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The Great Gatsby Flaws

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“At his lips’ touch she blossomed for him like a flower.”(103) Reading this phrase in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, you are probably picturing the kissing scene in the happy, cheesy romantic Disney princess movie you watched last Saturday. However, unlike Cinderella or Snow White, in Nick’s account of Gatsby and Daisy’s first kiss, their love implies something much more than that, and the chief way that Fitzgerald elevates their love to that level is through his miraculous descriptions. The author effectively reveals the flaws and insufficiencies of Gatsby’s idealized vision of Daisy and the American Dream through the use of numerous vivid imagery and sound devices. “Out of the corner of his eye Gatsby saw that the blocks of the sidewalks …show more content…

Since Gatsby is located at the bottom and Daisy, or the “milk of wonder”, is at the top of the ladder, the ladder is most likely symbolic for the hierarchy of the social classes in the 1920s. Consequently, after “climbing up” to the top of the social ladder and reaching material success, Gatsby believes that he would be on the same level as Daisy. In addition, the phrase and word “once there” and “could” depict Gatsby’s sureness that his material success would match him up with Daisy. This implies Gatsby’s devotion into the idea of the American Dream, where everyone has the equal potential of reaching success and achieving their dreams. However, in addition to imagery, the cacophonous sound used to describe Gatsby’s imagination also stresses Fitzgerald’s doubts in the American Dream. The cacophonous sounds such as “p” and “k”s create an unpleasant, or even false sound to the reader's’ ears, hinting that perhaps Gatsby’s dream is fanciful, and that his hopefulness in his dream is very unrealistic. Consequently, this discordance reveals that Gatsby's material success would not necessarily ensure his chances of achieving Daisy. In other words, Gatsby’s vision of the American Dream could be a completely erroneous assumption. Therefore, through the usage of cacophonous sounds, Fitzgerald adequately reveals his doubts in the commonly accepted idea of the American

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In his novel, The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald explores the reality of the American Dream. Throughout the novel, he uses Daisy to represent the American Dream. In chapter eight, after Daisy crashes the car, “she vanish[es] into her rich house… leaving Gatsby nothing” (149). Daisy is depicted as soulless; she is willing to let Gatsby take the fall for her faults. In order to remain the American Dream, Daisy must appear blameless to society; therefore, the common man must always take responsibility for her mistakes.

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The American Dream suggests that every American citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work. One of the major ways that Fitzgerald portrays this is by alluding to outside events or works of literature specifically from that time period. Another major relationship that develops in The Great Gatsby is between Tom and Daisy. F. Scott Fitzgerald alludes to things such as the World’s Fair and “The Love Nest” to display the eventual dismantling of Tom and Daisy’s relationship. Both of these separate plots consolidate under the idea of Gatsby trying to become the epitome of the American Dream, as seen through his strive for a “perfect life.”

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F.Scott Fitzgerald is an American novelist and a short story writer. He is the author of the famous novel “ The Great Gatsby”, which is written in the 1920’s. The period of the 1920’s is well known as the roaring twenties due to lack of morales and the lowering of standards and expectations, people intended just to have a good time not caring about the outcomes of their and how they will effect their lives. Fitzgerald wants to prove in his novel the death of “The American Dream” it’s just a myth. The author of this novel shows the death of the american dream through the events surrounding Gatsby, and Daisy.

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He projected the theme of American dream in this novel where people’s main motive was to live a luxurious life. The writers tries to combine the concept of American dream with the modernist approach and tells us that what is the true meaning of this dream for the people and how they have lost the basic concept of this dream. The American dream which Gatsby follows is to achieve Daisy who he loves the most but can not have her due to the changing situation. Daisy represents a modernistic woman who is very different from other women. The women of those times had to behave in a good manner and were very strict about their values but Daisy was a complete opposite.

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Just as the American Dream- the pursuit of happiness- has degenerated into a quest for more wealth, Gatsby’s powerful dream of happiness with Daisy has become the motivation for lavish excess and criminal activities. He used his dream to escape from his past, but then was stuck on hold for when he lost Daisy the only part of the dream he really cared for. Gatsby made a dream just for Daisy so she could be apart of his, but saw the meaningless of it when she didn’t choose him in the end. "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther….

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This brings to mind how the American Dream of fortune can’t always be brought around by hard work, in the case of George. Later on in Chapter 4 the reader learns about Gatsby’s plan to win Daisy back through his show of wealth and social power. Daisy, being the ultimate symbol of success for Gatsby, is his goal that has been for so long out of reach. Next in the 5th Chapter, Gatsby starts an affair with Daisy. This makes the audience believe that he might be successful in his ultimate “American Dream” with Daisy being the last level.

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But what gave it an air of breathless intensity was that Daisy lived there—it was as casual a thing to her as his tent out at his camp was to him” (158). The phrase “breathless intensity” characterizes Gatsby’s reaction to seeing such wealth, and the word “air” expresses a sort of intangibility of her wealth. The juxtaposition between Gatsby and Daisy’s perspectives, “breathless” versus “casual,” allude to an insurmountable gap between the idea of the self-made man and the difficulty of actually achieving upward class mobility in America. Here, Fitzgerald suggests that true wealth and class also require a comfortability and casualness toward luxury as evidenced by his comparison of Daisy’s house to Gatsby’s tent. Even when Daisy is ready to leave Tom and Gatsby has the extravagant lifestyle, he is not satisfied.

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