The Great Gatsby: A Look Inside Its Dazzling World!

Close your eyes and imagine America in the 1920s for a moment: Fireworks illuminating the darkness of the night, jazz music overflowing from gardens, champagne flowing like waterfalls and people dancing in the latest fashions… At the center of this glittering world, there is a mysterious man who throws legendary parties every weekend in his mansion on Long Island: Jay Gatsby. But who is this Great Gatsby? What is the source of this incredible wealth? (The book was written same period with the Grapes of Wrath novel.)

The protagonist of the novel, J. Gatsby, appears to be an extremely rich, mysterious and successful man when viewed from the outside. However, behind all this wealth lies an obsessive love for the past and a desire to win it back. Gatsby’s love for his ex-girlfriend Daisy Buchanan forms the tragic story at the center of the novel. The huge mansion built for this love, the luxurious parties thrown and the fake life led are actually indicators of a deep emptiness and disappointment.

The narrator of the novel, Nick Carraway, is the neighbor of The Great Gatsby and also Daisy’s cousin. The story told through Nick’s eyes reflects not only his own moral decline, but also the moral decline of American society at the time. Each of the characters, who are in pursuit of wealth but are internally dissatisfied, is a part of Fitzgerald’s critique of society. The conflict between Gatsby’s idealism and the superficiality of the world around him is one of the strongest aspects of the novel.

Despite its short length, The Great Gatsby is a very deep and multi-layered work. It is not only a love story; it is also a novel of dreams, social expectations, and the collapse of the American Dream.

The Great Gatsby Plot and Summary: Love and Parties

Our story is told through the eyes of Nick Carraway, a young and modest man who has just moved from the Midwest to New York. Nick settles into a small house in West Egg, where the “new rich” of Long Island live. His neighbor is Jay Gatsby, a mysterious millionaire who no one knows much about and who throws wild parties in his mansion every weekend with hundreds of people. On the opposite shore, in East Egg, live the “old and noble rich”, including Nick’s cousin Daisy Buchanan and her rich, powerful but also rude husband Tom.

His parties are legendary. The best orchestras play, and all the upper crust of New York flock to these parties. The interesting thing is that many of the guests at the party have never seen or know the host Gatsby. Everyone spreads a different rumor about him; that he is a spy, that he killed someone… Nick becomes one of the rare people invited to these parties and finally meets this mysterious man. The Great Gatsby is much younger, kinder and more hopeful than Nick imagined.

Soon, the real reason behind these magnificent parties and all this pomp is revealed. Gatsby has only one goal: to attract the attention of Daisy Buchanan, who lives in a mansion on the opposite shore and with whom he had a great love five years ago. Our hero met Daisy when he was a poor officer before going to World War I and fell madly in love with her. However, while he was at war, Daisy married the rich and powerful Tom Buchanan. Our man, on the other hand, accumulated a tremendous fortune, albeit illegally, and bought this mansion right across from Daisy’s house.

All these parties are given in the hope that Daisy will come one night.

Meeting Daisy After Years and Tragedy!

Gatsby asks Nick to bring him and Daisy together. Although this meeting, which takes place at Nick’s house, starts off extremely tense, the old love between the two rekindles. Our man tries to impress Daisy by showing her his wealth and mansion. His only and obsessive dream is to erase the past and start everything over with Daisy as if those five years never happened. He is so naive and hopelessly convinced that he says, “Of course I can!” to Nick, who says, “You can’t repeat the past.”

However, this dream quickly progresses towards a tragic end. During a tense confrontation in a hotel room in New York, Tom reveals the source of his wealth and confuses Daisy. After this confrontation, on their way home, Daisy, who is driving, hits Tom’s mistress Myrtle with our hero’s car, causing her death. The Great Gatsby takes the blame to protect the woman he loves. Thinking that his wife was killed by someone else, Myrtle’s husband George Wilson takes revenge by shooting Gatsby in the pool of his mansion and then commits suicide. Only a handful of people attended his funeral out of the hundreds who flocked to his lavish parties.

The Great Gatsby, Daisy and Other Characters

The characters of “The Great Gatsby” are not only characters in a novel, but also archetypes of the “Jazz Age” of the 1920s, that glittering but morally corrupt society. Fitzgerald masterfully reveals the emptiness, loneliness and tragedy behind the masks of each character. In the midst of wealth and carefreeness, they are actually lost souls.

