Thread:Lord Of The Rings-Fan Girl/@comment-24149196-20140603152426/@comment-24149196-20141126210434

If want to read over my essay and give suggestions, that would be much appreciated.

Oh, the American Dream! Everyone has their own idea of what it is. These ideas usually involve peace, comfort, family, etc. One of the most interesting ideas, though, is what appears to be Fitzgerald’s idea of the American Dream, based off the Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald seems to suggest that his idea of the American Dream (or at least the way to happiness) is either being filthy, filthy rich, lazy, forty percent of the time drunk, and being involved in affairs; being completely apathetic towards others; or reclaiming the past. These may seem odd, but is it truly?

Wealth, laziness, unfaithfulness, and excessive drinking are major parts of this book. Some may argue that “hedonistic excess” is a better way to put it than “wealth, laziness, and excessive drinking,” but the former doesn’t express the true spirit of the book as well as the latter. It is actually hard to compare the happiness of the wealthy with the happiness of the poor because most of the main characters are at least well off. “The American Dream” is mostly defined as obtaining wealth, though, and that is what Daisy is after. If Jordan really is engaged, six of the seven main characters are involved in being unfaithfulness. The only main character that isn’t is Mr. Wilson, who is the one who was so unhappy he killed himself. Many of the guests at Gatsby’s party are having affairs. They are also drunk all the time. Daisy, Tom, and Jordan are generally lazy people who let others deal with their problems.

The characters in this story do not seem to care about the fate of other’s very much. Nick knows that some of the characters are making terrible mistakes. If Nick really cared about Gatsby, he would have stopped him from making the awful mistakes of pursuing Daisy and, even more so, taking the blame for Myrtle’s death. If Nick really cared about Tom, he would have told him to stop cheating on Daisy and, more importantly, that Gatsby is trying to steal his wife. He didn’t, though; he never helps the other characters. The biggest culprit of apathy towards others is Daisy. She cares very little when she kills Myrtle. She ends up getting Gatsby killed as well and again is apathetic. She seems to put little value on human life. This is very inhuman of her as it is, but a quote from John Donne’s Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions Meditation XVII really puts it in perspective, “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” This is the complete opposite of Daisy’s attitude.

Throughout the book, Gatsby is trying to reclaim the past. He wants to things between him and Daisy to be the same as they were before he went to war. This isn’t possible, though; first of all, she is married with a child! She isn’t going to just leave her family. Actually, Daisy is so selfish, she might. Second of all, even if Gatsby somehow woos Daisy and gets her to leave her family, they aren’t they same people they were before he left. They were in their twenties and at that age, people can change drastically. It is unlikely that Gatsby was unchanged by war. Him changing his name symbolizes how much he’s changed since then.

It’s weird how differently some books can be interpreted. What is Fitzgerald really trying to say? It is hard to tell with characters that aren’t very different. Some may have interpreted it as affairs, wealthiness, apathy, etc. without reading this, some may not see it that way before reading this, but see it when they do, and some might think this is totally off. It all depends on what this book meant to each reader.