Whitman believed that America was a great nation with a lot of promise. To what extent does The Great Gatsby suggest that Whitman’s vision for America has died, and to what extent does the novel suggest that Whitman’s vision still survives?
Whitman believed that America was a great nation with a lot of promise. To what extent does The Great Gatsby suggest that Whitman’s vision for America has died, and to what extent does the novel suggest that Whitman’s vision still survives?
On the whole, I believe that The Great Gatsby has a rather pessimistic view about the promises and opportunities that America offers. Fitzgerald presents a rather meretricious society with huge disparities between the rich and the poor than cannot be encompassed. Think about Gatsby and his idealistic dream which he could not achieve. Myrtle is also a good character for the illustration of the materialism that existed in the 1920s, and the incapacity of America to foster opportunities. The last few paragraphs of the novel is quite good for your analysis; especially the paragraph about the Dutch sailors coming "face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder". It demonstrates that although America was once the becon of hope, a "fresh, green breast of the new world" where people could begin anew and nourish their extroadinary visions, it is no longer the promising nation. In fact the quick transience of that experience suggests that The Great American Dream was merely a idealistic notion that was only truly real for a few moments at the most.
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