Janae’s Blog

“A wafer of a moon was shining over Gatsby’s house, making the night fine as before, and surviving the laughter and the sound of his still glowing garden. A sudden emptiness seemed to flow now from the windows and the great doors, endowing with complete isolation the figure of the host, who stood on the porch, his hand up in a formal gesture of farewell.” (60)

Gatsby’s house stands for what his dream is – wealth, power, social standing. His elaborate parties fill the house with the appearance of having it all, but after everyone goes home, it becoems empty and shell like, very much a metaphor for Gatsby himself. Gatsby appears to have the American Dream, but at what cost?

Fitxgerald begins to develop and further the complexity of the American Dream.

“Jordan Baker instinctively avoided clever, shrewd men, and now I saw that this was because she felt safer on a plane where any divergence from a code would be thought impossible. She was incurably dishonest. She wasn’t able to endure being at a disadvantage and, given this unwillingness, I suppose she had begun dealing in subterfuges when she was very young in order to keep that cool, insolent smile turned to the world and yet satisfy the demands of her hard, jaunty body.”  (63)

Jordan is really nothing more than a clever and deceptive woman, used to getting her way, but only with men who can’t see through her façade. She becomes a more solid and realatable characte for people, because she actually isn’t that perfeect sweet woman. Fitzgerald’s goal was to write the Great American Novel, and by creating characters that are complex and relatable, such as Jordan, pushes his work in that direction.