s was defined by the pursuit of success and the “American ideal.” Following the end of the First World War in 1918, America was consumed by skepticism and hedonism stemming from emotional backlash from the dynamics of warfare. Americans were fueled by the promise of ascendancy and prestige that came with the image of the American ideal that defined success.1 Michael O’Neal describes in his history of the 1920s: “the decade of the 1920s thus started with dashed hopes for future world peace and ended with dark fears of economic ruin [...] a decade of greed, excess, and materialism” (O’Neal 7). However, this American ideal was restricted to those who came from older inherited money. For the disadvantaged, many would reinvent their identity in order to mimic those who defined that success. In the novel the Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the character Gatsby personifies this struggle by attempting to reinvent his own identity in order to mimic classifications of, and hopefully become, old money – what he believes to define success. Fitzgerald uses Gatsby 's self-invention to illustrate how an individual can try to mimic old money to achieve success but fails due to the impermeable class boundaries surrounding the image of the American ideal. F. Scott Fitzgerald creates the character of Jay Gatsby, a man desperate to win the affection and acceptance of Daisy – his past love and a symbol of the old money he strives for throughout the novel. He attempts this by stripping himself of his core identity and inventing a new persona, one he believes reflects that of old money: “Just why these inventions were a source of satisfaction to James Gatz of North Dakota, isn’t easy to say. James Gatz – that was really, or at least legally, his name” (Fitzgerald 94). Gatsby relies on his fake name and reputation to stand as a placeholder for the past he has tried to
Cited: Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. Hammondsworth: Penguin, 1950. Print. Balkun, Mary McAleer. The American Counterfeit: Authenticity and Identity in American Literature and Culture. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama, 2006. Print. Sexton, Timothy. "The Revolution in American Literature in the 1920s." Yahoo! Contributor Network. Timothy Sexton, 6 Feb. 2008. Web. 28 Jan. 2013. O 'Neal, Michael. America in the 1920s. New York: Facts On File, 2006. Print. Froehlich, Maggie Gordon. "Gatsby’s Mentors: Queer Relations Between Love and Money in The Great Gatsby." The Journal of Men 's Studies 19.3 (2011): n. pag. Web. 1 Feb. 2013. Huong Giang Bui, Thi. "Jay Gatsby’s Trauma and Psychological Loss." Canadian Center of Science and Education 3.1 (2013): n. pag. Print.