Inevitability of Gatsby’s Tragedy

Inevitability of Gatsby’s Tragedy

Abstract：

In The Great Gatsby, Fitzerald mainly describes Gatsby’s tragedy through Nick’s eyes. He presents how Gatsby struggled for his dreams of wealth, status and love, and finally his dreams changed into the foam with his death. His tragedy was closely related with his illusion of Daisy, his fatal characters and the ruthless and degenerate social reality. With these factor, Gatsby was destined to be isolated helpless and to fail in all.

Key word:

Gatsby, American Dream, tragedy, inevitability

Inevitability of Gatsby’s Tragedy

1. 1.     Brief Introduction of Author

F. Scott Fitzerald, whose full name is Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, is an American writer of novels and short stories. His works are regarded as the typical writings of Jazz age, a term he use to express himself. He is also widely regarded as one of the most outstanding American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the “Lost Generation” of the 1920s. He finished four novels, This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned, Tender is the Night and his most famous, The Great Gatsby. A fifth, unfinished novel, The Love of the Last Tycoon was published posthumously. Fitzgerald also wrote many short stories that treat themes of youth and promise along with despair and age. Novels such as The Great Gatsby and Tender is the Night were made into films, and in 1958 his life from 1937–1940 was dramatized in Beloved Infidel.

The Great Gatsby is one of the greatest literary works of this period and one of the classics in American literature, which reveals the moral emptiness and hypocrisy under the prosperity of the Jazz Age. Fitzgerald uses his pen to reveal the life and the ideas of people after the First World War and introduces one kind of valuable spirit. The American dream of happiness and individualism has fallen into the mere pursuit of wealth. Fitzgerald presents the rise and fall of Jay Gatsby, skillfully choosing a first-person narrator, Nick Carraway’s perspective.

2. Plot Summary

The story begins with Nick Carraway’s narration. In 1922, Nick was bore of the life of midwest, so he rented a house in West Egg, Long Island Sound, and began to learn the bond business in New York. And beside his house, there is Gatby’s mansion. Across the bay, there is East Egg, where Tom and Daisy Buchanan live. Daisy is Nick’s cousin. Nick is a man of fortune and also very ruthless and bigoted. Daisy is beautiful and melancholy, and once fell in love with Gatsby.

Jay Gatesby was born in a poor family. While he served in U.S. Army, he fell in love with Daisy. But later, he went overseas to take part in the World War First. Then, Daisy got married with a rich man, Tom Buchanan. But Tom had a mistress in New York. So Daisy was not happy in this marriage.

And now, Jay Gatsby appeared before her again. And what’s more, he was still a bachelor. He bought a big villa which was opposite to Daisy’s house. He became a upstar by illegal transactions and held a lot of gaudy parties. And all of these, he just wanted to call Daisy’s attention and rebuild their love. Nick was invited to Gatsby’s party. When he saw him, he thought “he came alive to me, delivered suddenly from the womb of his purposeless splendor”.

As expected, Gatsby asked Nick to arrange an appointment for him and Daisy. When Gatsby met Daisy again, he was so excited and perplexed. Daisy’s expression showed that he could save their love and go back to the past. They immersed in this feeling, and totally forget Nick’s existence. However, in Nick’s mind, Daisy was no longer as Gatsby’s dream. However, Gatsby lost in Daisy’s excited voice.

Soon, Tom and Daisy came to Gatsby’s party. Gatsby introduced the guests, New York’s ladies, famous stars and directors to them. After that, Daisy went to Gatsby’s house very often. Soon, Nick and Gatsby came to visit Daisy，and Tom was very averse to him. Later,they went to New York. Tom blamed Gatsby for that he had caused the family quarrel and smeared like a trooper for his selling alcohol without permission to make money. And Gatsby wanted Daisy to tell the truth that she had never loved Tom, who she loved was Gatsby. However, it turned out not a truth. Actually, Daisy did love Tom. It was that moment that Gatsby’s dream broke.

So agitated, Daisy caused a car accident when she was driving Gatsby’s car, which led Tom’s mistress, Myrtle Wilson, to death. After the accident, they just ran away from it.

