What is The Great Gatsby About?

 

Introduction

 

The Great Gatsby 😄, F. Scott Fitzgerald's tour de force published in 1925, is widely considered one of the greatest American novels ever written. Set in the rip-roaring Jazz Age of the 1920s, this slim novel packs an enormous impact. Through its tragic love story, dazzling prose, and vivid symbolism, The Great Gatsby explores wealth, love, status, morals, and the concept of the American Dream in a more profound way than perhaps any other modern work of fiction.

 

But what exactly is Fitzgerald's masterpiece really about at its core? On the surface, it follows the mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby as he lavishly entertains high society in the hopes of renewing his long-ago romance with the glamorous but capricious Daisy Buchanan. Yet the genius of the novel lies in how it uses this relatively straightforward narrative to grapple with the clashing ideals, dizzying prosperity, and lurking hypocrisy of America in the hedonistic Roaring Twenties. Fitzgerald deftly manages to capture a pivotal point in the nation's history and identity, giving the book an enduring resonance.

 

So for those who have not read this lyrical, elegiac American classic, or who desire a deeper understanding of its underlying themes and messages, examining the key elements that comprise The Great Gatsby's multidimensional meaning can unlock this misunderstood masterwork of the Jazz Age.

 

Overview of The Great Gatsby

 

To fully grasp the implications behind The Great Gatsby, it helps gain background context on both the author and the freewheeling era in which the novel is set.

 

-         Background on F. Scott Fitzgerald and the 1920s

 

The novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald is almost as mythical and fascinating a figure as his most famous fictional creation, Jay Gatsby. Fitzgerald was born in 1896 in St. Paul, Minnesota to an upper middle class Irish Catholic family. After being educated at prep schools and Princeton, he joined the army in 1917, stationed near Montgomery, Alabama. There Fitzgerald met and fell madly in love with a spirited 18-year old beauty named Zelda Sayre, the daughter of a prominent local judge.

 

Following the war, Fitzgerald entered New York's glittering high society of wealth and status through his literary success, starting with his first novel This Side of Paradise in 1920. That same year he married Zelda and the two embarked on a decade of lavish parties and nonstop drinking as the newly minted prince and princess of the Jazz Age. They lived beyond their means in an effort to keep up appearances among Manhattan and Long Island's elite.

 

While reveling in the Roaring Twenties environment of loosened morals, boundless energy, and an anything-goes spirit, Fitzgerald also remained an astute observer of its pretentiousness and hollowness behind the glittering façade. Much of his famously autobiographical fiction tried to reconcile the moral bankruptcy he saw among the rich with his own hungry ambition for fortune, acclaim, and an extravagant lifestyle.

 

The Great Gatsby emerged from Fitzgerald's personal experiences of this era. Set in 1922, the novel is steeped in the atmosphere of postwar America. World War I had shattered the nation's confidence and traditional ways of living. A newfound prosperity provided by financial speculation and bootlegging allowed a younger generation to wholeheartedly embrace the hedonistic pursuit of wealth, health, and pleasure. Jazz music ruled, the flapper redefined womanhood, the unleashed stock market soared, and lavish parties like those thrown by Gatsby set the tone.

 

But Fitzgerald recognized the cracks in this giddy era's shiny veneer. He saw how unrestrained materialism could lead to moral emptiness and cruelty. Prohibition's illegal liquor trade made millionaires of mobsters and bootleggers through corruption. The solid Victorian values of hard work, thrift, and social responsibility were crumbling. Fitzgerald uses razor-sharp insight to reveal the complex duality of a pivotal moment in America's coming of age under the outward gaiety of the Jazz Age.

 

-         Plot Summary

 

The novel's narrator and moral center is Nick Carraway, a young midwesterner who moves to New York to learn the bond business after serving in World War I. He rents a modest house in middle-class West Egg on Long Island. Across a small bay sits the more fashionable East Egg filled with lavish mansions, including a castle-like palace owned by the enigmatic Jay Gatsby.

