The Great Gatsby (1925) Revisited: Why Fitzgerald’s Novel of the American Dream Still Resonates Today

The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald and published in 1925, is a timeless classic that captures the essence of the Roaring Twenties, an era of glamour, excess, and moral decay.

Set in the fictional towns of West Egg and East Egg on Long Island, the novel explores themes of wealth, love, and the elusive American Dream through the eyes of Nick Carraway, the story’s narrator. At its heart is Jay Gatsby, a mysterious millionaire whose lavish parties and obsessive love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan reveal the emptiness and disillusionment lurking beneath the glittering surface of the Jazz Age.

With its rich symbolism, vivid characters, and poignant critique of society, The Great Gatsby remains a profound reflection on ambition, identity, and the cost of chasing dreams.

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Overview

In accordance with Fitzgerald's epic ambition to write a novel that expressed the vital spirit of his country, The Great Gatsby attempts to explain and evoke the essence of the fundamental myth at the heart of the American experience.

Even in the high times of the wild 1920s, Fitzgerald perceptively sensed that the original energy of the American dream was irrevocably vanishing, and he wanted to record its power before it faded into memory and fable.

Fitzgerald explores the American dream through two characters: Nick Carraway, the narrator, and Gatsby himself, both young men born in the heartland of the Midwest at the dawn of the 20th century. Like Fitzgerald, they arrive in New York with the innocence characteristic of Middle America, lured to the great wicked city by its promise of glamour and success, vulnerable to its dangers and its corruptions.

They bring some of the classic virtues of the heartland with them—simplicity, determination, loyalty, and perhaps most of all an innate sense of honesty and decency. For Gatsby, beguiled and practically enslaved by love, these virtues have been driven into the deeper recesses of his character. For Nick, the temptations of city life are also quite strong, but he is able to turn back before he is consumed.

A sense of the American dream's possibilities animates both men, but Gatsby has allowed the realities of contemporary American life to distort the parameters of his romantic vision.

Setting

Set in the summer of 1922, most of the story takes place in the state of New York, in the fictitious towns of East and West Egg, Long Island, and in New York City. Nick Carraway, who has rented a cottage in West Egg next door to the rented estate where the fabulously wealthy Jay Gatsby lives, renews his acquaintance with his cousin Daisy Buchanan and her husband Tom, who live in East Egg.

When Gatsby wishes to meet the charming Daisy, whose voice rings like the sound of money, he selects Nick as his confidant. The glitter and intrigue of the 1920s permeate the story and the details of the setting are important to the development of the theme.

Plot Summary

Set in the roaring 1920s, The Great Gatsby is a deeply symbolic novel that unpacks themes of ambition, illusion, and the pursuit of the American Dream.

The Great Gatsby is narrated by Nick Carraway, a Yale graduate and World War I veteran who moves to West Egg, Long Island, to work as a bond salesman. His modest bungalow sits next to the grandiose mansion of the enigmatic Jay Gatsby, a self-made millionaire known for his lavish parties.

Nick soon discovers that Gatsby's opulence is a facade for a desperate longing—he seeks to reunite with Daisy Buchanan, his lost love, now married to the wealthy and brutish Tom Buchanan. Gatsby's wealth, accumulated through illicit means, is dedicated to impressing Daisy and winning her back.

The plot unfolds as Gatsby arranges a meeting with Daisy through Nick, reigniting their old romance. However, their affair is exposed, leading to a heated confrontation in a New York hotel where Gatsby demands Daisy confess, that she never loved Tom. She falters, torn between past and present.

As Gatsby and Daisy drive back, Daisy accidentally strikes and kills Myrtle Wilson, Tom’s mistress. Gatsby, ever the romantic idealist, takes the blame. Tom manipulates George Wilson, Myrtle’s husband, into believing Gatsby is responsible for both the affair and her death. Enraged, George shoots Gatsby in his pool before taking his own life.

Nick, disillusioned with the corruption and emptiness of the East, arranges Gatsby’s funeral, attended only by Gatsby’s father, Owl Eyes, and himself.

The Great Gatsby closes with Nick reflecting on the American Dream’s failure, immortalized in the final lines: 

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

Themes And Characters

Jay Gatsby, the title character of The Great Gatsby, was born Jimmy Gatz, a poor boy from an undistinguished family.