George Wilson, Myrtle Wilson’s husband found that the car, which caused the accident was just parked before Gatsby’s villa. With the thought that Gatsby killed his wife, he sneaked into Gatsby’s villa, killed Gatsby, who was swimming at that time, with a gun, then killed himself. After the murder,Nick made a phone call to Daisy. However, Daisy had already travelled to Europe with her husband. And on the funeral, few of the so-called friends came, except Tom and his old father. Daisy did not call back, nor sent any wreath.

Gatsby had paid so much for his unachievable dream, even was led to the death. After his death, Nick found that Tom may instigate Wilson to kill Gatsby. Disgusted with Tom and Daisy,, he felt the world was so fickleness that he moved back to his hometown, the Midwest.

1. 3.     Main Character Analysis

Jay Gatsby: The main character of the novel, young and mysterious. He was born James Gatz in a poor family, but later became a millionaire by doing illegal business. While serving in the U.S. Army, he fell in love with Daisy Fay, but she married another rich man after Gatsby went overseas. After Gatsby returned, he pursued his dream—-to earn a lot of of money and reclaim Daisy. But at the end, his dream was totally broken and he died with nothing.

Nick Carraway: The narrator of the novel, honest, tolerant. He is a young man from Minnesota. He was educated at Yale and fighted in World War I, and then goes to New York City to learn the bond business. He is Daisy’s cousin and becomes entwined with her life and Gatsby’s. The Great Gatsby is told entirely through Nick’s eyes, his thoughts shape and color the story.

Daisy Fay Buchanan: Beautiful young woman, who is Nick’s cousin, the ideal women of Gatsby and married wealthy Tom Buchanan. She is shallow, immature, cynical, and behaves superficially. Although unhappy in her marriage and her privileged lifestyle, she is unwilling to give up either.

Tom Buchanan: Daisy’s wealthy husband, who comes from a socially solid old family. He is arrogant, hypocritical, boorish and bigoted. His has the social attitudes of racism and sexism. He had no moral qualms about his own affair with Myrtle. But he was very angry when he began to suspect Daisy and Gatsby.

Jordan Baker: A competitive golfer and a friend of Daisy’s. She represents one of the “new women” of the 1920s—self-centered, cynical, and a little bit boyish.

Myrtle Wilson: Tom Buchanan’s mistress,  from the lower-class. She is envious of Daisy. She possesses a fierce vitality and desperately looks for a way to improve her situation. Unfortunately, Tom did not love him at all.

George Wilson: Myrtle’s husband, the lifeless, exhausted owner of a run-down auto shop over which he and his wife live in an apartment. George loves Myrtle very much. He shares similarity with Gatsby because they both are dreamers and are destroyed by their love for women who love Tom.

1. 4.     Gatsby’s Dreams

Gatsby’s dreams are the epitomes of American Dream. The American Dream developed in the nineteenth century, whose original essence is that no matter who you are, where you are from, you can make your dreams come true if you work hard to live a new, free and better life. This is so –called American Dream. It’s the idea that the American way of life offers the equal possibility of unlimited economic, social, etc. One can always work their way up from the rags to riches just like Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the US. And Gatsby’s dreams are just the products of this idea.

Gatsby has three kinds of dreams. The first dream is about wealth. He was born in a poor family and he dreamed of changing his life and live a wealthy and comfortable life as the upper class since he was born. In order to make his dream come true, he did a lot of jobs, like waiter, captain, secretary, officer, and even the guard of prison. As a man full of ambitions, he would never be satisfied with the common life. As to make his dream come true, he changed his name from Gatz into Gatsby, which means the son of god. In the eyes of Gatsby, without money, you can do nothing and the foundation of all the things is wealth. With such ambitions, he became a millionaire by selling illegal alcohol and cooperating with a ruffian, Wolf. In brief, he would do anything to reach his goals. Finally, he succeeded. His first dream came true.

The second dream of Gatsby is to get into the upper-class. He chose to hold all kinds of lavish parties to show off his wealth and associated with people from upper-class. And it seems just a small cake for Gatsby after his becoming a millionaire. But this kind of position may not be recognized by all the people. Still, a lot of people, like Tom, never admit. So, we can see, even in the society that advocates American Dream, it is still a dream and illusion for the rock-bottom people to get into the upper-class.