 

While driving along West Egg's beach, Nick encounters Gatsby gazing longingly at a mysterious green light across the bay coming from a dock belonging to Nick's cousin Daisy Buchanan. At Daisy's mansion, Nick reunites with his cousin and meets her rough, imposing husband Tom Buchanan, who brings Nick to meet his mistress Myrtle Wilson in the bleak "Valley of Ashes" between West Egg and New York City.

 

Eventually Nick receives an invitation to a spectacular party at Gatsby's mansion. There Nick realizes the wild parties are all an elaborate ploy by the newly wealthy Gatsby to attract the attention of Daisy, with whom he had fallen in love five years prior. Through flashbacks, the reader learns Daisy and Gatsby's romance failed because Gatsby was penniless at the time. Before the war, Daisy chose the wealthy, brutal Tom Buchanan partly out of pressure from her social-climbing family.

 

Now enormously wealthy through criminal enterprises, Gatsby moves to West Egg solely to woo Daisy again, believing his money can win back her love. Gatsby enlists Nick to help him arrange a secret meeting with Daisy. As they rekindle their smoldering passion, Gatsby is more determined than ever to win Daisy's heart. Daisy is both drawn to and repelled by Gatsby's lavish lifestyle and shady business dealings.

 

On a scalding hot day, Gatsby, Daisy, Nick, and Tom end up in a tense showdown in a New York hotel room. It is revealed to Tom that Daisy, while driving Gatsby's spectacular yellow car, had struck and killed Tom's mistress Myrtle after an argument. Tom tells Myrtle's husband it was Gatsby's car, leading the grief-stricken husband to fatally shoot Gatsby and then himself.

 

Only one of Gatsby's partygoers attends his funeral, demonstrating the false nature of Gatsby's "friends." Nick later learns more about Gatsby's early life as the impoverished James Gatz from the upper Midwest. The now dead Gatsby had built himself up into the fabulously wealthy, well-mannered Jay Gatsby through shady activities solely to attain Daisy's love. The green light across the bay that so enchanted Gatsby is revealed to come from a lamp outside Daisy's house, representing the opulence and status he associated with her.

 

Nick breaks off his friendship with Tom and Daisy, disgusted by their role in Gatsby's tragedy. In the famous concluding passages, Nick reflects that while Gatsby's obsessive love may seem foolish, it contains an innocence, wonder, and sense of hope lacking in that era of slackened morals and cynicism. Gatsby's death underscores the withering of the American dream in the tarnished Roaring Twenties.

 

-         Main Characters

 

- **Jay Gatsby** - The magnetic, eponymous hero and star-crossed lover. Formerly a penniless midwestern youth named James Gatz, he reinvents himself into a fabulously wealthy sophisticate through criminal bootlegging and connections to organized crime. His opulent Long Island mansion and legendary decadent parties are all part of his desperate attempts to both enter elite East Coast society and attract Daisy Buchanan. His luxurious lifestyle and refined manners hide his more humble true origins and nefarious means of obtaining his fortune.

 

- **Daisy Buchanan** - Nick's capricious cousin and object of Gatsby's quixotic desires. Daisy comes from a wealthy Louisville family and is attracted to Gatsby's glamour, but is too ensnared by status and habit to fully leave her brutish husband Tom for Gatsby. Like money itself, Daisy promises happiness but in reality lacks depth and humanity. Both Gatsby and Tom compete for her love for shallow, selfish reasons.

 

- **Nick Carraway** - The novel's narrator who provides an outsider's perspective on the wealthy Long Island set. Nick both admires and scorns Gatsby's lavish lifestyle and parties. His midwestern practicality serves as a moral compass in an environment of careless decadence. Some scholars even hypothesize Nick may harbor secret romantic or sexual feelings for Gatsby.

 

- **Tom Buchanan** - Daisy's crude, domineering husband and philanderer who exposes the cruelty and emptiness behind the seemingly ideal lives of the idle rich. Tom comes from a fabulously wealthy Chicago clan, allowing him to look down on those "new money" arrivals like Gatsby and Myrtle Wilson. His racism, sexism, and bullish entitlement warn of the dangers of inherited wealth untempered by humility or traditional morality.

