Spiritual Shallowness in The Great Gatsby :: Great Gatsby Essays

Spiritual Shallowness in The slap-up Gatsby   The American Dream was based on the assumption that each person, no matter what his origins, could succeed in lifetime on the sole basis of his or her own skill and effort. The dream was embody in the ideal of the self-made man.  The Great Gatsby is a novel close what happened to the American dream in the 1920s, a period when the old values that gave mall to the dream had been corrupted by the vulgar prosecution of wealth. Spiritual shallowness is portrayed in The Great Gatsby through the characters pursuit of violence and pleasure, the character groupings and images and the disregarded past.     The characters of The Great Gatsby are Midwesterners who have come east in pursuit of this new dream of money, fame, success, glamour, and excitement. Tom and Daisy must have a huge house, a stable of polo ponies, and friends in Europe. Gatsby must have his enormous mansion in the beginning he can feel confident enoug h to try to win Daisy. The zipper that might have gone into the pursuit of noble goals has been channeled into the pursuit of power and pleasure, and a very showy, but fundamentally empty form of success. Fitzgerald employs clearly define character groupings and various images and symbols in developing the theme. Character groups include Nick, the beholder and commentator, who sees what has gone wrong, Gatsby, who lives the dream purely, and Tom, Daisy, and Jordan, the foul dust who are the prime examples of the corruption of the dream.   The first images and symbols used are, the green light, the eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg, the image of the East and Midwest, Owl Eyes, Dan Codys boat and religious terms such as grail and incarnation.   Both the character groupings and the images and symbols call forth a second major theme that may be referred to as sight and insight. The novel contains many images of blindness, perhaps because hardly anyone seems to see what is rea lly spill on. The characters have little self-knowledge and even less knowledge of each other. especially Gatsby- he lacks the insight to understand what is happening. He never truly sees either Daisy or himself, so blinded is he by his dream. The only characters who see, in the disposition of understand, are Nick and Owl Eyes.Spiritual Shallowness in The Great Gatsby Great Gatsby EssaysSpiritual Shallowness in The Great Gatsby   The American Dream was based on the assumption that each person, no matter what his origins, could succeed in life on the sole basis of his or her own skill and effort. The dream was embodied in the ideal of the self-made man.  The Great Gatsby is a novel about what happened to the American dream in the 1920s, a period when the old values that gave substance to the dream had been corrupted by the vulgar pursuit of wealth. Spiritual shallowness is portrayed in The Great Gatsby through the characters pursuit of power and pleasure, the character groupings and images and the forgotten past.     The characters of The Great Gatsby are Midwesterners who have come east in pursuit of this new dream of money, fame, success, glamour, and excitement. Tom and Daisy must have a huge house, a stable of polo ponies, and friends in Europe. Gatsby must have his enormous mansion before he can feel confident enough to try to win Daisy. The energy that might have gone into the pursuit of noble goals has been channeled into the pursuit of power and pleasure, and a very showy, but fundamentally empty form of success. Fitzgerald employs clearly defined character groupings and various images and symbols in developing the theme. Character groups include Nick, the observer and commentator, who sees what has gone wrong, Gatsby, who lives the dream purely, and Tom, Daisy, and Jordan, the foul dust who are the prime examples of the corruption of the dream.   The primary images and symbols used are, the green light, the eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg, the image of the East and Midwest, Owl Eyes, Dan Codys yacht and religious terms such as grail and incarnation.   Both the character groupings and the images and symbols suggest a second major theme that may be referred to as sight and insight. The novel contains many images of blindness, perhaps because hardly anyone seems to see what is really going on. The characters have little self-knowledge and even less knowledge of each other. Especially Gatsby- he lacks the insight to understand what is happening. He never truly sees either Daisy or himself, so blinded is he by his dream. The only characters who see, in the sense of understand, are Nick and Owl Eyes.