Fitzgerald critiques society through his use of language and literary devices essay
F Scott Fitzgerald expresses his critical opinion of 1920’s American society through a diverse range of literary devices which he incorporates into the text of the Great Gatsby. In this highly acclaimed piece of social commentary, symbols are frequently mentioned to provide insight into the disturbing reality of the 1920s social food chain, such as the omniscient and overlooking eyes of Dr T. J. Ecklebery, the corruption of the colour white that can be associated with Daisy’s true nature, and the luminescent green light that Gatsby finds himself unconditionally mesmerized by. Fitzgerald carefully sets up the narrative to meticulously weave these symbols seamlessly into the language so that they all critique the overlying idea of the American dream, that everyone, regardless of race, social status, gender, upbringing, religion or economic status can achieve success, wealth and power if they strive hard enough and expose its responsibility for the downfall of society. Through the implication of these symbols, Fitzgerald communicates influential messages about the illusionism and corruption running through society, how they cannot exist without one another and the idea that corruption is the underlying layer of false pretence.
Perhaps Fitzgerald’s most influential and developed symbol in the novel is the green light, a permanently lit electric light on the edge of East Egg that marks the end of the Buchanan’s boat dock. It serves as a way to warn boats at night or during adverse weather that there is land beyond; this is why it is always lit. Because Gatsby’s mansion is positioned directly across the bay from the Buchanan’s mansion, he can always see the light. The novel is methodically colour-coded, and this carefully placed light serves a deeper purpose, it is the representation of the American Dream; for Gatsby, Daisy is his dream, he longs for her as fiercely as those who long for the dream of a better life. The image of the green light first appears in Chapter 1, when Nick returns home from dinner with the Buchanans and spots his neighbour, Gatsby out on the front lawn ” He stretched out his arms towards the dark water in a curious way…I could have sworn he was trembling…distinguishing nothing except a single green light”. Gatsby’s trembling symbolises his longing for the green light, to achieve the American Dream. In the beginning, the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock signifies Gatsby’s hopes, dreams and desire to recapitulate his love with Daisy from five years prior. The position of the light is no coincidence and methodically placed at the end of Daisy’s dock to instate a positive meaning, that Daisy is a beacon of hope pulling Gatsby out of the dark and steering him in the right direction. However, this once positive meaning is later contradicted in chapter 5 when Fitzgerald reveals that this dream is the ramification of a delusional conviction, the effect of Gatsby being disconnected from reality; “Possibly it had occurred to him that the colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever…Now it was again a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one.” The light is now presented in an entirely different form, it has now lost the “colossal significance” and alluring aura that Gatsby once saw in it, now it appears to be just a green light at the end of Daisy’s dock, with a collapsed symbolic meaning. Daisy is no longer the magical and enchanting being that was presented in Chapter 1, but rather a deeply flawed and grotesque person, Gatsby’s dream is now presented as a corrupt illusion created by himself to ignore five years of events and Daisy’s own personality. Because Gatsby is now standing beside and touching Daisy himself, he feels no need to “stretch out his arms towards the dark water” or worry that it is shrouded in mist, the light is now tangible and no longer has the mysterious and alluring qualities that it once possessed. Gatsby still remains, however, hopeful to achieve this dream until chapter 7, when Daisy “came to the window and stood there for a minute and then turned out the light”. When Gatsby reveals to Nick that Daisy “turned out the light” the previous night when he was waiting for her, unwilling to accept defeat. The implication of “stood there for a minute” shows suggestibility of a moment of pause in Daisy’s judgement before she turned off the light and made a definite decision. The use of “waited” presumes Gatsby’s unwillingness to accept that he has lost Daisy to the grotesque upper class, while the turning out of the light signifies the extinguishing of Gatsby’s dream. It becomes apparent at this moment that Gatsby will never be able to fulfil his American Dream of marrying Daisy and recapturing their lost love from five years prior, however, this is a realization that Gatsby never makes as he continues to dream on in vain. In Nick’s final monologue, the green light ends up signifying the “orgastic