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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