The Great Gatsby Failure

For many Americans across the country, the 1920s served as the time of flourishing culture and endless opportunity. The American Dream surged through the veins of many people, giving them hope that they could succeed in life. With his novel The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald creates Jay Gatsby, a man that resonates with many readers. Jay grows up poor, and after being exposed to places of wealth and love, he devotes his life to the conquest of these goals. He invests his time and effort into achieving his dreams, but unfortunately, he succumbs to ultimate failure. Though he does attain “New Money” and is reunited with his love, Daisy Buchanan, the novel proves that some people are not meant to reach their goals in life. Through The Great
Scott Fitzgerald creates a being which exemplifies how life’s dreams of wealth and love are unattainable even if progress is made. James Gatz is born in North Dakota to a family of farmers: people who have to work hard to survive. The life that Gatz lives is not one that he is proud of, “so he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen-year-old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end” (Fitzgerald 98). With this new name and mindset, Gatsby dedicates himself to a life of higher superiority, a life of wealth and success. Gatsby is initially introduced to wealth through Dan Cody, a lavish man who Gatsby sees while fishing for salmon to earn his living. “To young Gatz, resting on his oars and looking up at the railed deck, that yacht represented all the beauty and glamour in the world” (Fitzgerald 100), urging Gatsby to climb aboard the ship and befriend Cody. This taste of luxury is what makes Gatsby devote himself to this lifestyle. Gatsby works for Cody, becoming his assistant and even
Dipping his nose into illegal bootlegging activity with the help of Meyer Wolfsheim, he acquires himself a large sum of “New Money” and buys a large mansion in West Egg, New York. This castle-sized mansion purposely sits directly across from Tom and Daisy Buchanan’s home. In hopes of attracting Daisy, Gatsby throws marvelous parties that draw large crowds of people to his home, which are “designed to attract Daisy, weekend parties that have no other meaning for Gatsby beyond that one purpose” (Monteiro). Gatsby devotes his life and wealth to gaining his lost love, and in the process, he shuts out interaction from many of the other people around him. Nick Carraway, Gatsby’s next door neighbor, is invited to one of the parties and “as soon as I arrived I made an attempt to find my host, but the two or three people of whom I asked his whereabouts stared at me in such an amazed way, and denied so vehemently any knowledge of his movements” (Fitzgerald 42). Gatsby’s search boards him up from other people, but fortunately, Gatsby’s interest in Nick leads him back to his love. Nick, as a gesture of kindness for his new friend, sets up a meeting so that the Gatsby and Daisy could reunite. As the pair begins to reconnect, Nick notices Gatsby “hadn’t once ceased looking at Daisy, and I think he revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from