future that recedes before us”. Gatsby’s dream, once the desperation to recapture his love with Daisy, has taken on a universal quality and ends up standing for the always unreachable American Dream that lives inside all people. “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter…tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther…So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” Fitzgerald concludes the novel with this excerpt from the text, in order to express how Gatsby will use any means necessary to repeat the past, to achieve that “orgastic future” of recapitulating his love with Daisy. The focal point of Fitzgerald’s critique is the struggles felt by human beings to achieve their goals and aspirations by both transcending and recreating the past. Yet humans are mentally unable to move beyond the past thus “boats against the current”, the current of reality draws them back as they constantly row forwards towards the green light or the American Dream. Nobody can escape the current of reality that draws them “back ceaselessly into the past” therefore making the American Dream an untouchable feat which is impossible to achieve. While humans never lose their undeterred optimism and forever remain hopeful towards success hence“tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther” they expend all of their energy in pursuit of an unattainable goal that moves even further away as they try to get closer. The past functions as a source of their ideas about the future, and they cannot escape this mindset as they continue to struggle to transform their dreams into a reality. This applies to all of humanity as we are unable to base our ideas about the future on anything other than past experiences. This metaphor exposes the true reality of human nature and the American dream that is struggled to grasp by them. The green light characterizes both Gatsby’s struggle and the American dream itself while expressing the idea that the peak of perfection or the ideal future that we all want to achieve is merely a dream and unobtainable due to the universal mindset shared by all of humanity.
In The Great Gatsby, the exposure of the American Dream’s corruption is depicted through the eyes of Dr, T. J Eckleburg situated in the Valley of Ashes, an objective correlation to the indecency and emptiness the characterizes an age in which the people of American society subjected their life to the tumultuous pursuit of wealth. In the middle of Queens, along the road that connects West Egg to Manhattan, stands a billboard, dirtied with paint that has faded from being weathered, upon which situates the eyes of Dr T. J Eckleburg, a 1920’s optometrist advertising himself as the “oculist”. The image of Eckleberg is a pair of giant disembodied blue eyes, each iris being a yard in diameter, that “look out of no face but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose…dimmed a little by many paintless days under sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping ground… under Doctor Eckleburg’s persistent stare.” The condition of the billboard, weathered with age and sooty from the conditions around it, suggests that Dr Eckleburg is no longer practising in the Valley of Ashes and the advertisement is long since out of date. However, his omniscient eyes watch over the people and events that happen there, thus the personification used by Fitzgerald to give human qualities to the billboard when he suggests that Tom exchanged “a frown with Doctor Eckleburg”. Although the eyes are part of an abandoned advertisement, they are given unknowable power and emotions. Without simply existing in reality as an advertisement, they appear to “persistently stare” and “look out” at the landscape beyond, implying that the miserable environment that encapsulates the Valley of Ashes causes them to “brood” over the state of society. Literary Critics have through extensive analysis, interpreted the eyes as a symbol of moral authority because of their watchful gaze being focused on the site where the novels biggest moral failures occur, and are placed near the “ash heaps” of Queens, which represent what happens to those who cannot succeed in this selfish, ambitious and predatorial world. The billboard, although a completely inanimate object is the closest representation that the characters get to an overlooking figure or higher power as none of them have access to a religion of any sort. Although it cannot interfere with the characters lives, many of whom shudder beneath its gaze or line of sight; Tom frowns when he feels himself being watched however does not change the course of his actions, Wilson desperately tries to get Myrtle to cower beneath the gaze of this God-like presence, but she remains undeterred. Even Wilson himself feels as though the billboard is a kind of restraint on the inner turmoil that he experiences mentally, although Michaelis easily persuades him that it’s just “an advertisement.” Fitzgerald pays special attention to the facial features of characters