Long Island In The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby Final Essay: Prompt #6 “It is sadder to find the past again and find it inadequate to the present than it is to have it elude you and remain forever a harmonious conception of memory” (F. Scott Fitzgerald). Almost anyone who has read F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby knows that hopes and dreams, especially those of the protagonist Jay Gatsby, play an integral role in the novel’s plot and overall themes. However, these dreams and desires are usually only connected to how they affect the actions and overall life of the dreamer. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald uses the setting of Long Island, the characters Tom and Daisy, and the symbolic green light to convey to the reader how dreams and desires not only affect the dreamer,
but inadvertently affect the lives of those around the dreamer as well.
First of all, Fitzgerald illustrates how the vibrant setting of Long Island affects the narrator, Nick, as his dreams of money and power lead to a dismissal of certain morals and cause a detachment between himself and his old friends and family. Prior to moving to West Egg, Nick lived a very conservative life in Minnesota, being a part of a respected, upper middle class family. Now however, Nick lives in a place where reputation does not matter as much, a society where he is free to do whatever he wishes without the fear of ruining his family’s reputation, something that will ultimately make him an unreliable narrator. In Long Island, Nick finds that to be respected, one almost has to engage in some form of vice, as best represented when Tom and Myrtle convince Nick to have a drink. Although Nick is wary at first, he realizes that it is a social standard, whether it is East Egg or West Egg, everyone of high class (or who wants to appear to be) drinks. At Tom and Myrtle’s party, Nick recounts how, “I have been drunk just twice in my life and the second time was that afternoon, so everything that happened has a dim hazy cast over it” (Fitzgerald 33). Although this scene
would have been largely insignificant if Nick had continued to live by his usual morals, the party did indeed change his morals. While Nick may not have had much fun at Tom and Myrtle’s party, Nick quickly becomes attracted to the New Yorker way of life, leading to him drinking more often (such as at Gatsby's parties), becoming more zealous, and caring less about what people think of him, as he dreams of money and power as a Wall Street bondsman, living the good life away from the judgement of East Egg and Minnesota. While many of these new found traits did not necessarily harm Nick, his actions do have harmful effects on someone he onced loved: his girlfriend back in Minnesota. When Nick first met Jordan, Tom and Daisy were very keen to set the two up, believing that they would make a good couple in an East Egg society. Nevertheless, Nick initially objected to the idea, knowing that he still had a girlfriend back home. However, as time passed and Nick become more and more intrigued with the culture of Long Island, he also became less and less attached to his girlfriend, instead having short relationships with other women, and eventually seeing Jordan. By the end of chapter 3, Nick appears to think of his girlfriend as more of a burden than a lover, stating that, “I am slow thinking and full of interior rules that act as brakes on my desires, and I knew that first I had to get myself definitely out of that tangle back home” (Fitzgerald 64). Within just a few weeks Nick has gone from a man who rarely drinks and likes his girlfriend, to an ambitious West Egg-type personality who drinks and smokes when he wants to and has no qualms about seeing another woman. Furthermore, Nick is now considerably more detached from many of the people in his hometown who have presumably known him for years. Thus, by using the rambunctious setting of Long Island, specifically the East and West Eggs, Fitzgerald portrays how dreams of money and power can cause greed, and a detachment from the people one once loved, through the use of the well-meaning, but unreliable narrator, Nick. Second, Fitzgerald utilizes the characters Tom and Daisy to portray how fantasies of control and stability lead to laziness and greed, as well as a general apathy to those who are affected by one’s actions.
