Robert Frost, a contemporary of F.

Scott Fitzgerald, stated, "poetry is a way of taking life by

the throat.” Fitzgerald has done just that in his 1925 novel The Great Gatsby, and
simultaneously highlighted the social injustices behind the economic prosperity of the
‘Roaring 20’s’. Fitzgerald’s novel focuses on the American upper class of that time and shows
the processes of the ‘high society’. By fixating on this, the novel illustrates the failure of the
‘American Dream’ during this time. The ‘American Dream’ is a capitalist ideology that states
that “every citizen of the United States should have an equal opportunity to achieve success
and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative.” However, in The Great
Gatsby, this perspective on life is seemingly flawed, with the characters in the novel, already
above others in terms of achieving this ideology. The development and creation of these
characters, mostly, Daisy, Gatsby, Tom, and Nick, are crucial to display the flaws in the
‘American Dream’ as well as the imperfections of the American upper class.

“He stretched out his arm toward the dark water in a curious way… distinguished nothing
but a single green light, minute and far away”.
For Gatsby, this light represents Daisy, his lost love; in the wider context of the book and its
arguments about the American Dream, the green light can also be seen as symbolizing
money, success, and the past. The inaccessibility of the green light is an important element
of its symbolism.

“My house looks good, doesn’t it?”

Donaldson (2001) explains in his article: “The culture of consumption on exhibit in The Great
Gatsby was made possible by the growth of a leisure class in early-twentieth-century
America. As the novel demonstrates, this development subverted the foundations of the
ethic, replacing the values of hard work and thrifty abstinence with a show of luxury and
idleness.”

“I’ve never used the pool.” Page 146

Donaldson (2001) “The outsized house, together with the lavish parties and the garish
clothing… represents his attempt to establish himself as somebody, or at least not nobody.”
(p. 11) The partygoers were striving for the American dream, but they couldn’t realize that
Gatsby who had all this fortune has not achieved yet the real American dream. They all think
he has a perfect life, but he needs Daisy to enjoy a luxurious life.

“Whenever you feel like criticising anyone, just remember that all the people in this world
haven’t had the advantages you’ve had.”

Division of West and East Egg.

West egg – New money
East egg – old money
Shows disapproval and limitations of Capitalist ideologies.
Separation is not only geological but also ideological.

“The Carraways are something of a clan, and we have a tradition that we're
descended from the Dukes of Buccleuch, but the actual founder of my line was my
grandfather's brother… started the wholesale hardware business… carries on
today. “
Nick self-deprecatingly punctures the illusion that his family comes from nobility—
but instead, he makes himself into another kind of nobility: a family that
actually has achieved the American Dream of wealth and respectability through
hard work.

“Old sport”
Trying to sound like he has “old money” If you're born with money, you're
actually born with money. That's why everyone knows Gatsby's faking it.

“I like large parties. They’re so intimate. At small parties there isn’t any
privacy.”

“Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not
after he is dead.”

“He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable
visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the
mind of God.

“Can’t repeat the past? …Why of course you can!”

“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things

and . . . then retreated back into their money . . . and let other people clean
up the mess they had made.”

“I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a
beautiful little fool.”

“No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in
his ghostly heart.”