Dazzled by Daisy Fay at a party when he was a young soldier on his way overseas, he becomes determined to win her love by accumulating enormous wealth and by developing a personal style of such glowing force that she will be unable to resist his courtship.

Gatsby's efforts in a way dramatize the myth, popularized in Horatio Alger's stories of the late 19th century, of self-improvement through hard work and fortunate circumstances.

But Gatsby overcomes the limits of his origins only in the end to succumb to greater limits. A natural leader of men, he is extremely poised, physically gifted, understated about his accomplishments but riveting in terms of his force of personality. At the age of 32, having accumulated his wealth through shady enterprises connected with criminality, he is a bizarre combination of elegant gallant and love-struck youth.

At the heart of his character is the conviction that his love can rescue Daisy from a bad marriage and redeem his own life, which has been sliding further into corruption. His willingness to commit himself totally to his vision of a bright future makes his death tragic.

Part of the tragic essence of Gatsby's life is that the object of his quest is not entirely worthy of his commitment.

Daisy is extremely attractive, her allure projected by her voice, which Fitzgerald describes as 'the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down, as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again'. She has a radiance that Nick sees as 'a wild tonic in the rain”, and she communicates her sense of love with extraordinary intensity.

But she sees everything from the perspective of her own happiness and well-being, and without being cruel or evil, she is a little too careless. In fact, her carelessness leads to the death of Myrtle Wilson, the woman her husband has been seeing.

Daisy's faults are minor, however, in comparison with those of her husband, Tom Buchanan. Very rich and privileged, he is also physically imposing, a star athlete used to having his way. He is a thug and a bully, full of self-importance and unjustified self-regard. But inside this 'cruel body' he remains a coward with no moral courage, a quitter with no sense of perseverance, a man of average intelligence that he has never developed, and a man concerned with appearances who, as Nick observes, has no real reason for doing anything.

He competes with Gatsby through deception and treachery. It is a mark of Fitzgerald's achievement that one actually feels sorry for him at times.

Jordan Baker, a golf champion Nick almost falls in love with, is lively and attractive in a kind of brittle, ultra-modern way. Her apparent spontaneity masks a careful and calculating nature. She fascinates Nick because she seems so much the exciting woman of the city, but he describes her as 'incurably dishonest' and unable to 'endure being at a disadvantage'.

Her controlled aloofness convinces many people of her 'breeding”, but Nick sees past her charming availability.

Nick Carraway, the narrator of The Great Gatsby, is a version of Fitzgerald's ideal self-image. A 30-year-old Yale graduate, his integrity intact, Nick rightly wins the admiration of everyone he meets because of the obviously substantial nature of his character. Low-key but caring, introspective, an idealist with few illusions, he can look into the abyss without plunging to his doom.

As Fitzgerald describes him, he is 'simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life'. Unafraid to commit himself to what he believes in, he becomes Gatsby's only friend in a world where friendship is rare. He admits without displeasure that he is 'on Gatsby's side and alone'.

Fitzgerald's ambitions as a writer paralleled those of his spiritual ancestors of the 19th century—Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, and Henry David Thoreau—who rendered in imaginative literature the emergence of the United States as a nation. Like them, he believed in the capacity of the American people to perpetually rediscover the promise of their country. Like them, he recognized a continuous clash between the reality of life in the United States and a mythic vision of what it might be.

But unlike his forebears, he felt that he was living in the twilight of a golden era. Still, he believed that he could share their vocation; that he, too, could serve as a witness to the struggle, an artistic conscience reminding Americans of near-forgotten dreams.

He considered the artist's role primarily one of inspiration and felt an obligation to help people recover their vision and continue the quest.

Fitzgerald was also a thoroughly romantic artist in the most traditional sense and, for him, women like Daisy represented the deepest seductive power of the American dream as well as its greatest dangers. Even if pursuing the dream—or the woman—doomed a man, the undertaking was worth the risk; indeed, the pursuit was essential for the exceptional man who wished to fully realize his character.

Thus, Gatsby's (and possibly America's) greatness lay in the ability to put aside the lessons of bitter experience. As Gatsby says when Nick tells him he cannot recapture the past: 'Of course you can, old sport.' Gatsby's full participation and heedless pursuit make him the quintessential American hero. His death, in a sense, serves as a warning, but it also ennobles him.

Fitzgerald hoped that there would always be men such as Gatsby whose nature it was to 'beat on, boats against the current”, to make the gorgeous gesture that animates existence.

