The Great Gatsby Reality

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s great American masterpiece, The Great Gatsby is not a love story between two people as most would think; it’s more of a love story between a character and the characters American Dream. This 1920 style novel is set upon characters that are so caught up in a mental dream the reality sets back in and kicks them in the face. Jay Gatsby, a man with a mysterious past suddenly swoops in and has intentions to win back a long lost love, Daisy Buchanan with the help of his lower class neighbor, Nick Caraway. The characters in The Great Gatsby have dreams that they believe is achievable but in the face of reality, Nick Carraway, Daisy and Tom Buchanan, and Jay Gatsby show that it is really impossible. Nick Carraway is a man with
a big, yet simple dream to fit into the upper class society. Throughout the book Nick was the middle man in almost every event. He played the biggest role in setting up the time and place for Daisy and Gatsby to reunite. He was also a supporter in the party Tom Buchanan and his mistress through at her apartment in New York. Nick has such simple dreams to fit in with the people he knows that are all liars. As shown in the quote “I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known” (Fitzgerald 59), Nick Carraway thinks of himself as one of the only honest people that he knows of yet he still wants to associate with these people to be something. If money, dreams, lies, and love were all rolled into one thing, that thing would be Jay Gatsby.
Gatsby’s life revolved around having anything and everything nice enough to impress one person, Daisy Buchanan. “Gatsby believed he could win Daisy by the possessions he owned” (Taylor 3). Apart from Daisy, Gatsby tried to impress everyone else by giving false stories about his past just to make him seem “worthy” enough. Gatsby had been so caught up in a dream that he had failed to realize the reality of the past and that he wouldn’t be able to change that. “Gatsby’s idea of the American Dream is doomed because he tries to buy his way into a society that will never accept him” (Taylor 1). Jay Gatsby died saving the one that meant most to him without even realizing it. He died in shock wondering why even after all the effort with his love and money Daisy had still choose her safe reputation over her real love for
Gatsby. Daisy Buchanan is a thoughtless East Egg woman who willingly chooses her reputation and money over what really matters, love. “Daisy, a woman whose voice is famously described as ‘full of money’” (Werlock 3). Daisy’s dream is to have the reputation and wealth that is good in the public’s eyes. Daisy’s husband Tom is the perfect way to keep the reputation that she wants. Tom is Daisy’s reality. “They were carless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they made” (Fitzgerald 179). The life she is living fails to show her what she is missing; she keeps running from the one important thing, her love for Gatsby. Tom Buchanan, the man who is unnoticeably centered around the reasons for the problems and blindness the other characters are facing. Tom lives his dream throughout the entire book. Tom has a strong public reputation with his wife Daisy and at the same time he is having fun with his mistress, Myrtle Wilson. Tom never really hides anything from Daisy but when Daisy is blunt with her relationship with Gatsby in front of him he seems to become a little uneasy. Tom’s reality is when he realizes that Daisy has done him the way he did her and so he gets rid of the problem. Tom will never stop living his dream as long as he has his money. Tom and Daisy will run with every problem they have and they will never look back. The reality behind the American Dream in The Great Gatsby is that no matter the dream and what is given to achieve that dream; the face of reality will always be waiting when the dream is over.
The major reality in this novel is that Gatsby dream will never come true; his love Daisy Buchanan will always go back to her safe place and history will always be around. Gatsby couldn’t change Daisy’s history, and the reality of that will always find its way back. “This ‘ash heap’ is the present, the terrible time where The Great Gatsby takes place- a time which all hope is lost for the future, and Gatsby’s sacred green light becomes nothing more than a light at the end of Daisy’s dock” (Millett
9).