 

Key Themes in The Great Gatsby 

 

While The Great Gatsby can be enjoyed as a tragic romance, moral fable, or period piece, its deepest resonance comes from the complex themes Fitzgerald carefully weaves throughout the concise novel. He uses this love story set in the superficially glamorous Jazz Age to explore timeless and universal issues. Let's dive deeper into the meanings behind four of the book's central themes:

 

-         Wealth and Excess

 

Gatsby's lavish spending and outrageous parties epitomize the reckless materialism and over-the-top extravagance of the 1920s economic boom. The novel peels back the façade of fun and luxury to reveal the corruption, carelessness, and emptiness behind such unbridled excess. Those like Gatsby who came into new money, whether through business, the stock market, or crime, spent it as fast as possible to emulate the lifestyles of established old money. Through details like the muddy path to Gatsby's oversized Gothic mansion or the wasted food left after wild parties, Fitzgerald shows wealth does not bestow grace, taste, or fulfillment. America's burgeoning materialism gets indicted for replacing traditional values with hollow conspicuous consumption. The rich grow ever more removed from the struggles of the poor as selfish pleasures leave spirits unfulfilled.

 

-         The American Dream

 

The 1920s marked the first time a mass wave of ordinary Americans could realistically aspire to attain great wealth rapidly through business ventures, financial speculation, and criminal activity. Gatsby epitomizes the traditional rags-to-riches story that lies at the heart of what became defined as the American Dream – the belief that anyone can claw their way to economic success through hard work and ingenuity. But as Gatsby's legacy proves, this mostly results in nouveau riche arrivistes whose fortunes lack the dignity and moral responsibility of those who inherit generational wealth. Fitzgerald exposes how the American Dream's preoccupation with class fluidity was far different from the reality of how elites treated outsiders who crash their exclusive circles. The mobility so central to the young nation's self-image seems an illusory chimera through the lens of Fitzgerald's dissection of societal stratification. Gatsby's doomed love for Daisy further reveals how money cannot buy fulfillment, challenging the equation of wealth with happiness underpinning the American Dream myth.

 

-         Social Class

 

On the surface, 1920s America seemed like an age of lessened stratification as enterprising individuals gained new wealth from investments, bootlegging, and commercial innovations. But Fitzgerald peels back the curtain to show social class solidly intact despite such churning fortunes. Old money scions like Daisy and Tom will always exist in an echelon forever out of reach for self-made men like Gatsby. His huge fortune alone cannot erase the stigma of his more humble midwestern roots or how his money came through underground liquor. Both Gatsby and Daisy dream of reliving their earlier romance and literally trying to repeat the past, but too much has changed. Daisy remains tightly constrained by habit and reputation to remain ensconced in the pampered leisure class of old money. New York's East Egg versus West Egg divide underscores how geography and raising trump bank accounts in determining status. The American Dream's promise that hustle can elevate anyone to the elite falls apart under Fitzgerald's remorseless gaze. Gatsby had the same potential as Tom from the start, but their circumstances at birth forever dictated two different destinies.

 

-         Love and Relationships 

 

The novel takes an unsparing look at how money and class complicate affairs of the heart, adding an aura of secrecy, desperation, and dysfunction that poisons true intimacy. Gatsby's obsessive longing for Daisy and the less-remembered past becomes so idealized that he cannot see the flawed person she has become. He instead worships the platonic concept of Daisy as a symbol of everything elegant, desirable and tantalizingly out of reach. But his neglecting to court her properly as more of an equal partner undermines their connection. Daisy feels torn between the security of a socially sanctioned marriage to the wealthy Tom and her smoldering attraction to Gatsby's style and mystery. But in each case, the men see her more as a glittering prize to be won and flaunted than an autonomous human. Fitzgerald recognized early on how material gulf distorts relations between the sexes, turning romance into a financial equation or Darwinian competition. By showing how characters cannot see beyond their lover's status, wealth, and ambitions, Gatsby lays bare the hollowness behind Jazz Age mating rituals and liberated dating. The sincere heart's yearnings lose out to social pressures, hidden agendas, and superficial attractions.

