Adam Gatz
The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a mirror of “roaring twenties” during which people questioned the existence of unsullied and fair American dream. To reflect this societal norm, F. Scott Fitzgerald sets the place of the story in the east coast of America. The geography setting resembles the bible: “the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east…” (Genesis 2:8). The first pilgrimage from oppressive Britain landed on east side of America, considering the new land to be “a garden of Eden” in which freedom and happiness are granted. However, the pilgrimage’s initial American dream of freedom and happiness, throughout the history, fades out and transforms into obsession on monetary prosperity. To effectively arouse the reader’s empathy for his despair of American dream, F. Scott Fitzgerald symbolically refers Tom’s revelation of Gatsby’s corrupted dream, Wilson’s committing suicide after getting betrayed by his own dream, and Gatsby’s realization of the true image of Daisy respectively to the fall of mankind due to a serpent, the punishment by the god, and the realization of tragic truth by enlightenment of knowledge.
F. Scott Fitzgerald exemplifies American dream’s corruption by showing the transformation of Jay Gatsby’s innocent dream into materialistic obsession and the collapses of his garden by serpentine Tom. Nick Carraway, the protagonist, appreciates Gatsby’s love toward Daisy as he considered Gatsby’s love to be “alive to me” (78). “alive[ness]” shows that Nick is impressed with the purity of Gatsby’s love; pilgrims, the first people to come to America, initially held pure desire of freedom and happiness. As Nick realizes Gatsby’s obsession of materialism, Nick’s impression on Gatsby’s romanticism changes into his sarcastic description of Gatsby. When Gatsby endlessly boasts of his property, he compares Gatsby to “an overwound clock” (90), which illustrates Gatsby’s fixation on his past. As he felt inferiority over his prosperity in the past, he excessively emphasizes his current materialistic possessions. The extreme emphasis even makes his once pure love seems to be changed as his desire to possess Daisy as if she could be a property. By putting the impurity in Gatsby’s love, F. Scott Fitzgerald underlines that initial American dream of happiness has disintegrated into the pursuit of wealth. Tom Buchannan as a serpent in the Garden of Eden seduces Daisy and reveals the dishonesty of Gatsby’s love. When Tom discloses that Gatsby is a bootlegger and is lying about his background, Nick portrays Tom and Gatsby, “contempt for the babbled slander of his garden—as if he had ‘killed a man’” (134). Tom as a “slander” kills the image of Gatsby, who is Adam, the mankind by shading lights on the corruption of Gatsby’s love. F. Scott Fitzgerald symbolizes depravity of American dream with the fall of mankind. The collapse of Gatsby’s image leads to the collapse of his garden. When Gatsby is worrying of his love, he “began to walk up and down a desolate path of fruit rinds and discarded favors and crushed flowers” (109). As he confuses with his situation between wistful hope with grim reality in his love, his garden embodies his mental instability; vastness of the garden represents the absence of Garden of Eden. Therefore, Tom, serpent reveals corruption of Gatsby’s love, leading to the fall of garden; American dream of freedom is now only a monetary acquisition which might lead to the fall of mankind.
George Wilson becomes the victim of the manipulative American dream that he as Adam challenges the god and ends up in committing suicide. If Gatsby is Adam, Daisy is Eve; George Wilson is more tragic Adam who loses his Eve, Myrtle. Tom Buchannan as a serpent seduces Myrtle describes Wilson “so dumb he doesn’t know he’s alive” (26). The readers realize Wilson to be “dumb” as his wife is taken by Tom. F. Scott Fitzgerald expands their ignoring Wilson to their realizing that they are actually “dumb”. Just like Wilson getting betrayed by his own wife, the readers who believe in American dream to be egalitarian are getting betrayed by their own dreams. While the dreamers believe their dreams to be achieved one day as they are working hard, their happiness will be taken by any serpent who takes advantage of the system. F. Scott Fitzgerald parallels Adam and Wilson that the serpent not only deceives Eve and Myrtle but also tempts Adam and Wilson to challenge against the god by desiring to be deified: serpent in the bible says, “when you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5). Adam’s desire to be deified resembles Wilson’s considering himself to be omnipotent. When Myrtle gets killed, Wilson interprets the advertisement to be God granting Wilson the divine power: “’God sees everything,’ repeated Wilson. ‘That’s an advertisement,’” (160). Wilson’s belief is the delusion of grandeur which seems heretical. His unorthodox view is challenging the exclusiveness of the god’s power. In the end, just like the way the god punishes Adam with subjection to injury, death, and working, Wilson is punished with suicidal death: “the gardener saw Wilson’s body a little way off in the grass, and the holocaust was complete” (162). As Wilson considers himself to be the god who knows the truth of Myrtle’s death, committing suicide for him is getting punishment from the god. Thus, George Wilson is a prototype of a victim who falls in the trap of the serpent which leads him to lose his dream and life.
Ultimately proving the absence of American dream, Gatsby, having loved Daisy in his fantasy world, realizes the tragic true image of Daisy just like Adam becomes aware of evilness through the enlightenment of knowledge. F. Scott Fitzgerald implies the progression of the story through the change of the fruit: “There’s something very sensuous about it—overripe, as if all sorts of funny fruits were going to fall into your hands” (125). “[O]verripe” of fruit foreshadows the tragic revelation of the object of Gatsby’s love. As Adam perceived nakedness and evilness by eating fruits of knowledge, Gatsby, by eating “funny fruits”, learns knowledge of truth that he loves not Daisy in the real world but Daisy in his fantasy world. He recognizes the truth when he in his garden kisses Daisy: “At his lips’ touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete” (111). The intriguing image of Daisy in his mind fades away as “the incarnation [of his love] was complete. The completion implies the meaning of conclusion. His achieving Daisy in reality represents the ending of his love. F. Scott Fitzgerald suggests this fading love with the change of the weather: “there was an autumn flavor in the air" (153). That every plants die in “autumn” implies the fall of the earth. F. Scott Fitzgerald uses this nuance of fall to suggest the fall of mankind due to the realization of knowledge. The fall of mankind parallels with the fall of Gatsby’s love in reality. Eventually, Gatsby fails to achieve his dream: “It was after we started with Gatsby toward house…” (162). F. Scott Fitzgerald shows that Gatsby failed in achieving his dream which is love of Daisy. His faded dream represents failures of American dream. As Gatsby died, American dream is unachievable; therefore, F. Scott Fitzgerald, by showing Gatsby realizing his dream which is love to be unreal, suggests the absence of American dream in the roaring twenties.
F. Scott Fitzgerald criticizes the corrupted, manipulative, and absent American dream of roaring twenties by comparing Gatsby and Wilson with Adam in the Garden of Eden. By juxtaposing the different forms representing Adam, F. Scott Fitzgerald is showing types of people living in unreal American dream: people obsessed with money and people who are owned by their own dreams.