• Jay Gatsby (James Gatz): The mysterious and tragic hero of the novel. In fact, James Gatz, who came from a poor family, created a new identity for himself under the name of Jay Gatsby and lived the American Dream to the fullest, a self-made man. However, he sees all this wealth and power only as a means to win back a past love, Daisy. Although he has incredible hope and imagination, he is also a naive dreamer obsessed with the past. His “greatness” comes from the purity of his dream and his unwavering belief in this dream.
• Daisy Buchanan: The object of The Great Gatsby’s obsessive love, the “golden girl”. She fascinates everyone with her beauty, elegance and most importantly, her voice “full of money”. However, beneath this charming surface lies an indecisive, superficial, irresponsible and cowardly character. She is stuck between Gatsby’s love and the secure and luxurious life provided by Tom. In the end, she betrays Gatsby by choosing comfort and security and avoids taking responsibility for the death she caused. She represents the attractive but empty and cruel face of the American aristocracy.

Nick Carraway, Tom Buchanan and Jordan Baker

• Nick Carraway: The narrator and moral compass of the novel. He becomes both a part of this rich and carefree world he enters and also judges it critically from the outside. As an honest and reliable character, he witnesses the secrets and tragedies of other characters. Although he is initially captivated by the glitter of Gatsby’s world, he leaves at the end of the novel, disgusted by the moral collapse of this world. Gatsby is a symbol of both hope and disappointment for him.
• Another important character, Tom Buchanan, Daisy’s husband, is an arrogant, racist and aggressive representative of the “old rich” class. He does not hesitate to use his power and status to oppress others. Jordan Baker, Daisy’s friend, is a modern, cynical and dishonest “new woman” figure who is a professional golfer. She has a brief affair with Nick and is also a part of this morally indifferent world. These two characters are important figures that deepen the moral decay and emotional emptiness of the novel.

The Great Gatsby: Criticism The American Dream

“The Great Gatsby,” although it may seem like a love story on the surface, is actually one of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s sharpest criticisms of 1920s America and the concept of the “American Dream.” The novel reveals the spiritual emptiness, moral decay, and tragedy of the human soul beneath the ostentatious parties, luxury cars, and dazzling wealth. For this reason, it is not just a novel of a period, but a universal and timeless work.

The strongest theme at the center of the novel is the corruption of the American Dream. The traditional American Dream is based on the ideal of achieving success and happiness through hard work and honesty. Gatsby, who comes from a poor family and achieves incredible wealth, realizes the material part of this dream. However, he does this through dirty means such as illegal alcohol trading during the prohibition era.

More importantly, his dream is not happiness, but to “buy” a bygone image, Daisy. This is the most painful criticism of how the dream has become materialistic, empty, and devoid of morality.

The obsession with the past and the desire to turn back time form the basis of Great Gatsby’s tragedy. The Great Gatsby believes that money can buy everything, even time. His words to Nick, “Of course I can repeat the past!” are a summary of his naive and dangerous obsession. However, the novel shows us that time flows relentlessly forward and that any attempt to recreate the past will only result in destruction. The famous last sentence of the novel summarizes this theme: “Thus we row against the current, borne relentlessly back into the past.”

Class Differences and the Language of Symbols

Fitzgerald also masterfully handles class differences and the effects of wealth on morality in the novel. There is a deep chasm between the “old rich” (Tom and Daisy) and the “new rich” (Great Gatsby). The Buchanans, with the indifference provided by their wealth and status, destroy everything and everyone around them, and then “hide behind their money or their tremendous indifference” and never face any consequences. Gatsby, no matter how rich he is, is never fully accepted into that class and eventually becomes a victim spent by them.

The novel is full of powerful symbols. The green light on the pier of Daisy’s house, which Gatsby looks at every night from his mansion, symbolizes his unattainable dream, his longing for the past and his hope. The billboard, which is the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg looking out over the Valley of Ashes, is like a God figure who witnesses this world of moral collapse, who judges but does not intervene. The Valley of Ashes, filled with industrial waste between New York and West Egg, where the rich live, represents the spiritual and social decay behind those glittering lives.

We took a tour of the champagne-filled yet melancholic world of “The Great Gatsby.” This book is a timeless masterpiece that shows us that money can’t buy happiness, the dangers of being stuck in the past, and the dark side behind the bright promises of the American Dream. Jay Gatsby’s hopeful yet tragic story of reaching that green light makes us question the nature of our dreams and the true value of the things we pursue.