 

Symbolism in The Great Gatsby

 

Unlike many other canonical novels, The Great Gatsby's brilliance shines through its sparseness rather than sprawling scope. Fitzgerald wields evocative symbolism to efficiently convey major ideas and tensions that might require lengthy exposition in the hands of a less gifted writer. By perfecting the art of literary symbolism, Fitzgerald could craft a short novel that "says more" than far longer tomes. Let's examine how color use, recurring images, and metaphor subtly underscore the deeper meanings in Gatsby's lavish parties and tragic plot.

 

-         Green Light

 

Early in the novel just after Nick moves next door to Gatsby's mansion, he sees his neighbor standing alone at the end of a dock gazing longingly across the bay at a green light. This mysterious visions sets an ominous, haunting mood while introducing one of the book's central symbols. Only later does Nick and thus the reader learn the green light comes from the lamp outside the dock at Daisy Buchanan's house across the bay.

 

This seemingly minor object takes on increasing significance, representing the allure of Daisy and everything old money East Egg radiates that tantalizes and eludes Gatsby. Green is the color of ambition, envy, money, and promise. Gatsby's yearning for the green light encapsulates both his fierce desire to win Daisy and enter her exclusive social sphere. It epitomizes the distant yet almost close promise of status and acceptance old money always dangles before outsiders like Gatsby but conspires to withhold.

 

The green light and Gatsby's futile reaching towards it further symbolizes the hollow nature of the American Dream's promise that enough wealth can lift anyone to lasting happiness. The light offers hope while retreating ever further, just like Daisy as both goal and person perpetually recedes from Gatsby's grasp.

 

-         Eyes of Dr. T.J Eckleburg

 

Early in the novel a valley of ashes overflowing with junk and smoke rising between West Egg and New York is described as overlooked by a faded painted advertising billboard. The peeling billboard features giant pairs of bespectacled blue eyes without a face, described as looking out like the eyes of God. A commuter describes them as the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg, an oculist once located nearby.

 

These haunting disembodied eyes of the decrepit billboard stare out on lavish characters who have lost their morals. They become a silent omniscient judge weighing the actions of those like Tom, Daisy, and Myrtle whose careless pleasure-seeking causes such pain and chaos. The eyes suggest religious and spiritual values that see all but go ignored by Jazz Age youth seeking thrills and indulging selfish impulses. Fitzgerald links the eyes to the Valley of Ashes to imply death and decay lurking behind the fun times and cluttered lives of the fast set. The eyes of Dr. Eckleburg silently warn that materialism and immorality decay the soul, and that a day of divine moral reckoning draws inevitably nearer for reckless Jazz Agers.

 

-         Valley of Ashes

 

As mentioned earlier, between West Egg and Manhattan sprawls an eerie wasteland formed from industrial dumping and ash heaps from coal fires. Smoke from nearby factories and trains also pervades the dismal setting under the eyes of Dr. T.J Eckleburg. Fitzgerald describes the hellish landscape as having air that looks like "the foul breath of some infernal machine."

 

This vivid backdrop symbolizes the moral and spiritual decay that prosperity's excesses can bring. The poor must dwell near or toil among the ashes of waste fueling the lifestyles of the carefree rich. The disfigured eyes presiding over this bleak realm passage hint that the exuberant Jazz Age in fact conceals rot at its core. The valley represents the neglected downside of an economy centered on excess, greed, indulgence and exploitation rather than virtue. The soot also stains the shiny facade of both those who pass through like Tom and his mistress and the age itself, exposing a hidden ugliness as the waste and destruction from hedonism piles up.

 

Critical Reception and Legacy

 

-         Initial Reception

 

Fitzgerald had worked intensely on Gatsby starting in 1924, obsessively revising it to perfection. Given the praise and popularity his previous two novels enjoyed, especially the recent The Beautiful and Damned, expectations were high when Scribner's published the novel on April 10, 1925. The novel's cryptic title puzzled many, while its distinctive blue dust jacket featuring melancholic female eyes in the style of a Vogue magazine cover oddly did not contain a summary blurb or author photo.

 

Early reviews proved decidedly mixed. Critics praised Fitzgerald's poetic prose and vividly drawn characters, especially his larger-than-life title creation Jay Gatsby.

 

However, some key criticisms emerged that plagued initial reception:

 

- The storyline was too vague, meandering, and melodramatic. Gatsby's background and the reasons for his obsession with Daisy seemed unclear.

