为什么盖茨比不伟大.doc

Why Gatsby Is Not Great
David Liu
The character Jay Gatsby in Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby is always under dispute: is this bootlegger Gatsby really a great man? The story takes place in 1920s, New York in which hedonism has become a prevailing trend for the nation’s wealthy. The novel depicts how the nouveau riche Gatsby, pursues and dies for his love. It seems that he is a great man when looking at his dream and love. However, Gatsby, the boy from North Dakota, fails to change himself interiorly. The reinvention, ranges from its motive, its effect, is distorted and leaves him far away from being great.
Admittedly, Gatsby’s experience is admirable at some extent. Not everybody dares to leave his hometown without waving farewell to his parents; also not everybody can reshape his characteristic at 17 and decide to be a better man; again not everybody can chase after his dream as adamantly as him. But behind all his seemingly great demeanors, his power actually derives from his bias. When his father says “he [Gatsby] comes out to see me two years ago” (Fitzgerald, 184), it is implied that Gatsby has only visited his hometown once after leaving there. Since then it is obvious that Gatsby abominates, despises and discriminates the life at his hometown. He rejects his fate as a farmer and declares his superiority by saying he is the “son of God” (Fitzgerald, 105). He wants greatness, wealth, love and everything gorgeous in his life and what Daisy says “You [Gatsby] want too much” (Fitzgerald, 141) is pretty accurate. So in order to justify his unlimited dreams as his destiny, this Gatsby avoids his “humiliating” North Dakota. This is avoids people from doubting his dream as well. This is why his reinvention is not so great.
He hasn’t changed in to a smart man as well. Gatsby is scared and unconfident about the challenges from love. He causes great embarrassment when has his date with Daisy and Nick comments “You’re acting like a little boy”. In the crisis of the book, Tom insults him toward Daisy and soon that “unfamiliar yet recognizable look was back again in Gatsby’s face” These details show that Gatsby still becomes motionless and perplexed when something unexpected occurs. But now since he is not the poor boy, it shouldn’t be that tough as before to chat with a rich girl or compete for love against another millionaire. Anyway, He always seems to be unconfident, discomposed and distraught toward the people of the upper class. In fact, toward the Old Money, Gatsby still abases himself as the farmer’s son, not the God’s one. He does not really believe he is equal to the Old Money though he always pretends so. After so many years of struggle and change, the elements of North Dakota remain in his heart.
Even when everyone thinks Gatsby is opulent and flashy, his social contact remains the same. When a lady invites him to an East Egg party, Tom says, “She has a big dinner party and he won't know a soul there.” So Gatsby fails to enter the upper class society. Also in the crowd he gathers from the middle class, he fails to fit in and create real friendship. For instance when his car gets stuck, nobody really helps him to solve that matter. Gatsby’s life sounds even more wretched and tragic at his funeral. Nobody except three guys are present and the love of his life, Daisy, “hadn’t sent a message or a flower” (Fitzgerald, 186). Perhaps this kind of isolation is even rare in the thinly populated North Dakota, where people don’t have as much acquaintance as city dwellers.
Gatsby achieves his social mobility not only because he is talented. When Nick arrives at Wolfshiem’s office, the women blocks him and says “You young men think you can force your way in here any time?”. But Gatsby is in similar condition when he asks for a job. Wolfshiem says “when he told me he was an Oggsford I knew I could use him good”. But Gatsby is not a real Oxford man. However, this school endows him an opportunity though he may not be more outstanding than ordinary young men. He gets all his wealth today because he is fortunate to have a chance years ago. Therefore, this North Dakota boy realizes his dream because of luck and we cannot say his success attributes to greatness.
Generally speaking, Gatsby is not great even after his reinvention, which has an improper goal and nurtures potential remnants in his new character. It is that careless and stratified society that compels Gatsby to become somebody else yet he is still excluded from the real upper class. Perhaps this is what Fitzgerald intends to say: even when you are fortunate to be opulent, you can never get in that upper class party because your humiliating and inextricable root of past, blocks you from real social mobility. Using Gatsby, the book criticizes the discrimination of the aristocracy and remoteness of American dream for ordinary people.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1】Anonymous. In My Opinion Gatsby Is Not A Heroic Character
Docin Dec 15, 2011: Jan 1, 2017
2】Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby
Tianjin: Tianjin Press of People, 2014. Print
3】Gam, Karielle Stephanie. A Great American Character Analysis: Is Gatsby Indeed Great? Huffingtanpost Aug 12, 2103: Jan 2, 2017