Since they were infants, Tom and Daisy have both lead very comfortable lives as the children of two wealthy and respected families, a prestige that helps make Tom an aggressive antagonist, and Daisy an admired symbol of beauty. As a result of their backgrounds, they do not appear to have anything they may necessarily dream about, as money is no object and they hold a very respectable position within higher society. In spite of this, Tom and Daisy still have dreams, Tom lusts for control over others while Daisy lives her dream of a life of expediency and stability. However, this overall life of privilege has lead to the two to become heinously lazy and greedy. By the end of the plot, Nick becomes so stunned at Tom and Daisy’s carelessness that he does not even want to speak with them, reasoning that, “I couldn't forgive him or like him but I saw that what he had done was, to him, entirely justified. It was all very careless and confused. They were careless people, Tom and Daisy” (Fitzgerald 187). Although Nick is talking about Tom, it becomes clear throughout the plot that Daisy is just as guilty, while she is not greedy like her womanizing husband, she has an incredible lack of depth and common sense. This shallowness emanated by Tom and Daisy is further fueled by their
extreme wealth and power, as they are able to get away with almost anything and have never truly had to face any consequences. As a result, the couple are virtually untouchable, leading to the chaotic results and side-effects of their dreams. Chief among which is the character Wilson, a man who must endure a life of stress and dysphoria as the greed and ignorance of Tom and Daisy cause his life to be utterly ruined. Initially, Wilson is presented as the prefect example of ‘ignorance is bliss’; he is a man who knows so little about his wife’s cheating that he simply goes about his life believing that he has been blessed with a beautiful wife. However, as the affair continues, Wilson comes to realize that all along his wife Myrtle has betrayed his trust, and that she truly hates him. To make matters worse, when Wilson does confront her, she runs out into the street and is hit by a car driven by Daisy. Nick recounts how Wilson was after the accident, claiming that, “Wilson neither heard now saw. His eyes would drop slowly from the swinging light to the laden table by the wall and then jerk back to the light again as he gave out incessantly his high horrible call” (Fitzgerald 146). In the end, what had started out as a way for Tom to show off his social status had culminated in death and lies. A true example of the effect that Tom and Daisy’s insensitivity has on other people, Wilson’s life degenerates from a loveless marriage to a web of death and deception, and on top of it all, Tom and Daisy simply retreat back into their stable bubble while Wilson, Myrtle, and Gatsby end up dead. By creating a scene of such disaster and horror, Fitzgerald is able to convince the reader about the power of greed and laziness, as the aggressive Tom and the shallow Daisy are able to ruin the lives of many others, and still blame anyone but themselves. Finally, Fitzgerald employs the symbolic green light in representing how dreams of love can lead to a loss of reality and dangerous levels of obsession and lust. Throughout the plot, the green light has served as many things, an object of intrigue, a source of motivation, and a testament to Gatsby's will. In the end, however, the light ironically serves a much lesser role than one may have expected, as the light is revealed to be a mere maker for Daisy's house. In other words, the reader realizes that all along, Gatsby’s sole motivation has been nothing but Daisy. A true example of a tragic hero, Gatsby has lead the most successful years of his life under a dream so intricate and unbelievable that it has unknowingly corrupted him. In Nick’s conclusion of the novel, he sums up Gatsby’s green light, claiming that, “He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him” (Fitzgerald 189). Gatsby had been so fixated on winning back Daisy that his mind had slipped into a state of delusion. Just like touching an actual band of green light, Gatsby could have never accomplished his dream, as he had held it for so long while the rest of the world evolved and moved on. Moreover, Gatsby’s refusal to accept reality would come to harm many others as well. From an army recruit to a multi-millionaire, Gatsby owed it all to his sense of hope and ambition. But when Gatsby returned from war only to find he had nothing, he made it a mission in his life to get back Daisy, no matter what. In turn, Gatsby took on a rather dark side, a life of crime and vice where he is able to acquire the money to finance his dream. Despite not knowing very much about Gatsby's illegal activities, Nick does comment about the ambition and aggression Gatsby exhibited in his youth, recalling, “So he made the most of his time. He took what he could get, ravenously and unscrupulously” (Fitzgerald 156). Gatsby became so obsessed with Daisy, that he also became corrupted in his morality, as he learned how to use people, and their illegal desires, to get rich with the dangerous Wolfshiem. Even on the outside, Gatsby became very impersonal with people, as he felt that he must act like an eccentric multi-millionaire in order to be loved and respected, as opposed to acting like the man he truly was. In the end, it is through Gatsby’s impossible dream of Daisy, or the green light, that Fitzgerald warns the reader about the power of unlikely dreams, where even a seemingly heroic man with honest intentions may become dark and manipulative, while at the same time harboring a crushing desire to be loved, no matter the cost, or even if it is genuine. All in all, it is through the use of the setting of Long Island, the characters Daisy and Tom, and the symbolic green light that Fitzgerald is able to convey the overarching theme in his novel. The theme that dreams are able to corrupt one’s self, and in effect lead to many others being affected, such as dreams of money and power leading to moral corruption and a detachment from those once well known, lusts for control and stability leading to greed and an apathy for anyone affected in the process, and finally fantasies of love leading to delusion and a dangerous state of mind. While certain characters in the plot suffer from dreams much worse than others, intended to represent their roles from unreliable narrators, to villians, and tragic heros, Fitzgerald has also meant to remind his reader that while the potency of dreams and fantasies may vary, there are still effects that may have a negative impact on both the dreamer and the people the dreamer knows and surrounds him or herself with. Nevertheless, Fitzgerald also illustrates how everyone has a dream of some sort, and that by communicating with others, one may be able to recognise and combat the negative effects of their dream, such as Nick who was able to witness how an obsession with a dream may lead to one’s downfall, and that one must not be afraid to make a change in life if they wish to find true happiness happiness.