The Great Gatsby Literary Analysis

The Great Gatsby talks about the lavish lifestyle of the rich and the desolate life of the poor. While showing the vast difference between the classes, The American Dream is mentioned constantly throughout the story. Everyone wanted to become wealthy and have a family, but in reality none of the characters were able to obtain their goals. The book shows how the American Dream is very far beyond reach.
F. Scott Fitzgerald uses similes to express that The American Dream is unattainable. For example, “Jay Gatsby’ had broken up like glass against Tom’s hard malice” (Fitzgerald.148). Tom told the truth about Gatsby to Daisy so he was no longer seen as what he built himself up to be. Due to this realization, Daisy doesn’t like Gatsby anymore

The conditions described showed how hard the people had to work to get The American Dream, while the rich people did not have to do anything. Fitzgerald also used a despondent tone when describing how no one arrived to Gatsby’s funeral,
“A little before three the Lutheran minister arrived from flushing, and I began to look involuntarily out the windows for other cars. So did Gatsby’s father. And as the time passed and the servants came in and stood waiting in the hall, his eyes began to blink anxiously, and he spoke of the rain in a worried, uncertain way. The minister glanced several times at his watch, so I took him aside and asked him to wait for half an hour. But it wasn’t any use. Nobody came” (Fitzgerald.174).

Hope is lost at this point because Nick and Gatsby’s dad realize that no one will be attending Gatsby’s funeral, they just decide to wait anyways. The “friends” that Gatsby had at his party were not his real friends. They just used Gatsby for his parties and it is exemplified when no one arrives. The tone used throughout the book made the reader understand what the situation was like at a certain point of the story. For example, the tone helped us understand what the Valley of Ashes was like and how Gatsby had no real

He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night” (Fitzgerald…).

At this time Nick describes the green light as behind Gatsby, symbolizing that his dream to have Daisy and The American Dream were both impossible to acquire. The green light is symbolizing that Gatsby cannot win back Daisy because the green light is behind him, and is therefore beyond reach.
“His house had never seemed so enormous to me as it did that night when we hunted through the great rooms for cigarettes. We pushed aside curtains that were like pavilions, and felt over innumerable feet of dark wall for electric light switches—once I tumbled with a sort of splash upon the keys of a ghostly piano. There was an inexplicable amount of dust everywhere, and the rooms were musty, as though they hadn’t been aired for many