The Great Gatsby Isolation

Appropriately titled, the roaring twenties popularized the fascination, as well as the opportunity, for wealth and success. These ideals directly reflect the foundations of the American Dream, however, these goals would often lead the pursuers down a path of corruption and extreme individualism─alienating people, even with those who refer to them as acquaintances. The characters in F. Scott Fitzgerald 's The Great Gatsby undergo the same experience, as multiple characters in the novel that chased the American Dream were left with the hollowed shell, which contained nothing but outsidedness. Fitzgerald, through characterization, develops the thematic idea of chasing a wealth-based American Dream, and the great consequences that accompany it.

Moving to what was the epitome of wealth, and an embodiment of the American Dream, Nick immediately feels unnoticed and as if he’s a nuisance to the other characters, for he states that “...[his] house was an eye-sore but it was a small eye-sore and it had been over-looked” (10). Illustrating the underlying theme, because Nick, who had chased the American Dream to a city, was instantly affected by the dream’s isolation, for his comment on the house is a reflection of how he views himself, an eyesore that had been overlooked. Moreover, Nick’s feelings of loneliness do not dissolve, in fact, these feelings, that derived from the American Dream, become magnified later in the novel when Nick reveals that “...it would be a privilege [for him] to partake vicariously [through other characters’] emotions” (138). Demonstrating Nick’s perpetuating alienation from other characters caused by him chasing the American Dream, for the quote depicts him fantasizing about hiding himself in other