Emendata

“The Great Gatsby” is considered to be one of the most influential novels in the history of the American literature and it has hundreds of thousands of copies sold annually.

No wonder Fitzgerald’s masterpiece stands out amount others, his exquisite poetical writing style and his engrossing analysis of the Roaring Twenties captivate readers all around the world.

Through Nick Carraway’s memories and observations we get to know a series of characters with which Fitzgerald scrutinize the society of his time: an analysis on class, social and economic change, roles of gender, and especially on the decay of the American dream, depicted symbolically in the figure of Gatsby.

Even though Nick does not approve him completely, he finds in Gatsby a life-affirming unmatched greatness which makes him different from the rest.

The aim of this essay is to debate whether Gatsby is truly “great”, and if he is, then in which way; as well as to explore Gatsby as a symbol of the possible meaninglessness of the American dream.

So as to understand Gatsby, we should firstly understand the nature of Nick as a narrator; as we move on reading, we see that Nick is not the most reliable narrator ever, since he is quite judgmental, biased and contradictory.

He consider himself to be morally superior, for he has a background that have supposedly provided him with “the fundamental decencies” that normal people lack.

However, it is obvious that “to reserve all judgements” is not one of those “decencies”, since by the end of the novel he has criticized everyone;