The Great Gatsby And American Pastoral Analysis

A Comparison of the American Dream between the Great Gatsby and American Pastoral

“There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams—not through her own fault but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion.” ––––––F. Scott Fitzgerald Written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The Great Gatsby”, a novel published in 1925 perpetually lightens among the masterpieces in the history of American literature. The author delicately infuses the themes of material excess, greedy ambition and hollowness into one brilliant artwork, with the intention to emphasize the decadence of the American Dream in the “Roaring Twenties”. Similarly, written by Philip

Fitzgerald tactfully contrasts West Egg, part of the Long Island occupied by the ambitious young, the “new rich” and decorated by lavish parties and gaudy attire, to the aristocratic East Egg. Unlike his poor-taste neighbors, Nick graduates from Yale University and has social connections with the East Egg, for his second cousin, Daisy Buchanan lives there. Daisy’s husband Tom Buchanan, an excellent football end at New Haven and “enormously wealthy”(7), is Nick’s acquaintance in college. Nick’s illusion begins when he visits the couple in their house and sees “an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon”(9). One of the women is Daisy who, under the description of Fitzgerald, represents women thirsting for the superficial material condition, extravagant and vain. Jordan Baker, the other woman, is an enthralling golfer who later confessed that she has cheated in her very first tournament. A few moments later, “the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor”(9), but Nick’s flower of American Dream does not fall; it continues blossoming fragrantly and meanwhile starts to appear fissures from New Yorkers’ empty lifestyle, the secret affairs committed by both Tom and Daisy, Gatsby’s fervent love to Daisy who is

Gatsby’s sole aim to stay in the Long Island, to hold the weekly luxurious parties, and even to live, is to win Daisy back; after Daisy accidentally kills Myrtle, Tom’s mistress with Gatsby’s car, Gatsby is still unwilling to leave the Long Island. Even under Nick’s persuasion and shouting, Gatsby insists in his dream that with sufficient money, his love would one day respond to be his wife. Early at the time when Tom and Gatsby quarrel over their connection to Daisy, the gorgeous flapper feels herself inclining more and more to Tom. Gatsby’s American Dream dies not when he dies, but when the girl, who haunts his heart every single night as the distant green spot of light, determines to forsake