The third dream of Gatsby is about love. Gatsby treats Daisy as ideal combination of beauty and kindness. To get married with Daisy became all the prime powers of his hard-working. And he tried to win Daisy back with wealth. However, Daisy is not as he thought. She is a lady from upper-class, with good appearance and treats pleasure life as her goal. Her thoughts are not as beautiful as her appearance. She would no longer to sacrifice her own benefits to realize Gatsby’s dream. His dream was totally broken when he was killed.

“If it wasn’t for the mist we could see your house across the bay,” said Gatsby, you always have a green light that burns all nights at the end of your dock.” In the novel, the green light represented the hope, future and dreams of innocent Gatsby. As a result, the more perfect his ideal became, the more far away reality was.

5.  Inevitability of Gatsby’s Tragedy

Inevitability of Gatsby’s Tragedy is related with the illusion of Daisy.

In the mind of Gatsby, Daisy was the first lover and also the ideal lover. When Gatsby served in the U.S Army, Daisy was extremely popular among the military officers and Jay Gatsby was included. He would never change his feeling about her. In this novel, wealth was not the most significant to Gatsby. All the motivation of Gatsby’s hard working comes into a name, Daisy. In order to win Daisy back, he tried his best to own money even get immense wealth through criminal activity. To Gatsby, Daisy was just the paragon of perfection—she is charming, wealthy, elegant, graceful, and noble. He could only repeat the past with Daisy day and night and suppose one day that he will find lost pure love. After he became a millionaire, he bought a luxurious mansion in front of Daisy’s house. “If it wasn’t for the mist we could see your house across the bay,” said Gatsby, “you always have a green light that burns all nights at the end of your dock.” Almost five years, Gatsby never stopped recalling his first lover Daisy. “He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fine or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart.” Definitely, he loved her more than she did.

However, Daisy was not as perfect as in Gatsby’s mind. She is an earthly woman and with bad virtues. Or we can just call her a woman with a badly worldly beauty with a good appearance and empty soul. In fact, she is beautiful and charming, but from the other hand, she is also fickle, shallow, bored, and sardonic. Daisy’s real nature became obvious when she chose Tom instead of Gatsby in Chapter 7, and then she allowed Gatsby to take the blame for killing Myrtle Wilson even with the fact that she was the accident causer. Finally, she hasn’t attended Gatsby’s funeral, but on the contrary, she and Tom just moved away.

Furthermore,Daisy is in love with money, ease, and material luxury. In this novel, the author has described that:

“She’s got and indiscreet voice,” I remarked.

“It’s full of —–” I hesitated.

“Her voice is full of money,” he said suddenly.

That was it. Of love and marriage, she was also a failure, for her voice was full of money. “It was full of money—that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the symbols’ song of it……high in a white palace the king’s daughter, the golden girl……” What’s worse, she was not a good mother, as she is indifferent even to her own infant daughter, never discussing her and treating her as an afterthought when she is introduced in Chapter 7. In Fitzgerald’s conception of America in the 1920s, Daisy represents the amoral values of the aristocratic East Egg set. Without any doubt, Daisy presents the epicurean: money first and material prominent. It was true that she loved Gatsby, but later in order to enjoy magnificent and comfortable life, she married Tom against her wills.When he found Gatsby has become much richer, she turned to him. But when Tom told the fact that Gatsby was a bootlegger and his wealth was illegal, Daisy shrank at once. “ ‘Even alone I can’t say I never loved Tom,’ she admitted in a pitiful voice, ‘It wouldn’t be true’. ”

Compared with Gatsby’s ideals, Daisy was far away from it. In reality, Gatsby fell in love with a person who didn’t worthy of his love as she was lacking of virtues and sincerity. But from the beginning to the end, he always treated her as his ideal lover and do everything to win her back. And all of these led himself to the death and caused Gatsby’s tragedy. From another hand, the illusion of Daisy and not realizing the reality completed his tragedy.

Inevitability of Gatsby’s Tragedy is related with Gatsby’s fatal characters.

There is a famous saying, characters decide one’s fate. That is to say, it is his unique and fatal characters that lead him to his tragedy.