especially considering Gatsby so it is no surprise that the eyes hold significant meaning. The second appearance of the eyes is in chapter 7 when Tom, Nick and Jordan are stopping at Wilson’s garage on the way to Manhattan. “We were all irritable now with the fading ale and, aware of it, we drove for a while in silence. Then as Doctor T. J. Eckleburg’s faded eyes came into sight down the road, I remembered Gatsby’s caution about gasoline….I turned my head as though I had been warned of something behind. Over the ashheaps, the giant eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg kept their vigil but I perceived, after a moment, that other eyes were regarding us with peculiar intensity from less than twenty feet away.” Here the eyes not only serve as the novels higher power but additionally a warning of what’s to come, essentially a foreshadowment of the future. Nick initially thinks that the problem at hand is a lack of gas when the reality of the situation at Wilson’s garage is that George has discovered Myrtle’s affair with Tom. The implication of the word “vigil” suggests that Dr Eckleburg is staying awake to keep watch over a stressful or significant time in characters lives, which is where the aforementioned foreshadowment comes into context. Later in the narrative, after the sudden death of his elusive wife, which unsurprisingly turns out to be the event foreshadowed by Dr Eckleburg’s warning, Wilson perceives the billboard as the overlooking eyes of God “brood on over the solemn dumping ground” of materialism, selfishness and the moral decay of the people that reside there. George Wilson, finally unhinged and distraught, is left vulnerable to the dark impulses swarming within his mind and fully entranced in the idea of the eyes being a higher power “God knows what you’ve been doing, everything you’ve been doing. “You may fool me but you can’t fool God.” It appears as if Wilson, himself wants God or at least a higher power to act as a moral compass in his life, guiding him in the right direction away from this wasteland where morals turn to ash. After being exploited and taken advantage of for the entirety of his life, Wilson sees these “eyes” as a source of hope, a higher power that will end his suffering in the way that God is supposed to, but when put into context the billboard is simply a fake representation of a deeper idea. Society will look towards anything in life for the hope of a better life, humans will externalize anything and create an overseeing presence out of nothing in order to guide them through the path of life when merely it is the figment of their own imagination. The overlooking eyes of Dr T. J Eckleburg not only expose the grotesque, decaying reality beneath the glamour of New York and the American Dream, with its false promises and unattainability but additionally how exploitation by the upper class in this aggressive pursuit of wealth can only end in hopelessness and defeat for the poor. Because the American Dream has been built on the rewards of materialism and indulgence, individuals in the lower class eventually reach a stage of desperation to achieve this “dream”, which Fitzgerald ultimately judges through the eyes of TJ Eckleburg.
The colour white is often unanimously affiliated with themes such as innocence, purity, wealth and virginity, however, Fitzgerald’s representation of white communicates a more profound message of corrupted purity. The upper-class society of East Egg belonging to Old Money can often be affiliated with the colour white as their “palaces” that glitter along the water evoke connotations regarding royalty and being purely bred, which they, in a sort have been through being given the American Dream at birth. “The white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water.” Although the people of the upper class hold no royal titles they are the American equivalent to the aristocracy of European monarchies. Through being born into the upper class of society and having been given American Dream at birth, characters such as Daisy Buchanan are presented as “high in a white palace” or “the king’s daughter” and therefore their “white” lifestyle is looked up to by the lower class. Eventually, a state of desperation for this lifestyle reaches the minds of the working class, who have been in constant pursuit of the American Dream since the day they were born, however, they will never reach a stage of white hierarchy and will eternally be in the “ash” coloured lifestyle that they were born into. Most dominantly, Daisy Buchanan is used at the novel’s epitome of the colour white, and we are often persuaded that her character which appears to be innocent and pure from the surface is the perfect American Dream for Gatsby to pursue. Daisy’s “beautiful white girlhood” is an objective association to the American Dream’s corruption, as a young girl she was given the American Dream at birth, therefore corrupting its values of success through hard work. The “white” innocence of her childhood is short-lived