Dreams Are Lies
In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald creates an accurate depiction of The American Dream and
creates a very distinct atmosphere which portrays the immunities and contagions of American
Society during the 20’s. Fitzgerald uses many instruments to pull at the ideals of American
society and helps portray their grandiose culture such as comparison and description with very
important meanings to them. Such as when Fitzgerald expertly crafted and outlined the book’s
characters to encapsulate the unique differences between American culture and every other
culture which he uses to show a free and untraditional view. By creating characters, from the
sporadic and oblivious Myrtle to the confused and aggrandized Gatsby, Fitzgerald is able to
capture the mountain of American society from the low and shaded base to the high and blinded
peak. Fitzgerald uses Gatsby to create an impossible event, just like the American dream by
using descriptions, comparisons, contractions, and numerous symbols and metaphors meant to
complete every ideal.
Throughout The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald created the imperfect American Dream and tore
apart the perfection that everyone believes there is. The book starts off with the view of an odd
citizen of society. He seems to have a mature and high feeling of himself, he knows his place, but
he is modest in self-aggrandizement. Fitzgerald creates a realistic and an impossible society by
creating East Egg and West Egg, “I lived in West Egg, the—well, the less fashionable of the
two…Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the
water” (5 Fitzgerald). Fitzgerald creates a realistic West egg and a impossibly fantastic East egg.
However Fitzgerald doesn’t just create the realistic and the unrealistic, Fitzgerald places the
Valley of Ashes as a symbol of what the American Dream truly is, ”This is a valley of ashes—a
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fantastic farm where ashes grow… Occasionally a line of gray cars crawls from the invisible
track, gives out a ghastly creak, and comes to rest.” (23, Fitzgerald). Without the Valley of Ashes
there would be no despair in the world created. The Valley of Ashes is placed by Fitzgerald in the
middle to create even more contrast between the connection between East and West Egg. Nick
seems to be an average citizen of society today, he works hard for little money and he looks at
great figures as huge and ingle eye catching, but he wasn’t the American dream. Fitzgerald
purposefully makes Nick seem very relatable to any common citizen, and that makes him the
‘American Dream’. He was that figure, but did not hold the definition to himself. Fitzgerald puts
the narrator of the book into the middle class for a reason; he wants to show right away that there
is no American Dream that can be achieved without cheating the system or luck. Fitzgerald
creates the empowered and amazing Gatsby to establish a broken man, who didn’t gain his fame
and money by work, he established life through cheats and illicit sales that earned money quick,
“He’s a bootlegger” (61, Fitzgerald). Fitzgerald creates the American dream everyone can cling
onto, however there is a delay before he tells the reader this amazing man was actually willing to
complete illegal sales in order to make his money. He changes the grand marble statue to a
broken, vine covered figure. Fitzgerald morphs the American dream into a piece of broken glass;
it is achievable only through luck and random chance. Since the reader knows that Gatsby is not
as amazing as everyone believed, he is just a driven man that was driven to insane measures to
make money. Fitzgerald pulls from the contrasted ideas of the American dream and.