Nick, the observer and artistic conscience, serves as a necessary counterweight to Gatsby's wild extravagance. His support of Gatsby, his participation to some extent in Gatsby's heart-driven surge towards romantic beauty, and his ability to judge other people's actions with compassion exemplify fundamental decency carried beyond complacency.

As Gatsby reanimates the dream, Nick conserves it. His appreciation of beauty is as vital to its existence as is Gatsby's immediate celebration. 'Reserving judgment,” he says, 'is a matter of infinite hope.'

Ultimately, the theme of The Great Gatsby is decadence and the decline of society. Although the story is told with grace and beauty, its events are intended to be shocking. True to the spirit of the times, the story involves marital infidelity, murder, and wealth earned through racketeering. Many of the characters thrive on emotional dishonesty, and live for appearance rather than substance of character.

But The Great Gatsby is also a moral tale in which the characters get their 'just deserts'.

Finally, Nick understands the meaning of their lives and the sadness of their worlds.

Literary Technique

Fitzgerald has been praised for the narrative structure of The Great Gatsby. As critic Matthew Bruccoli points out, his 'narrative control solved the problem of making the mysterious—almost preposterous—Jay Gatsby convincing by letting the truth about him emerge gradually during the course of the novel'.

Fitzgerald greatly admired novelist Joseph Conrad's employment of a partially involved narrator, and everything that occurs in the novel is presented through Nick's perceptions, thus combining, as Bruccoli puts it, 'the effect of a first-person immediacy with authorial perspective'.

Nick's tempered approach to life and his undeniable honesty lends an authenticity to his observations. In Nick's narration, Fitzgerald skilfully merges the language of the lyric poet with subjects not traditionally associated with a lyrical sensibility.

Gatsby's car is not just an ostentatious display of wealth, it is a mobile realm; his drawer of unusual shirts is more than a display of buying power, it suggests the generosity of abundance; the Buchanans' mansion is not just an example of conspicuous consumption, it is a symbol of a limitless power, almost a natural force; Gatsby's gestures are not just calculated effects, they are manifestations of genuine aristocracy; Daisy's voice is not just 'full of money”, it is an expression of the magic that stirs the senses.

Fitzgerald animates the idyllic vision of the American dream even as he reveals the forces that have tainted, if not destroyed, it. Nick's list of 'guests' at one of Gatsby's parties hints at the ugliness of the 'high' society that beckons to and often swallows those who see in its glitter the realization of their dreams and desires.

Predatory names such as Leeche, Civet, Ferret, and Blackbuck evoke these people's voracious bestial habits; the suspect quality of 'fishy' people like Whitebait, Hammerhead, Fishguard, and Beluga is suggested by their surnames, as is the murky, swamp-like aspect of Catlip, Duckweed, and Beaver.

These people's lives are based on an extravagant, tasteless display of cash, unmerited status, or power gained through criminal activity.

They are people for whom the American dream has lost its meaning, or for whom it never held any meaning. They live in a hollow domain that reflects the surface dazzle of advanced technology but lacks any connection to the natural world or to a sense of morality.

Perhaps most significantly, these people have no culture; nothing to revive their souls and nothing to replace their desperate groping for diversion and stimulation. This is the world where the dream has died.

Memorable and Quotable Lines

1. On Judgment and Privilege

“Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.”

2. On Gatsby’s Personality

“If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away.”

3. On Gatsby’s Hope 

“This is an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again.”

4. On Gatsby’s Past Love

“Your wife doesn’t love you," said Gatsby. "She never loved you. She loves me.”

5. On Gatsby’s Dream vs. Reality

“Oh, you want too much!” she cried to Gatsby. “I love you now—isn’t that enough? I can’t help what’s past.”

6. On Daisy’s Voice

“Her voice is full of money," he said suddenly.

7. On Gatsby’s Disillusionment

“He must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream.”

8. On the Past

“Can’t repeat the past?” he cried incredulously. “Why of course you can!”

9. On Gatsby’s Dream 

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

10. On Large Parties

“And I like large parties. They’re so intimate. At small parties there isn’t any privacy.”

Adaptations

Given its cultural significance, The Great Gatsby   has inspired numerous adaptations, each interpreting Fitzgerald’s vision in distinct ways.

1. 1926 Silent Film – The first adaptation, directed by Herbert Brenon, is now lost. Contemporary reviews suggest it captured the book’s spirit but lacked its depth.

