Dust In The Great Gatsby Term paper

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Dust in The Great Gatsby

In the novel The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald incorporates many

different themes, but the most prevalent message is that of the impossibility of

the American Dream. Fitzgerald writes of two types of people: those who appear

to have the ideal life and those who are still trying to achieve their dreams.

Tom and Daisy are two characters who seem to have it all: a nice house, a loving

spouse, a beautiful child, and plenty of money (Fitzgerald 6; ch. 1). However,

neither of them is happy, and both end up having affairs. Their lovers, Gatsby

and Mrs. Wilson, are two examples of characters who are still trying to attain

the perfect life. By the end of the novel, the hopes of both Gatsby and Mrs.

Wilson have been dashed and they have passed away. While discussing the lost

dreams of these two people, the image of dust is used several times. In The

Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald used dust to symbolize the destruction of the dreams of

the common man.

For instance, Mrs. Wilson was an ordinary woman who had high hopes for

creating a new and better life. She couldn't wait to escape her life as the wife

of a poor car repairman (35; ch. 2). Her husband had settled for this life, but

Myrtle still hoped for better things. "A white ashen dust veiled his [Mr.

Wilson] dark suit and his pale hair as it veiled everything in the vicinity -

except his wife, who moved close to Tom" (26; ch. 2). Fitzgerald uses dust

to emphasize that Mr. Wilson had no dreams, and that Mrs. Wilson still had

aspirations of living the perfect life. Myrtle's dreams are destroyed along with

her life when she was hit by Tom's car, and Fitzgerald uses dust in her death

scene to symbolize what she had lost. "The other car, the one going toward

New York, came to a rest a hundred yards beyond, and its driver hurried back to

where Myrtle Wilson, her life violently extinguished, knelt in the road and

mingled her dark thick blood with the dust" (138; ch. 7). Dust is again

used, this time to insinuate the lost dreams of a common woman.

Fitzgerald also uses this symbol when he writes of Gatsby's vanquished hopes.

Gatsby was a man who had fulfilled most of his dreams. He had a large house,

lots of money, and he mingled with the rich and famous, but he still had one

thing that he...

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