Fitzgerald wields the mechanical instrument of facial features, those tiny features that
delete a mechanistic view and the features Fitzgerald uses to define the popular individuals, and
the unworthy populace. Fitzgerald uses references to faces and smiles throughout the book
especially when describing the highs and lows of society. When Fitzgerald describes Gatsby he
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starts with describing his smile, Fitzgerald used faces to detail the silhouette of Gatsby and his
face says everything, he’s rare and ethereal, almost impossible, “one of those rare smiles with a
quality of eternal reassurance in it” (pg. 48 Fitzgerald). Fitzgerald describes Gatsby with a smile
of eternal reassurance, which helps tie into the ending when Gatsby dies. Does his smile die with
it, or is it what Nick always sees out of Gatsby: a transparent impossible person whose existence
is questioned with every word? Gatsby’s eternal encouragement is also ironic because he is
always reassuring, however he is reassuring with lies, and his smiles just helped those lies. This
quote also contains references to time by saying Gatsby is rare and eternal, these words help
fortify Gatsby as someone important and very different. Gatsby is fantasized as a murderer and
as a German spy by people who have never even laid eyes on the man, however they continued
to telephone the false drivel, “You look at him sometimes… I’ll bet he killed a man” (pg. 44,
Fitzgerald). Rich celebrities in the American consciousness have a very distinct look to them,
however their background is riddled with nicknames and unjustified atrocities. Fitzgerald
introduces rumors as a foreshadowing-people making up crazy and impossible ideas for an
impossibly surreal person. Fitzgerald uses these connections to foreshadow the rarity of Gatsby
and the lies that he would tell about himself, just as everyone else did. This also shows how the
American Dream changes people, for it transforms them into someone who is honored, and
degraded simultaneously. Fitzgerald creates a bipolar American Dream; there is the illicit and
illegal Gatsby, and the outstanding self-aggrandizing Tom who was, “A national figure in a way”
(pg. 6, Fitzgerald), because he was known by many and was star of Yale's football team.
Fitzgerald uses Tom as a concrete barrier against Gatsby, and Tom doesn’t budge at all; he is
constantly separating Gatsby and Daisy. Tom is almost like Gatsby’s cork, in that he stops
Gatsby from achieving his dream, just like society stops everyone from achieving the American
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dream. Fitzgerald creates many contrasting characters that instead of having a depressed life,
have a happy ignorant life, holding the same social class. Fitzgerald uses comparison like a
machine gun does bullets and accentuates very grandiose and meaningful descriptions to help
strengthen his points
Throughout The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald uses many descriptions of people and faces to
jab towards the ideas of the American dream. During Gatsby’s party in the beginning of the
book, Fitzgerald expresses the grandiose culture of Americans as the American Dream states it,
however he also emphasizes that the American dream was an impossible figure, as unrealistic as
Gatsby. During the opening of Gatsby’s party Fitzgerald reveals a strong look on Gatsby’s party,
“By seven o’clock the orchestra has arrived, not the five-piece affair” (pg. 40 Fitzgerald).
Fitzgerald creates a scene that is very grand and where overproportion is common, the fact that
this orchestra was ‘not a five-piece affair’ makes everything seem very American. Within this
quote there is the mentioning of the motif of time again. The strict timing of the orchestra
arriving made everything seem very on schedule and orderly. Fitzgerald uses this to create a
strong ideal and push toward that American ideology that everything is big, proper, and
perfected. Gatsby’s house received many descriptions that made it seem impossible, “in his blue
gardens men and girls came and went like moths” (pg. 39, Fitzgerald). Fitzgerald makes the
guests moths without lights, worthless little ignorant bugs in a sea of sadness. These moths
symbolize the American dream and show how everyone believing in America are just ignorant
little creatures endlessly looking for the light that isn’t there. To finish off the book, Nick reveals
the truth about Gatsby, “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year
recedes before us. (pg. 180, Fitzgerald). Fitzgerald uses Nick’s description of Gatsby’s dream to
mimic the American dream, and to explain the true worthlessness of following the American
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dream. Fitzgerald shows the ignorant and blissful future that follows all Americans who think
they can become rich quick and lazy and free. In this final statement about Gatsby we see
Fitzgerald’s true embodiment of what Gatsby was, for he was just another moth, flying in the
garden, searching and believing in his green light. Believing in his dream, only to find it was
fake, impossible as himself.
Throughout The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald shows the impossible and orgiastic nature of
Americans, thus he explains their ignorance and what the American Dream truly means.
Fitzgerald has created a book completely relatable to the ideals of society today and he has
created an impossibly lit world that nearly exists today. Fitzgerald raises questions throughout
the book through numerous relatable meanings and he creates an exceptional society which
almost mimics modern society today. Fitzgerald writes impossibly about an already impossible
subject. Fitzgerald ending would mystify the outlook on Americans and Gatsby for eternity.
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Works Cited
Fitzgerald, Scott F. The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner, 1925. Print.