The Great Gatsby

How far a person will go to accomplish a dream has no limits. If it includes self-reinvention, illegal acts, and self-indulgence the dream may not be as a result significant. But that is the case, in The Great Gatsby, by F Scott Fitzgerald, as the narrator Nick tells the accomplishments and wasted acts of the man known as Gatsby. Nick chooses to tell us this story to illustrate the consequences of Gatsby a man who he in the end has a positive opinion of and respects for his courage at attempting to fulfill a futile dream.

Nick, the narrator, tells Gatsby's story to paint a picture of an American Dream and how it becomes so crucial to accomplish a certain part of the dream that one becomes careless; which leads into other outside ambitions that alter the dream and which is therefore never accomplished. Nick summarizes this by saying "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past" (189). This quote is most significant because it sums up the book and how it can be applied to Gatsby's life and the life of numerous others. It says "we" are like boats beating against the current meaning that people struggle to prosper for a dream but never truly achieve happiness. Although people to some extent do prosper they desire more and more that ultimately forget, dim or glorify the purpose of the dream and that leads t them into never attaining happiness. Gatsby's life is an example of all of this because he reached high for Daisy's love but in the end did not receive it because he was rather immoral in his journey in doing so. The end of Gatsby's story is full of sad events and the reader must read between the lines. The reader must come to understand that Nick tells us Gatsby's story as an example of what not to do, so that somehow readers can learn from the mistakes others commit and their own so that humanity can live more of a complete life.

From the beginning Nick tells us how he controversially feels about Gatsby. Nick says "Gatsby who represented everything for which I have and unaffected scorn" (6) later goes on and says "Gatsby turned out all right at the end" (6). It is difficult for the reader to come to a conclusion as to what Nick's opinion of Gatsby is. But it can be interpreted, that he feels differently about some aspects of Gatsby. Such as that he admires him for attempting to a great extent to make his dream come true. Gatsby