Gatsby was also an American Dream follower and believer all the way. He thought the opportunity was equal to everyone and he could change his position and life by wealth. However, he was never accepted by the upper-class, like Tom and Daisy. However rich he was, he could not successfully get into the upper-class. But Gatsby did not realize it and still struggle for it and even hope one day, he could win the ideal woman back. Therefore, he was obstinate in his mind and dream. And this character is inevitable that his American Dream was disillusioned.

To some extent, Gatsby is naive and stupid, because he never sees Daisy in her true colors just as he never sees the green light clearly. He was supposing to gain the pure love from Daisy and repeat the past with her. In order to win her back, he tried to be wealthy even through illegal business. Later, when he became a millionaire, he bought a mansion where he could see Daisy’s house and held all kinds of lavish parties to gain her attention. But it is easy for us to find that throughout his courtship of Daisy, Gatsby is always in a position of less power and lower social status. Because what Gatsby saw is Daisy’s illusion, he would no longer realize his dreams. Even in the end, he was still willing to be responsible for the car accident, which was caused by Daisy. And this directly led his death. After his death, Daisy and Tom just moved away, and even a wreath was not sent to his funeral. The bad virtue of Daisy also made Gatsby’s dream for pure love unachievable.   

What’s more, Gatsby was ignorant and somewhat innocent. Firstly, Gatsby did not recognize the essence of upper-class clearly and was ignorant about this special society. As far as we can see, Gatsby set making fortune as the shortcut to involve in the upper-class. However, this class was far more than he had concerned. Though he spent no effort to struggle for his dream, he failed at last. When he was still alive, he held different kinds of feasts and lavish parties. As a result, quite a lot visitors came, most of whom were from the upper-class. But after his death, no telephones and messages arrived to show their concerns. On Gatsby’s funeral ceremony, “about five o’clock our procession of three cars reached the cemetery and stopped in a thick drizzle beside the gate—first a motor hearse, horribly black and wet, then Mr. Gatz and the postman from West Egg ,” what’s worse, “I could only remember, without resent, that Daisy hadn’t sent a message or a flower.” This is the true face of upper-class, but unfortunately, even he died, he didn’t realize it. Second character is his innocent. As I have mentioned, he was innocent about Daisy, about the upper-class, and also about himself.

All in all, it is the obstinate, foolish, ignorant and innocent characters —-destructive characters, that make Gatsby’s tragedy become more possible.

Inevitability of Gatsby’s Tragedy is related with ruthless and degenerate social reality.

From the surface, we may see Gatsby died of his love with Daisy. But when you think more about the cause, we can find, it is the society that he lived caused his inevitable tragedy. It is also a representative tragedy of this society, this generation.

After the World War I, American value concepts changed greatly and were different from before. People began to focus on the pursuit of material, instead of spirit. In their mind, money is as important as God. “all Gods have died, all the wars have been over, and all the faiths have faded away.” American people living in Jazz Age looked down on the traditional faiths and revealed against the moralities and customs that their ancestors used to abide by.

As living in a society lost in spiritual dreams, Gatsby seemed totally different, as he still struggled for his pure love, his spiritual dream, which was hard to be understood by the society. So American cruel social reality made him dream in vain. At that time, people of America’s value also changed a lot. Just the same as Daisy, their social value trend was that money is first. People tended to enjoy life regardless of moral concerns. Like Tom, he had affair with Myrtle, but he just treated her as a kind of entertainment and had no responsibility for her. Even she died, he didn’t care about her. And as I mentioned again and again, from the funeral ceremony, we feel the ruthlessness and coolness of the society. In this society, Gatsby was destined to be isolated helpless and to fail in all.

6. Conclusion:

Gatsby was one of typical representatives of American Dream. But no matter how hard did Gatsby struggle for it, he could not get into the upper-class; no matter how many efforts did he pay, he could still not win Daisy back; no matter how well he performed, he could not escape from his tragedy. His tragedy was not about his death, but also the failure to involve in upper-class and to win Daisy back. Because Gatsby held different social value from common American people, the tragedy of believer and follower —Gatsby persistently seeking for American Dream asserted the bankruptcy of American Dream. His tragedy was closely related with his illusion of Daisy, his fatal characters and the ruthless and degenerate social reality. With these factor, Gatsby was destined to be isolated helpless and to fail in all.