Great Gatsby the Moral Wasteland Essay

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While his modes of achieving his money might be questionable, he can know that he did become successful and he did not need the help of anyone else to do it. For this reason, Gatsby deserves a certain amount of respect. In fact, we can almost bet that Gatsby worked harder and longer than Tom ever did. If we are to hold any grudges against Gatsby, it must be in his foolishness toward Daisy but that is what makes him a romantic at heart. Gatsby is torn between the life he lives and the dream he wants. There is nothing wrong with the dream; however, what Gatsby chooses to do with it proves to be the biggest mistake of his life. Gatsby is living in the past and believes that it can be relived. Nick writes, "He talked a lot about the past, and I gathered that he wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy." (113). Here we see the drive for passion and the destruction of the dream in one sentence. Gatsby could not see that all to which he was striving was already gone. For this we cannot fault him because, unlike most people, he gives everything he has to make his dream come true.

The Great Gatsby can be seen as a novel about defying time through two prisms. The first prism through which this novel can be observed is how Fitzgerald focuses on the 1920s generation. The theme of the American Dream is examined in the novel by the characters' ability to lose themselves in the corruption that surrounds the dream. The society that Tom, Daisy, and Gatsby allow themselves to become with comes apart literally at the seams because it knows nothing but to enjoy and waste.

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Essentially, this generation loses it soul as it attempts to break away from the constraints of Victorian principles. In addition, the generation of the 20s was enjoying a new kind of life since the war. Suddenly things were not only available but also plentiful. From social anxiety to the chase of pleasure, this generation had no reason to look back and no real compulsion to look forward.

Theirs was a mindset that focused on the here and now with little concern for anyone or anything else. The main goal of this generation was more - of practically everything. In retrospect, Nick realizes his tale is a "story of the West, after all -- Tom and Gatsby, Daisy, Jordan, and I, were all Westerners, and perhaps we possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life" (Fitzgerald 181). The very lifestyle led to more of the same overindulgence. The other prism through which this novel can be seen as an attempt to defy time is with Gatsby. He is a man that partakes in the present only to gain him access to the life he had in the past. All of his actions are leading up to the moment when he can have Daisy back again and they can live happily ever after. Gatsby does think about this in a rational way because he simply cannot. Letting go of the dream would mean letting go of the basis for his own life and that would be too detrimental. Gatsby wants to defy time by going back and he wholeheartedly believes he can do it and he almost does. However, the novel ends with the sad realization that the past is the past.

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