15. The literature between the wars

After a short time, Tom grows increasingly suspicious of his wife’s relationship with Gatsby. At a luncheon at the Buchanans’ house, Gatsby stares at Daisy with such undisguised passion that Tom realizes Gatsby is in love with her. Though Tom is himself involved in an extramarital affair, he is deeply outraged by the thought that his wife could be unfaithful to him. He forces the group to drive into New York City, where he confronts Gatsby in a suite at the Plaza Hotel. Tom asserts that he and Daisy have a history that Gatsby could never understand, and he announces to his wife that Gatsby is a criminal—his fortune comes from bootlegging alcohol and other illegal activities. Daisy realizes that her allegiance is to Tom, and Tom contemptuously sends her back to East Egg with Gatsby, attempting to prove that Gatsby cannot hurt him.

When Nick, Jordan, and Tom drive through the valley of ashes, however, they discover that Gatsby’s car has struck and killed Myrtle, Tom’s lover. They rush back to Long Island, where Nick learns from Gatsby that Daisy was driving the car when it struck Myrtle, but that Gatsby intends to take the blame. The next day, Tom tells Myrtle’s husband, George, that Gatsby was the driver of the car. George, who has leapt to the conclusion that the driver of the car that killed Myrtle must have been her lover, finds Gatsby in the pool at his mansion and shoots him dead. He then fatally shoots himself.

Nick stages a small funeral for Gatsby, ends his relationship with Jordan, and moves back to the Midwest to escape the disgust he feels for the people surrounding Gatsby’s life and for the emptiness and moral decay of life among the wealthy on the East Coast. Nick reflects that just as Gatsby’s dream of Daisy was corrupted by money and dishonesty, the American dream of happiness and individualism has disintegrated into the mere pursuit of wealth. Though Gatsby’s power to transform his dreams into reality is what makes him “great,” Nick reflects that the era of dreaming—both Gatsby’s dream and the American dream—is over.

Themes

• the decline of the american dream in 1920s

• disintegration of the American dream by the 1920s generation (an era of material excess and prosperity)

• declayed moral and social values, cynicism, greed and empty persuit of pleasure

• the misunderstanding of the American dream

• the emptiness of the upper class

• the newly rich of the Jazz age versus the old aristocracy

• in the novel, West Egg represents the newly rich while East Egg represents the old aristocracy

• the differneces in behaviour e. g. Old aristocracy has elegance, taste and grace while the newly rich are a bit vulgar, ostentatious and lacking the grace

Motifs

geography

• East Egg versus West Egg

• The Valley of Ashes versus NY

• the East America versus the West America

weather

• the wheather unfailingly mimic the emotional and narrative tone of the novel

Symbols

the colors

• the green light visible from Gatsby’s house represents hope