 

- None of the characters elicited much sympathy, with even the narrator Nick Carraway seeming cold and enigmatic.

 

- The novel was too focused on wealthy long Island society to resonate with most readers.

 

- The themes were difficult to discern. With its short length, many found the book almost too slight and lacking enough substance.

 

As a result, sales were decent but below Fitzgerald's expectations, with fewer than 25,000 copies sold by the end of the year. This disappointed Fitzgerald, who had hoped Gatsby would expand on his growing literary renown. A few influential champions like T.S. Eliot did instantly recognize Gatsby's brilliance. But the general public at the time failed to embrace what would become known as Fitzgerald's masterwork as enthusiastically as his previous fiction.

 

-         Modern Analysis

 

After Fitzgerald's untimely death from alcoholism in 1940 at just 44, interest in his work escalated. As America's fame expanded internationally in the postwar years, so did the literary reputation of The Great Gatsby. By the 1950s, new scholarship and criticism began to recognize the novel as a groundbreaking touchstone in American letters.

 

Critics now saw the spare novel as perfectly crafted. Plots and themes that once seemed vague or confused now got appreciation as intentionally impressionistic. The economy of language gained admiration for Saying so much about 1920s society using lyrical style and carefully woven symbolism.

 

Most importantly, scholars saw the novel as both the quintessential portrait of its era and a universal cautionary tale about American ideals. Jay Gatsby embodied the nation itself in all its hopefulness, invention, energy, ambition, and dangerous overreaching. The work recast the Jazz Age not as a frivolous party but a fulcrum pivoting America toward its diverse modern identity.

 

Once perceived as shallow pretty fiction, Gatsby now stood as an economical yet expansive literary masterpiece laying bare timeless truths. Its status has only grown over subsequent decades.

 

-         Influence on American Literature

 

The Great Gatsby proved hugely influential on the evolution of modern American fiction in a few key ways:

 

- It demonstrated how symbolic patterns and detailed scenes could economically convey setting and inner meaning more potently than sheer length. Its poetic concision showed brevity's artistic power.

 

- 1st person narration gained popularity as writers emulated Nick Carraway's haunting reflective voice in recounting Jay Gatsby's larger than life saga.

 

- Fitzgerald set the mold for unafraid, blunt depictions of societal greed, corruption and obsession with status. His candid portrait of morally ambiguous characters in a rich setting inspired a generation of writers.

 

- Gatsby exemplified how fiction could evoke an entire era. 1920s America became inseparable from imagery like yellow cars, jazz, and bootleg gin thanks to Fitzgerald's indelible portrayal.

 

Perhaps most importantly, The Great Gatsby profoundly influenced how subsequent generations of American fiction tackled aspiration, materialism, class, love, disillusionment, morality, and the nation's character and past. Fitzgerald's 1925 novel set a new standard for social realism coated in poetic language. Almost a century later, the enigmatic masterpiece continues to haunt, inspire, and caution each new wave of writers and readers trying to make sense of the American experience.

 

Conclusion

 

In the nearly 100 years since its publication, The Great Gatsby has become so immersed into American culture and the larger literary canon that it can be easy to take its brilliance for granted. Upon its release in 1925, Fitzgerald's most famous work was met with middling sales and decidedly mixed reviews. But the eventual champions of the novel were right to recognize that something revolutionary had taken shape, no matter how slim and enigmatic its narrative.

 

ThroughNick Carraway's haunting first-person narration and richly symbolic language, Fitzgerald constructs a vivid snapshot of America's coming of age in the 1920s while exploring universal themes about romantic idealism, social status, and moral decay that resonate far beyond its specific postwar setting. The human drama of Jay Gatsby's outsized dreams, foolish love, and dark undertakings expose both the allure and danger of a nation in flux. Daisy Buchanan's voice full of money comes to represent a society trading away ethics for greed, ease, and temptation. Each reading reveals new layers to Fitzgerald's concise yet limitless masterpiece. The brevity and ambiguity that confounded early critics now seem ingenious artistic choices.

