The Great Gatsby – Themes (OCR A-Level English Literature): Revision Notes
The Great Gatsby – Themes
Themes are fundamental ideas that authors explore throughout their literary works. In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald examines several interconnected themes that reveal the nature of American society in the 1920s. Understanding these themes is essential for analysing the novel's deeper meanings and Fitzgerald's social commentary.
The American Dream
What is the American Dream?
The American Dream represents a collection of ideals central to American identity. These include the belief that freedom and hard work can lead to upward social mobility for anyone, regardless of their background. In The Great Gatsby, this concept becomes a central focus as characters pursue wealth and status, believing these will bring happiness and fulfilment.
The American Dream traditionally emphasised opportunity, equality, and the possibility of success through effort and determination. However, Fitzgerald explores how this ideal became corrupted in the materialistic culture of the 1920s.
Gatsby's pursuit and its failure
Jay Gatsby embodies the American Dream's promise and its limitations. He dedicates his entire life to accumulating wealth, convinced that money and possessions will allow him to transcend his humble origins and win Daisy's love. Despite achieving immense financial success, Gatsby never gains acceptance from the established upper class.
His tragic failure suggests that the American Dream may be both impossible to achieve and misguided in its aims. The novel questions whether the Dream is genuinely accessible to all Americans or merely an illusion that leads to disappointment and destruction.
The decline of the American Dream in the 1920s
Historical and social context
Whilst The Great Gatsby appears to tell a romantic story of unfulfilled love, Fitzgerald actually crafts a broader meditation on American society during the Jazz Age. Set during the summer of 1922 in Long Island, New York, the novel uses this specific time and place to examine how the American Dream deteriorated during a period of unprecedented wealth.
Fitzgerald depicts the 1920s as an era marked by moral and social decay. The decade's defining characteristics include widespread cynicism, unchecked greed, and an empty pursuit of pleasure. The lavish parties Gatsby throws every Saturday night symbolise this reckless extravagance. This unrestrained desire for money and entertainment ultimately corrupted the American Dream's original, nobler goals.
The impact of World War I
The generation of young Americans who fought in World War I returned home profoundly disillusioned. The horrific violence they experienced in the trenches made pre-war Victorian morality seem outdated and hypocritical. This disillusionment contributed to the cynicism and moral relativism that characterised the 1920s.
Both Nick and Gatsby served in the war, and their experiences shaped their worldview. They exhibit the cosmopolitan outlook and sceptical attitudes that emerged from the conflict.
The post-war generation experienced a fundamental shift in values. The brutality of the Great War shattered their faith in traditional institutions and moral frameworks, leading to the hedonistic and materialistic culture of the Roaring Twenties.
Economic transformation and materialism
Following the war, the stock market's dramatic rise created sudden wealth for many Americans. This economic boom fostered unprecedented materialism, with people spending and consuming at levels never seen before. Social mobility seemed possible for anyone willing to pursue it, but established wealthy families looked down on these newly rich individuals.
The passage of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1919 prohibited alcohol sales, creating a thriving criminal underworld. Bootleggers and speculators grew rich supplying illegal liquor to both wealthy and working-class Americans.
Characters as social symbols
Fitzgerald positions his characters to represent these social trends:
- Nick and Gatsby: Both war veterans embody the post-war generation's cosmopolitanism and cynicism
- Gatsby's party guests: The social climbers and speculators who attend represent the greedy scramble for wealth
- East Egg vs West Egg: This geographical divide symbolises the clash between old money (established aristocracy) and new money (self-made wealthy)
- Meyer Wolfsheim and Gatsby's fortune: Their wealth represents organised crime and bootlegging's rise
The original Dream versus its corruption
According to Nick's reflection in Chapter 9, the American Dream originally centred on discovery, individualism, and pursuing happiness. However, by the 1920s, easy money and relaxed social values had corrupted these ideals, particularly on the East Coast.
The novel's main plot illustrates this corruption through Gatsby's doomed love for Daisy. Their relationship fails because of:
- Their different social classes
- Gatsby's criminal methods of acquiring wealth
- The materialism that defines Daisy's lifestyle
Symbolism and meaning
Fitzgerald emphasises how objects and places only gain meaning when characters invest them with significance. The eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg best demonstrate this idea. Nick believes the ability to create meaningful symbols forms a crucial part of the American Dream—just as early Americans gave their new nation meaning through their ideals and aspirations.
Nick compares America's green landmass rising from the ocean to the green light at Daisy's dock. This parallel suggests both the promise and the corruption of the Dream.
Gatsby gives Daisy an idealised perfection she doesn't possess or deserve, much like 1920s Americans pursued an American Dream corrupted by its focus on money and pleasure rather than higher values. Like Americans fruitlessly seeking a vanished era when their dreams held value, Gatsby tries to recreate his past time with Daisy in Louisville but cannot succeed.
When Gatsby's dream collapses, he can only die. Nick's only option is returning to Minnesota, where American values remain uncorrupted. This geographic retreat symbolises the impossibility of sustaining idealism in the morally bankrupt East.
