The Great Gatsby Essay

Nathaniel Burns-Sarno
Advanced Placement English/ Mr. George
August 1, 2009
The Great Gatsby Essay Topic 1
Pessimistic Principles
Mankind is a generally distrustful race. It is human nature to, when introduced to someone of a mysterious background, assume the worst about them. Such assumptions often build upon themselves, slowly growing from simple distrust to a much more serious hatred. For when presented with a conundrum, people often become frustrated in their inability to figure it out, causing them to respond with anger. Such is the case in the novel The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Nick Carraway, the narrator of the story, often comes into contact with people who believe that his neighbor, Gatsby, had accumulated his great wealth through contemptible means. Although many of them agree on this theory, they rarely agree on exactly what unfavorable activity Gatsby was taking part in. Some believe him to be a bootlegger, while others believe that he is simple living off the inheritance of a dead relative. Whatever their beliefs may be, they all look at Gatsby as if he has done something wrong. Gatsby’s optimistic attitude and extravagance does nothing to ease their views. He goes throughout the novel seemingly proud of the fact that he built himself up to be a wealthy and successful man. He could also be demonized for the fact that the motives for some of his actions are often unclear. For example, he is famous for holding social gatherings, yet those who attend know little to nothing about him. Perhaps they attend in the hopes of solving the mystery that is Gatsby. However, it is more likely that many of them agree to being around Gatsby simply to confirm their own suspicions. No matter where he is, Gatsby is looked upon with pessimistic eyes. Fitzgerald developes the theme of pessimism among Americans in his novel through many characters’ views of Gatsby, showing how the wealthy behave around one another, and expressing the capitalist idea of The American Dream.
As mentioned before, Gatsby seems to be generally disliked throughout the novel. However, it is my belief that the one of the very few(if not the only) reasons that Gatsby is assumed to be underhanded is that he himself never reveals the secret of how he gained his fortune. The fact that Gatsby’s name is often met with disapproval simply cannot have anything to do with the fact that he takes pride in his wealth. For it seems that everyone who criticizes Gatsby has pride in their fortunes, as well. Their suspiciousness could very well have been caused by jealousy. Some may envy Gatsby because his wealth was larger than theirs, while some may envy him because his supposed scandals were never discovered. However, as likely a reason as envy may seem, it cannot be determined for sure. Perhaps the most interesting view of Gatsby comes from the very narrator of the story, Nick Callaway. Nick describes Gatsby as the representation of everything for which he had unaffected scorn. The scorn that Nick has for Gatsby could come from their conflicting personalities, as Nick believes himself to be one of the only honest people in the world, and Gatsby seems to hide everything about himself. Their differences become even greater as the novel progresses. Gatsby keeps his optimistic attitude in situations that called for nothing otherwise, while Nick seems to have left the whole experience with pessimistic views. What is most interesting about Nick’s view of Gatsby is that even though he believes Gatsby to be everything he hates, he still has a great respect for him. An example of this is when Nick removed the vulgar message someone had written on Gatsby’s steps shortly after his death.
The novel has a large assortment of wealthy people who often interact with one another. While these interactions are plentiful, they are rarely diverse. Every conversation about Gatsby seems to follow the same pattern; A person presents someone else’s assumptions of Gatsby, followed by them presenting their own suspicions, and ending with them creating a new assumption to occupy the holes of past assumptions. Also, even when Gatsby is not involved, the conversations never reach the point of being pleasant, and usually end badly, like when Tom broke Myrtle’s nose just because she kept mentioning Daisy. The fact that the wealthy in this novel are unable to communicate in a pleasant fashion shows that they are not truly happy, which usually leads to a pessimistic view of the world. This is an eye-opening thought for Fitzgerald to write about as it shows that you do not have to be in a bad situation to be pessimistic. Indeed, even those who have everything can feel like they have nothing.
The American dream means different things to different people. For some, the American dream is to start a family. For others, it is to be known nationwide for some great accomplishment. While both these views are acceptable by many, they are not shared by everyone. In fact, many believe that the American dream is simply to become so successful that the latter part of life will be an easy ride. This view of the American dream seems to be the accepted one of characters in the novel. The idea is that if you build yourself up, your wealth will be built up, as well. This is surely the case with Gatsby, as his name is easily recognizable, contributing to his wealth by gaining him a lot of business. However, his recognition also gains him a lot of criticism. Gatsby is one of those people who you either love or you hate. The latter seem to be the more apparent view throughout the novel, although Gatsby does receive love from some characters, such as Daisy. There may be a lot of unfavorable ideas of how Gatsby became so rich, but anyway you look at it, he was simply living his own American dream. He was successful and had his own place in the world. Even though many looked at him as if he was a criminal, you can bet that those same people were wishing that they were him.
It seems that no matter how well off you are, you will always be met with disapproving stares. That is just one of the many pessimistic messages conveyed through Fitzgerald’s writing. Fitzgerald does an excellent job of making his characters genuine through having them live their lives by the rules of typical human nature. It makes me wonder what kinds of turns the story would have made had it been viewed through the eyes of those who were not wealthy. The real grabber of this novel is that you can have mixed feelings towards a character, but still not hate them for their actions. What makes the pessimism in this novel so pure is that fact that had anyone been put in Gatsby’s situation, they most likely would have behaved in the same way.