 

Few works so deftly capture a pivotal turning point in a nation's destiny. The Great Gatsby endures not just as THE great American novel, but one of those rare books that somehow sees beyond its own time and place to tell a story that grows more relevant and hauntingly timely with each passing generation. Whether the green light is made of money, love, joy, justice, or meaning, all Americans embarking on their own pursuits live in the world first unveiled in Fitzgerald's 1925 triumph of American fiction.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

 

What inspired Fitzgerald to write The Great Gatsby?

 

As a socially ambitious Midwesterner finding wealth and East Coast acceptance through writing, Fitzgerald lived a version of Gatsby's journey and goals. He saw postwar America full of new financial opportunities but also greed, crime, and status obsession. Capturing these experiences became an obsession for Fitzgerald. Specific images like Gatsby reaching towards a green light came to him early on, inspiring the rest of the story.

 

Why is the novel's setting so important?

 

The novel had to be precisely set in the prosperous Long Island suburbs like Great Neck in the 1920s to depict the rift between new money (West Egg) and entrenched wealth (East Egg). This let Fitzgerald contrast self-made bootleggers like Gatsby with old money elites like Daisy to explore class and status. Placing the book right in the heart of Jazz Age luxury and decadence was essential.

 

How did Fitzgerald achieve such economical use of language?

 

Fitzgerald labored obsessively over every sentence to craft a taut, vivid tale and convey symbolic meaning without verbosity. His early writing experience in advertising shaped this eloquent but direct style. Unlike Victorian writers, Fitzgerald's concise modernist prose precisely evokes emotions and ideas without sentimentality. Clarity and lyrical flow mattered most to his artistic vision.

 

What statements does the novel make about wealth and class?

 

It exposes America's newfound prosperity as breeding greed, hollow materialism, and cruelty. The rich grow ever more corrupt yet isolated from common concerns. New money alone cannot buy respectability or inner purpose. Class barriers persist no matter how large one's fortune grows. The system seems rigged to protect established old money like Daisy's clan.

 

Why does Daisy choose to stay with Tom despite her feelings for Gatsby?

 

She is too conditioned by habit, reputation, and paternalistic tradition to leave her socially sanctioned marriage no matter Gatsby's appeal. As a pampered daughter of privilege, she cannot fully abandon status for true emotion. As a symbol of wealth's hollowness, Daisy literally lacks the substance to be anyone's savior or soulmate. Tom's old money pedigree will always exert more sway over Daisy than Gatsby's material lavishness.

 

What modern film adaptations best capture the novel's essence?

 

The 1974 version focusing on the elegiac emotions and 1930s nostalgia has admirers. Baz Luhrmann's dazzling sensory take illuminates the frenetic glamour. But no film fully captures Fitzgerald's prose poetry and symbolic subtlety. The genius is in the spare words, not grandiose spectacle.

 

How was the novel received when it was first published?

 

Critics noted Fitzgerald's talent but overall gave mixed reviews upon its April 1925 release. Complaints centered on unappealing characters, meandering plot, confusing themes. Sales proved decent but below expectations, as Gatsby was outsold by Fitzgerald's previous books. It was only later that the work earned recognition as a groundbreaking masterpiece.

 

Why is the symbolism so essential to the novel's power?

 

By perfecting the literary use of symbols like the green light, eyes, and ash heaps, Fitzgerald efficiently conveyed themes and meanings that brief prose alone could not. For example, the concise green light neatly encapsulates Gatsby's superficial materialism and doomed yearning in a way no direct sermonizing could.

 

What inspired the novel's unique title?

 

Fitzgerald likely got the title from a forgotten 1896 song called “The Great Gatsby and the Green, Green Grass.” He sensed the curious name captured both the enormity of Gatsby's presence and ambitions along with the mystery of his background and means of success. The vagueness provokes interest while allowing Gatsby's persona to emerge gradually.

 

Why is The Great Gatsby considered the quintessential Jazz Age novel?

 

No other current work captured the energy, innovations, and cultural shakeups of the 1920s with such economy and insight. Fitzgerald's vivid portrayal of everything from fashion to music to wild parties perfectly encapsulated Jazz Age dynamism. No setting better revealed the era's promises and lurking darkness than glamorous Long Island's lavish homes. The novel distills an era down to its essence.