Examples Of Dystopia In The Great Gatsby

The American Dream is an all-consuming idealistic dystopia. The dismantling of said fantasy is tough to swallow, yet necessary to truly understand the message of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. One is presented with a 1920’s New York setting, touching on topics of sensitivity, all while utilizing an unreliable narrator. The title character, Jay Gatsby, is stuck in a delusional fantasy in which he can achieve his american dream with the main female protagonist, Daisy Buchanan. In pursuit of this life, he, and many other individuals, commit acts most would consider immoral, whether directly or indirectly. Primarily, his hand is said to be forced by the dubious force of capitalism. The power of wealth, and how it manipulates others, is

The valley of ashes lay between them in suffering and peril, while the two banter in their stocked mansions or treasured abodes, riding horses and playing golf, blissfully ignorant to the despair separating them. “Yet to the wingless, East egg and West Egg are different in almost every respect besides shape and size. I lived at the West Egg, the-well, less fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them.” (Fitzgerald, 5). In this quote Nick is referring to humans as “the wingless”, which furthers the argument that it is in human nature to notice beyond the masses into the individual. To create opinions and ideals based beyond physicality. Additionally, in chapter 5 of The Great Gatsby, the narration acknowledged humans under a capitalist government have an innate recognition of social standing. “Americans, while occasionally willing to be serfs, have always been obstinate about being peasantry.” (Fitzgerald, 88). A similar argument is made with the Philosophy of Right, “But the state’s relation to the individual is quite different from this. Since the state is mind objectified, it is only as one of its members that the individual himself has objectivity, genuine individuality, and an ethical life. Unification pure and simple is the true content and aim of the individual, and the individual’s destiny is the living of a universal life.” (Hegel, 1821). In the creation of man an inherent desire for togetherness was born, similar to flocks or herds. However, the society that capitalism created has misled many into fostering a divided, hierarchical state. There has to be class difference, and there has to be an outside oppressive force to achieve their american dream. Capitalism does not breed innovation, but instead