The Great Gatsby

About 4 years ago, I watched the movie the Great Gatsby with Leonardo DiCaprio. I was young at the time and didn’t fully understand the estranged, fruitful themes. At a glance, The Great Gatsby is a story about a long-lasting, potent, and noxious love. It’s the type of longing that usually lives in the closets of imaginations for no one dares to speak of such a dangerous romance. Spoiler alert by the way!

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I finished the book this past week and it’s not until you see how F. Scott Fitzgerald writes about the characters and their thoughts that the true power of this American Classic materializes. I must say that the movie does a fantastic job capturing the essence of the characters Jay Gatsby, Daisy, and Nick Carraway. It lacks more on the characters of Tom Buchanan and the Wilson’s, who actually play quite a pivotal role in the plot. The Wilsons represent the side of society with which Tom is too ashamed to be associated. They belong to the working class and George Wilson operates a gas station. Tom shows little respect for George Wilson, not only because he sees George as subservient to Myrtle, but because he sees himself as more manly, taking control of Daisy. 

I felt class divisions, or social stratification was a major theme in this novel. It represents a catalyst for Myrtle’s death. George figured Gatsby had driven into his wife without stopping because he was of the upper class. There are many theories for why George shot Gatsby. Some say George shot Gatsby thinking he was having an affair with Myrtle even though it was Tom. Some say George shot Gatsby for revenge. While I think both of those arguments are valid, I think one of Tom’s motivations was to show Gatsby, and those of the upper class, that money doesn’t grant passageway to careless living. I think social stratification at least in part ties George and Gatsby together because it ultimately detains them from the people they love. 

The American Dream is another major theme. Gatsby grew up poor, served in the war, and then went to Oxford for five months. After, he worked in the drug and bootlegging business and within a few years, made enough money to buy a mansion comparable to that of the Buchanan’s, which had taken generations worth of money and work to buy. Tom Buchanan is suspicious of Gatsby’s money and I think he has a right to be since Gatsby seems to come from nowhere with overflowing pockets and a history tied to Tom’s wife. 

However, what’s curious to me is how Gatsby lied about his background. He wasn’t born into a rich family, the impression he projected, nor was he educated at Oxford University. Lying felt like an obligation. When I consider Gatsby and George, they seem more and more similar. In the eyes of the Buchanan’s, who really represent the attitudes of the upper class, neither Gatsby nor George will ever be good enough. Gatsby holds a slight upper hand in gaining acceptance into Daisy’s world because he has (illegally earned) money. But in the end, we learn how futile that money proved to be. Perhaps it was meant to show the strength of class divisions and the true impossibility of the American Dream. Gatsby’s fate is meant to make us question whether the American Dream exists. If it does, would he have been killed still? If it does, would Daisy and Tom, the uber-wealthy, have fleed from all the trouble on Long Island? 

Daisy and Tom’s fleeing symbolizes the injustices we currently face in modern-day. Again, it comes down to this idea of the American Dream and who has access to attaining this goal. Gatsby’s fate and Buchanan’s response is a classic hit and run example of evading responsibility in the modern world. I think of problems of immigration, and how many people continue to wrongly blame immigrants for “stealing American jobs”. And who suffers the beating? The immigrants, the scapegoats, who are simply trying to secure a better life. This is similar to Gatsby, who even after all his hard work building capital and achieving his version of the American Dream, still gets blamed for killing Myrtle even though Daisy had actually hit her in the car that night. Daisy and Tom simply employ the power of their immense wealth to get away from the situation.

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The Great Gatsby is one of those estranged stories I can’t forget. Even if it lacked the fame of being “The Great Gatsby”, the storyline is so unique and, nevermind that it was written in 1925, touches upon societal issues that persist even in modern-day. F. Scott Fitzgerald has keenly crafted a world where love, class, and revenge ultimately paralyze one intertwined group of people who end up mutually involved in each other’s lives. A timeless classic that successfully touches upon themes well beyond the confined lense of its time.