The Great Gatsby
Prompt #27 · The Great Gatsby
Prompt Type: Theme + Device
Fitzgerald uses metaphor to transform Gatsby's story into a commentary on American culture. Analyze how Fitzgerald's metaphorical language elevates the novel beyond a simple love story to a critique of the American Dream. Explain how it contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole.
Quote 1
“The truth was that Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself. He was a son of God—a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that—and he must be about His Father's business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty. So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen-year-old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end.”
Chapter 6
Argument
This quote uses metaphor ('son of God,' 'Platonic conception') to frame Gatsby's self-invention as a corrupted version of the American Dream, where identity is performative and rooted in materialism rather than divine purpose.
Quote 2
“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic 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 further … And one fine morning—”
Chapter 9
Argument
The green light metaphor encapsulates the elusive nature of the American Dream, with Fitzgerald using visual imagery ('orgiastic future that year by year recedes') to critique its perpetual unattainability despite relentless pursuit.
Quote 3
“And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors' eyes—a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby's house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.”
Chapter 9
Argument
The metaphor of the 'fresh, green breast of the new world' contrasts the purity of the original American Dream with Gatsby's hollow materialism, personifying the land to highlight the degradation of idealism into spectacle.
Quote 4
Chapter 9
Argument
The closing metaphor ('boats against the current') encapsulates the futility of chasing the American Dream, with Fitzgerald using the river's flow to symbolize the inescapable pull of the past and the illusion of progress.