2. 1949 Film – Starring Alan Ladd as Gatsby, this version emphasized the crime-noir aspects of Gatsby’s background but failed to resonate critically.

3. 1974 Film – This adaptation, starring Robert Redford and Mia Farrow, was faithful to the novel’s dialogue and grandeur but was criticized for being emotionally distant.

4. 2000 TV Film – A modernized adaptation featuring Paul Rudd as Nick Carraway.

5. 2013 Baz Luhrmann Film – Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, this visually extravagant film infused modern music and hyper-stylized cinematography to capture The Great Gatsby’s excesses. Though divisive among critics, it introduced the story to a new generation.

6. Theatrical Adaptations – Gatsby has been adapted for the stage, with notable productions including Broadway plays and operas.

Each adaptation struggles with The Great Gatsby’s interiority—Nick’s reflections, Gatsby’s enigmatic charm, and the novel’s deep symbolism are challenging to translate to film.

Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby, Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway, Joel Edgerton as Tom Buchanan, and Carey Mulligan as Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby (2013)

Lessons from The Great Gatsby    

The Great Gatsby   imparts several profound lessons that transcend time:

1. The Illusion of the American Dream

Gatsby’s relentless pursuit of Daisy reflects the broader illusion of the American Dream—where success and wealth are thought to guarantee happiness. Yet, despite his riches, Gatsby remains emotionally unfulfilled, underscoring the futility of materialism.

2. Social Class and Privilege

Fitzgerald dissects the divide between “old money” (Tom and Daisy) and “new money” (Gatsby). No matter how much Gatsby accumulates, he remains an outsider. The Great Gatsby reveals the rigid hierarchies of American society.

3. The Corrupting Power of Wealth

Tom and Daisy’s recklessness—where they leave destruction in their wake without consequences—illustrates how privilege shields the wealthy from accountability. This remains relevant in today’s socio-political landscape.

4. Time’s Irreversibility

Gatsby’s tragic belief that he can “repeat the past” is a cautionary tale. The past, once lost, cannot be reclaimed. This theme is especially poignant in the novel’s closing passage.

5. Moral Decay Beneath Glamour

Beneath Gatsby’s dazzling parties lies loneliness and moral decay. Fitzgerald critiques the Jazz Age’s excesses, foreshadowing the Great Depression’s crash.

Uniqueness

While The Great Gatsby   has been extensively analyzed, certain overlooked aspects add depth to its interpretation:

1. The Telephone as a Symbol of Miscommunication

Throughout The Great Gatsby, telephones symbolize Gatsby’s mysterious dealings and the characters’ emotional detachment. Fitzgerald was keenly aware of the telephone’s impact on modern communication, illustrating how it enables secrecy, deceit, and distance in relationships.

2. Financial Speculation and the Fragile Economy

Nick’s job in bonds reflects the era’s financial speculation, hinting at the instability that would later cause the 1929 stock market crash. Gatsby’s fortune, built on bootlegging and crime, mirrors the speculative, fragile wealth that characterized the Jazz Age, a period in the 1920s and 1930s in which jazz music and dance styles gained worldwide popularity.

3. Consumerism and Identity

Gatsby’s persona is meticulously crafted through possessions—his mansion, shirts, and car. This prefigures modern consumer culture, where identity is shaped by material goods. Fitzgerald critiques how personal worth is equated with wealth.

4. The Tragedy of the ‘Self-Made’ Man

Unlike traditional tragic heroes, Gatsby’s downfall isn’t caused by a personal flaw but by societal barriers. Despite his reinvention, he cannot escape his origins. Fitzgerald suggests that in America, self-made success is an illusion, predetermined by social structures.

5. The Green Light: A Personal Reflection

Much has been written about the green light’s symbolism—hope, the American Dream, or Gatsby’s unattainable desires.

However, it also represents the human tendency to chase illusions. As readers, we recognize Gatsby’s delusion, yet we sympathize with his unwavering belief in a better future. This duality makes Gatsby a profoundly human character.

Critical Reception: From Obscurity to Masterpiece

Upon its publication in 1925, The Great Gatsby was met with mixed reviews.

While some critics praised its prose and themes, others found it lacking in depth compared to Fitzgerald’s earlier works. The Great Gatsby was a commercial failure, selling fewer than 20,000 copies in its first year. Fitzgerald died in 1940, believing himself to be a forgotten writer.