The hollowness of the upper class
Old money versus new money
One of the novel's major explorations concerns wealth's sociology—specifically, how newly wealthy millionaires of the 1920s differ from and relate to families with long-established fortunes.
West Egg and its residents represent the newly rich. Fitzgerald portrays them as vulgar, showy, and lacking social grace and taste. Gatsby exemplifies this group through:
- His extravagantly ornate mansion
- His pink suit
- His Rolls-Royce
- His inability to recognise subtle social signals (like the Sloanes' insincere lunch invitation)
East Egg and its residents, particularly Tom and Daisy Buchanan, represent old aristocracy. They possess grace, taste, subtlety, and elegance, demonstrated through their tasteful home and the flowing white dresses worn by Daisy and Jordan Baker.
Moral bankruptcy despite refinement
However, what the old aristocracy possesses in taste, it lacks in compassion and morality. The East Egg residents prove themselves to be careless, inconsiderate individuals who use their wealth to avoid consequences and responsibility. They never worry about hurting others because money always eases their difficulties.
The Buchanans demonstrate this moral emptiness at the novel's end by simply moving to a new house rather than attending Gatsby's funeral or facing any consequences for their actions.
Gatsby's moral superiority: Despite his criminal wealth, Gatsby demonstrates genuine loyalty and love. He waits outside Daisy's window until four in the morning in Chapter 7 to ensure Tom doesn't hurt her. Ironically, Gatsby's positive qualities (loyalty and love) lead to his death when he accepts blame for Myrtle's death to protect Daisy. Meanwhile, the Buchanans' negative qualities (selfishness and fickleness) allow them to escape the tragedy both physically and psychologically.
Class
Class influences on relationships
In the wealthy world of The Great Gatsby, class affects every aspect of life, particularly love and marriage. Myrtle Wilson references this when discussing her husband George, whom she mistook for someone with better breeding and prospects. She says she thought he knew something about breeding, but he wasn't fit to lick her shoe.
Similarly, Gatsby's pursuit of Daisy connects directly to class concerns. Only after accumulating substantial wealth does he feel ready to pursue her.
Class determines outcomes
The novel's conclusion demonstrates how class dynamics dictate relationships' survival. The marriages' fates break down along class lines:
- Tom and Daisy's marriage survives: As the most affluent couple, they pull through the events and may even grow closer. When Nick observes them through their window, he notes an unmistakable air of natural intimacy suggesting they're conspiring together.
- George and Myrtle's marriage is destroyed: Their working-class union cannot withstand the pressures.
- Gatsby and Daisy never unite: Despite Gatsby's wealth, class barriers prove insurmountable.
The survival of relationships in the novel directly correlates with wealth and social status. Those with the most privilege endure, whilst those without it are destroyed.
Class privilege and immunity from consequences
Tom and Daisy share a belief that their elite class status makes them immune to consequences. In the final chapter, Nick calls them careless people who smashed up things and let other people clean up the mess they had made. This damning assessment captures how wealth shields them from accountability.
Love and marriage
Loveless unions
The ideals of love and marriage face severe strain in The Great Gatsby. The novel centres on two loveless marriages:
Tom and Daisy Buchanan: Their union appears based on shared class status and desire for material possessions rather than genuine affection. Daisy nearly cancelled the wedding the day before, and Tom began an affair within a year. However, they remain together because they're well-suited through their common background and values.
George and Myrtle Wilson: Myrtle married George because she thought he was a gentleman, hoping he would improve her social position. This marriage represents convenience and aspiration rather than love.
All the marriages in the novel are fundamentally transactional, based on social advancement, material comfort, or idealised fantasy rather than authentic emotional connection.
Gatsby's obsession
Even Gatsby's intense passion for Daisy seems more about possessing something unattainable than authentic love. His feelings appear rooted in idealisation and desire rather than genuine emotional connection.
Nick and Jordan's relationship
Nick dates Jordan Baker throughout the novel, but their relationship remains emotionally distant despite moments of warmth and kindness. Nick later recalls, "I wasn't actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity." This tender curiosity may represent the closest thing to genuine love the entire novel offers.
Exam tips
Writing Effectively About Themes:
- When writing about themes, always support your points with specific quotations and examples from the text
- Consider how themes interconnect—the American Dream relates directly to class and wealth
- Remember the historical context of the 1920s when analysing how Fitzgerald presents these themes
- Think about Fitzgerald's critique—he's not just showing these themes but commenting on them
- Use the East Egg/West Egg symbolism to discuss class divisions
- Consider Nick's role as narrator when discussing how themes are presented
Key Points to Remember:
- The American Dream is presented as both alluring and ultimately corrupt in 1920s America, with Gatsby's failure suggesting it may be unattainable
- Old money versus new money creates a crucial divide, with East Egg representing established aristocracy and West Egg representing the newly wealthy
- Wealth doesn't guarantee morality—the established upper class possesses taste but lacks compassion and responsibility
- Class determines relationships' success, with only the wealthiest couple (Tom and Daisy) surviving the novel's events
- Love and marriage appear hollow throughout the novel, with most relationships based on convenience, materialism, or obsession rather than genuine affection