Brief Explanation
The Great Gatsby is an adventurous novel that depicts the rise and ruin of a mysterious man, Gatsby, a man who rose himself out of poverty into a lavish lifestyle, seemingly from nowhere. From Nick Carraway’s perspective, the reader experiences life on the West and East Eggs (fictional places based on Long Island) during the 1920s, a time of booming culture in America. As it becomes easier for the average person to become richer, society sees a cemented shift towards capitalism and a culture of consumerism, emphasized greatly by Fitzgerald in this novel. Nick narrates as the past of Gatsby unfolds and reveals itself, suddenly becoming all the more relevant as Gatsby chases after Daisy. Daisy is Nick’s cousin, who is married to Tom Buchanan, an old-money man who reinforces racial and gender roles. This shows a stark difference from Gatsby, who seems to frolic in his crisp, newly printed bills, carefree but calculating all the same. Daisy, stuck between worlds of stability (but restriction) and love (or obsession), acts as the catalyst for the novel’s events as Gatsby continues to chase his love for her, all while she cannot decide whether to hate or love him.
Review
The Great Gatsby, while a story of love on the surface, is truly a story exposing the sad truth of mankind– that we will push only further, and harder, to achieve what is deemed to be perfect. However, this standard continues to rise higher and higher, and as expectations build up, people often can’t keep up. The “hustle” is a term used to describe the constant struggle towards wealth and better socioeconomic status, characterized by grueling 9-5 jobs, corporate culture, and lavishness in an effort to disguise instability. It almost reminds me of the concept of homeostasis, of how an environment must equally lose and gain to maintain a set standard that is ‘ideal’. But in the case of hustle culture, one often has more to lose than gain.
Gatsby pulls himself away from the depths of poverty into a lifestyle that he could have only dreamed of– a mansion the size of a castle, ridiculously extravagant parties, and belongings of only the finest quality. This ideal of wealth is constantly being pushed onto Americans as a way to tell employees, “You’ll get all of this if you just keep working”. Fitzgerald paints this picture of Gatsby where he becomes a reflection of this concept… His ruination at the end of the novel further emphasizes the negative impacts of chasing after something so elusive. Yes, Gatsby becomes the rich and successful man he’s always yearned to be, but once he has this, he longs for other things that he cannot have: Daisy’s love. The majority of the novel describes the wild goose chase that is Gatsby’s plot for Daisy to fall for him, yet he doesn’t get to have her in the end. Thus, wealth (and eventually Daisy) becomes synonymous with this idea of hustle culture in The Great Gatsby. What one desires only continues to grow, and soon enough, you will hit a wall– which, in the case of Gatsby, led to the fall of his carefully crafted empire.
As a critique of the American Dream and the concept chase for glorification, The Great Gatsby is a wonderful classic. However, my interest ebbed and flowed throughout the book, as certain sections contained beautiful imagery and metaphors that forced you to truly think, while others felt like a bit of a bore. Though certainly not my favorite book, I can attest to its greatness when studying it. It is one of those novels you don’t read for entertainment necessarily, but for dissection– and in that purpose, it served very well.