However, World War II marked a turning point. The novel was distributed to American soldiers, reviving interest in Fitzgerald’s work. By the 1950s and 1960s, literary scholars recognized its thematic richness, and it became a staple in American literature courses.

Today, The Great Gatsby is widely regarded as a masterpiece and a contender for the title of the "Great American Novel".

Fitzgerald’s incisive critique of materialism and the American Dream resonates across generations. Scholars highlight its treatment of social class, the corrupting influence of wealth, and the tension between illusion and reality. The novel’s cynicism about the American Dream—where ambition is crushed by systemic privilege—remains a powerful commentary on modern society.

About The Author

It is part of the romantic myth of the artist to say that someone was 'born to be a writer”, but in the case of F. Scott Fitzgerald, the myth has been substantiated. From the days of his youth, Fitzgerald seems to have had a natural instinct for expressing his most important thoughts and emotions in written form. As an adult, no aspect of his life seemed real until he had written about it.

In addition to his fiction and poetry, Fitzgerald wrote steadily to his mother, his wife, and his daughter whenever he was separated from them, and he kept a detailed, systematic ledger of his work and its monetary rewards. He would probably have preferred to achieve distinction as an athlete during his school days, but as soon as he discovered that he did not have the physical gifts to be a successful athlete he began to seek celebrity through his writing.

When he realized that he had the ability to attract people's attention and then their admiration through his work, he recast his ambitions for greatness, envisioning himself as a great artist rather than a great soldier or sportsman. Having seen the possibility of earning a living with his pen, his destiny was settled.

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born on September 24, 1896, in St Paul, Minnesota, to the daughter of an Irish immigrant who had become a self-made millionaire. His father, a failed businessman, moved the family from town to town in New York state and finally back to the security of family money in St Paul. Fitzgerald attended a private school in New Jersey, then Princeton University.

Academic difficulties forced Fitzgerald out of Princeton midway through his junior year; he returned the following autumn but left permanently in 1917 to join the army. While stationed in Montgomery, Alabama, he met and fell in love with Zelda Sayre, who refused to marry him until he could prove his ability to support her.

When World War I ended in 1918, Fitzgerald returned to New York, worked in an advertising agency, and revised his novel This Side of Paradise. Charles Scribner's Sons agreed to publish it and Scott and Zelda married in the spring of 1920.

This Side of Paradise became an immediate success. The first print run of 3,000 copies sold out in three days. Additional printings of 5,000 per month followed until October. During that year Fitzgerald also published 11 stories, earning US$4,650. Throughout the 1920s and into the early 1930s, Fitzgerald’s prolific short story production brought him the cash flow he desperately needed to support his extravagant lifestyle and, later, Zelda's huge hospital bills.

His stories not only brought him quick money but also propelled him into position as the pre-eminent short-story writer—at least in the Saturday Evening Post genre—of the time. Although he publicly disparaged much of his popular work, complaining that he had to mould his writing to fit a mass-market magazine format, he did have high regard for many of his short stories.

Alcoholism and other health problems sapped Fitzgerald's ability to write, and by the late 1930s, he had fallen into total obscurity. Some of the 24,000 copies of The Great Gatsby printed in 1925 still remained in the Scribner's warehouse when Fitzgerald died on December 21, 1940, in Hollywood.

Although he published some 160 short stories, Fitzgerald completed only four novels during his lifetime and left another, The Last Tycoon (1941), half-written. This Side of Paradise and The Beautiful and Damned (1922) achieved popular success, but those that followed—The Great Gatsby and Tender Is the Night—sold dismally both in terms of Fitzgerald's expectations and in comparison, to the great popularity enjoyed by his colleague, rival, and sometime friend Ernest Hemingway.

But the critics, including H. L. Mencken, John Dos Passos, John O'Hara, Edmund Wilson, and T. S. Eliot, always admired his writing, and in the 1960s Scribner's reprinted all of his works.

Today, The Great Gatsby is one of the most widely read and critically admired American novels.

Conclusion

The Great Gatsby endures because it speaks to universal human experiences—longing, ambition, and disillusionment. Fitzgerald masterfully dissects the American Dream, exposing its glamour and emptiness.

Nearly a century later, its themes remain hauntingly relevant. Whether through Gatsby’s tragic fate, Daisy’s moral vacuity, or Nick’s weary disillusionment, The Great Gatsby forces us to question the true cost of ambition and the meaning of success.

It is not merely a story about the 1920s—it is a story about us.