Man’s Best Friend People say dog is man’s best friend. Ever since the dawn of naus, the modern man has always been afraid of loneliness. Throughout the centuries, that fear took various forms: we used to be afraid of getting banished from the tribe, then we were afraid of taking responsibility for our lives (and prefered to think someone on top of Olympus pulled all the strings for us), then we panicked we might be the only intelligent creatures in the known Universe (and then we were terrified by the idea of extraterrestrial life actually existing). At times like these, however, it was not the dog that saved us. It was literature. In the eyes of its many characters, in the events of its various plots, and in the intensity of its conflicts, we found company. One is rarely left with a feeling of being misunderstood while reading. Usually there is at least one character whom we sympathize or identify with, whom we care for or with whom we share the same personality traits, dreams, and secret longings. In this sense, every character is a mirror of an individual, or a whole social group. In The Great Gatsby, James Gatz is a representative of the young entrepreneurs striving to achieve the American dream. Vigorous, full of hope, and feeling as if he alone is God’s chosen one, Gatsby represents everything for which the bourgeoisie has “an unaffected scorn” (2). At the same time, however, he is everything the ordinary man wants to believe is feasible, or at least possible.