While both novels are “great” and “American,” Twain’s ability to challenge his readers in topics that continually produce tense debates in the United States reigns over Fitzgerald’s widely viewed and accepted novel, that observers often glaze over the social commentary held within.
Great novels as such are not easy swallows. They are not the pizzas, ice creams or chocolates of the world – those would be the romance novels for single middle-aged women whose children have fled the nest, or dystopian novels narrating strong female leads who always seem to be caught in a tacky mess of a love-triangles for young “adult” females. Great novels are the Brussel sprouts, the sour krout, and most horrifically: the pink bubble-gum flavored amoxicillin.
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However, this does not mean intensions equate to outcome. With the onset of The Great Gatsby’s massive, clear from its selling of 400,000 annually, has doomed Fitzgerald’s work to become a part of the culture he set out to warn people about. Over the years, casual readers have turned a social commentary novel into a tragic summer romance, completely ignoring the prevalent observations the narrator, Nick, makes of the countless money-hankering citizens. Now this novel has is beloved by the public who will obsess over almost anything that sounds pleasing and poetic – As put by Robert Beuka in his analysis of novel as a cultural icon, “The Great Gatsby, with its double vision of glamour and desperation, of freshness and futility, of dream and disillusionment, has become an American icon—has come to be part of the very fabric of the national culture that it so glowingly, hauntingly represents.” (Beuka). The novel falls prey to the romance readers. It’s almost as if Fitzgerald put layer of icing over a plate of asparagus so thick, that consumers of it can completely ignored any hint of foul palate or write it off as nothing. In this light, the novel falls short of its