Failure and the Degeneration of America in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby
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which critiques its degeneration from a nation of infinite hope and
opportunity to a place of moral destitution. The novel is set during the
Roaring Twenties, an era of outrageous excesses, wild lavish parties and
sadly, an era of regret and lost potential. As the audience, they take us
on a journey guided and influenced by the moral voice of Nick Carraway, a
character who is "simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the
inexhaustible variety of life." Nevertheless, when Carraway rejects the
East, returning to the comparatively secure morality of his ancestral West,
we realize that gaiety was merely a thin facade, and that behind it…show more content…
All Gatsby wants is to seize the green light in his fingers
but light is intangible, and like Gatsby's dream, it will always remain
beyond his grasp. Gatsby is trapped in a state of timelessness where his
future is an illusory reflection of this past. His unbridled imagination
has created a world in which reality is undefined to itself and thus
through this wilderness of illusions, Gatsby attempts to realize the
possibilities of life. Such was the "colossal vitality" of Gatsby's
illusion that he believed that his social status could recreate the past.
"Why of course you can," was his automatic response. Yet once the "party
was over," reality begins to dominate and tragically, Gatsby falls to his
demise. Gatsby finds himself in a world "material without real" and as he
"looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves... he found what
a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely
created grass." Confronted by reality, Gatsby realizes how disgusting it
really is compared to his world of illusions. Yet while the "whole
caravansary had fallen in like a card house," Fitzgerald questions the
essence of reality and asks us if it is really worth sanctifying. He
demonstrates that given the ugliness of Gatsby's surroundings, his dream
served a purpose, though it led to utter destruction.
Fitzgerald parallels Gatsby's demise with the degeneration
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