great gatsby
...ugh the opportunities and help from Dan Cody have to been acknowledged. His determination to strive towards his ideal can be mirrored in his changing his name from James Gatz to Jay Gatsby, which best fits him into a new, more dignified social class. His mental rejection of his legitimate parents as his parents is accompanied by his emulation of the father-like figure, Dan Cody. Above all, Gatsby is so diligent and industrious a young man that he deserves all his accomplishments. He is hardworking and resolved, as shown by his schedule and his general guidelines for life: Gatsby's Schedule (P.164) Rise from bed 6.00 AM Dumbbell exercise & wall-scaling 6.15 – 6.30 AM Study electricity, etc 7.15 – 8.15 AM Work 8.30 AM – 4.30 PM Baseball & sports 4.30 – 5.00 PM Practise elocution, poise & how to attain it 5.00 – 6.00 PM Study needed inventions 7.00 – 9.00 PM Gatsby's General Resolves (P.164) No wasting time… Read one improving book or magazine per week. Save $ 5.00 $ 3.00 per week. Having made enough money, he begins to implement his plans, step by step, to buy Daisy’s love. Firstly, he buys an expensive mansion at West Egg, proximate to Daisy’s at East Egg so that he can always glaze at "the green light that burns all night at the end of your [Daisy’s] dock" (P.90). Actually, he also buys a luxurious "yellow car", a deluxe yacht, many ornate clothes and stacks of bona fide books, not only to show off his wealth and social and educational status, but also to impress Daisy. Gatsby is so proud of his great attire that when Daisy visits his lavish mansion: He took out a pile of shirts and began throwing them, one by one, before us, shirts of sheer linen and thick silk and fine flannel… While we admired he brought more and the soft rich heap mounted higher – shirts with stripes and scrolls and plaids in coral and apple-green and lavender and faint orange, with monograms of indian blue. (P.89). Effectively, Daisy is so dazzled by his opulent mansion and in particular his rich apparel that she bends her head into the shirts and exclaims marvelously: "They’re such beautiful shirts!" (P.89). Moreover, he throws numerous extravagant parties in the hope that Daisy will turn out in one of them. Assuming that he can buy Daisy’s love by exhibiting his wealth, Gatsby becomes committed into doing these all. However, money is not God. Nor is it a salvation for mankind. Therefore, Gatsby’ deliberate deeds are doomed to be in vain. Indeed, there is a hint foreshadowing the futility of Gatsby’s desire for Daisy. Early in the novel, when Jordan is talking about Gatsby, Daisy demands, "Gatsby? What Gatsby?" (P.16), inferring that Gatsby no longer occupies an important position in Daisy’s heart, and is bound to be fruitless of his hopefulness about Daisy. The loss of Daisy by Gatsby has been taken for granted to be perceived as the equivalence to the failure of his dream for his predominant impetus to success is Daisy. This is not wrong; but a deeper analysis will yield a better, more thorough perception. In the first place, it can be argued that after Gatsby has set a course of action for realizing his dream early in his life, he fails to mature beyond that point, so much so that: His dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him… And Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. (P.171). Besides, he also fails to achieve the status he has been searching for. He throws extravagant parties aiming at spreading his wealth and increasing his social reputation, but cannot achieve the intended effects. People coming to his parties uninvited often fail to meet him. No one actually knows who Gatsby is and what he did. They just harbor the suspicions that "he killed a man once" and he is a bootlegger. That’s all. And their feelings are rather negative and injurious. Not even Tom shows respect for him. In Tom’s eyes, Gatsby is his social inferior. He was born rich and always belongs to the rich and the highly reputable. Gatsby, however, has just happened to be rich and is always below him in the social hierarchy. He is incredulous and contemptuous of Gatsby’s educational attainment. When somebody tells him that Gatsby was an Oxford man, he is outright disdainful and opprobrious of Gatsby, insofar as he makes such abusive remarks: "An Oxford man! Like hell he is!" (P.116). "Oxford, New Mexico, or something like that." (P.116). Later, when he suffers unfavorably in the wrangle with Gatsby over Daisy’s affection, he discloses from where Gatsby attains his state of wealth, rather despicably: "Who are you, anyhow? You’re one of that bunch that hangs around with Meyer Wolfshiem… I found out what your ‘drug-stores’ were. He and this Wolfshiem bought up a lot of side-street drug-stores here and sold grain alcohol over the counter. That’s one of his little stunts. I picked him for a bootlegger the first time I saw him, and I wasn’t far wrong." (P.127). Indeed, Gatsby makes a fortune in illegal dealings with Meyer Wolfshiem, to which we will come back later in the essay. These sorts of social discrimination and divisions among classes, which are contradictory to the principles of the American Dream, really abound in American society at that time. And this accounts to the failure of the American Dream at large. A second culprit to the failure of the American Dream is the moral decadence of people in general. In essence, spiritual improvements are concomitant with material improvements. They are mutually complementary. However, with the material part too easily achieved (perhaps thanks to the emergence of a new concept called ‘easy money’ – the selling of bonds, insurance, automobiles, etc.), people begin to lose their spiritual purpose as material achievements blindfold people’s spiritual aspirations. As a consequence, the society shows a decline in spiritual life of its inhabitants, and their lives become lacking in meaning and ideal. And this is often identified as the ‘Jazz Age’, during which the overwhelming atmosphere of careless gaiety and wild celebration is prevalent. This becomes almost evident when Gatsby throws an enormous number of lavish parties where its wild extravagance and the shallowness and aimlessness of the guests are by no means implicit: Five crates of oranges and lemons every party… every Monday these same oranges and lemons left his back door in a pyramid of pulpless halves. (P.41) There was dancing now on the canvas in the garden; old men pushing young girls backward in eternal graceless circles, superior couples holding each other tortuously, fashionably, and keeping in the corners – and a great number of single girls dancing individualistically or relieving the orchestra for a moment of the burden of the...