and once exposed to Old Money society her girlhood characterized by the colour white was corrupted like that of the American Dream. Before Daisy’s marriage to Tom and initiation into society, her car was a “little white roadster”, dresses were white and she had a “white girlhood” filled with purity and innocence. Her marriage to Tom and his indecent endeavours have tarnished this pure and innocent mindset that she once possessed transforming her into the corrupt human being that killed Myrtle Wilson out of spite. Daisy Buchanan and even characters such as Jordan use the technique of presenting of false image or pretence through the colour white in order to appear more innocent than they truly are “Jordan’s fingers, powdered white over their tan, rested for a minute in mine.” Jordan’s tan skin, most likely due to being outside as a golfer, can be considered a symbol for corruption as she tries to hide her true self or “skin” for that matter beneath a layer of white powder or the false pretence that it may stand for. Through having Jordan wear white powder on her fingers, Fitzgerald is illustrating the facade that she has created in order to mask her corruption, which when put into context is her tendency to cheat in golf competitions. Daisy, like Jordan often wears white to appear like the innocent and naive perfection that she is not, and just like the American Dream, these two illustrious women are corrupt beneath the surface. The white clothing and material possessions are merely an illusion for what resides beneath, a direct correlation to the American Dream in the way that it’s promise for Americans is corrupt and unattainable for all. Just like her name, a daisy has white petals that protect the yellow centre from exposure to the outside environment in the same way that Jordan’s powdered fingers and Daisy’s white dresses do. The petals which appear white and majestic portray an illusion of innocence, wealth and purity, however, once looked at from a different angle, what was innocent and pure is now the epitome of corruption. Beneath the illusion of beauty resides a golden centre, the representation of wealth and prosperity, which corrupts the white flower just as it has corrupted Daisy, a direct correlation to the corruption of Daisy’s “white girlhood”. Daisy was once virtuous at the time when she first met Gatsby, but her introduction into society and marriage to Tom Buchanan corrupted this girlish innocence that she once possessed through means of wealth and materialism. Daisy’s association to the colour white shifts once she brings on death to the novel, her true colours are revealed, and she is now depicted as a greedy, corrupt and selfish human being who does not care about the feelings of those around her. Fitzgerald’s critique of the colour white not only exposes the ironic theme of illusion versus reality embedded deep within the characters of the novel, but additionally reveals the truth of what resides beneath the image of the American Dream. Those in pursuit of the American Dream can never be satisfied, because the dream always entails striving for more than what we already have. Gatsby embodies this in the decadent facade of wealth that he has accumulated and also in his pursuit of Daisy, his American Dream. The peak of perfection, the orgastic future desperately pursued by society is merely an illusion in the same way that Daisy’s false pretence of innocence and purity is conveyed through the colour white. Beneath the wealth and luxury possessed by the upper class resides corruption. The innocence and purity believed to be held by American Dream has long since been corrupted by Old Money society in the same way that Daisy’s “white girlhood” was corrupted, the white innocence and virginity of the dream is simply a false pretence used to conceal the vulgarity and bitter truth of life that not everyone can be successful through dedication and conscientious efforts.
Corruption through the white card
In conclusion, Fitzgerald is stating that those who pursue the American Dream can never be satisfied because the American Dream entails always striving for something more than what we already have. Gatsby embodies this in the decadent wealth that he is always accumulating, and also in his pursuit of Daisy. Trying to achieve the American dream is like trying to find the end of the rainbow like a rainbow is merely an illusion of light, the dream is one of the mind. Because green is the colour that we first see, we will always look towards the best possible option in life without thinking about the reality, just like Gatsby looks towards the green light and towards Gatsby. Through the use of these literary devices, Fitzgerald not only exposes the horrific consequences of America’s poisonous and addictive obsession with attaining wealth and prosperity but additionally critique and comment on the idea that corruption and illusion are the underlying layers of the 1920’s American upper-class Society.
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