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F. Scott FitzgeraldA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Through Nick’s observations and conclusions about the romantic exploits of his friends in East and West Egg, Fitzgerald offers a broader examination of the state of the American dream in the 1920s. Although the so-called Roaring Twenties are often recalled in modern popular culture as an era of prosperity, merrymaking, and challenged gender roles, Fitzgerald views “The Jazz Age”—a term he coined—as a corruption of American ideals. Individualism is subjugated to unattainable dreams of wealth. The pursuit of happiness is replaced by the pursuit of pleasure. All of this leads to a sense of moral decay that Nick ultimately rejects by moving back to Minnesota.
To Nick, the greatest victim of this corrupted American dream is Gatsby. Embarrassed by his humble beginnings, a young Gatsby projects all his ambitions toward wealth and upward social mobility onto Daisy. This serves neither of them well; Daisy is expected to live up to an impossible ideal of perfection, while Gatsby is compelled to subjugate his entire identity to a dream of prosperity. While Gatsby eventually achieves the wealth he craves, it is a hollow victory. The old aristocratic dynamics that predate the founding of America—and against which America was presumably a reaction—continue to exclude him from the highest echelons of society.
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