A Quick Reflection on The Great Gatsby x Ecclesiastes
The American Dream; the ideal that every US citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative.
The movie works on so many levels, but the prime in particular; the American Dream. The book, originally written by Fitzgerald, was a satire to the American Dream, the notion that prides itself on its equality of opportunities and the freedom to success, that fixes its gaze on the elusive future, the promise of better things yet to come. Everybody in the movie chases that same thing. They succumb willingly to a completely consumeristic lifestyle, consuming bootleg alcohol. partying in Gatsby’s mansion, embodying a rich life. Now some or even most of you may be repulsed by this, and if you’ve ever been clubbing, you might see the same scene. Remember that, Nick Caraway felt the same. But it’s not so far off from our dreams. We want the big cars and fancy houses that Jay Gatsby has. We strive for it. We have a subtle but deep sense of connection to Jay Gatsby himself. And Gatsby was as well striving after the American Dream.
Jay Gatsby was a great man. He was great in many ways. He was a self-made wealthy man. He left his home in order to chase his dreams, to make something for himself. Unlike us, he was a ‘child of God’ and he had the courage to pursue so. He built an entirely new persona - war hero, oxford student, rich inheritor, sophisticated character, i.e. ‘old sport’.
Here is an outline to Jay Gatsby’s ideologies, not so distant from our own:
1:08:20
- ‘He was a Son of God, destined for future glory.
1:19:20
- ‘Can’t repeat the past? Can’t repeat the past? Why of course you can! I’m going to fix things to the way it was before.
- ‘He knew his mind would never again be free to romp like the mind of God. That falling in love would change his destiny forever.’
- I’m only thirty-two, and I would still be a great man if i could forget I once lost Daisy.
- My life ‘old sport, my life ‘old sport’ has to be like this, it has to keep going up.
He has a deep obsession with getting higher and higher; he can do no else but to achieve better. When he fell in love with Daisy, his destiny may have changed. His whole extravagant life, imagination and goals are now done in the image of her, in order to once again attain her in his life, to master the control of time.
Don’t get me wrong, he is admirable, much more admirable than those repulsive wealth gloating people; he loves her so romantically that all his plans decisions dreams are fixed on her, he worships her. But what is up with us people? We are deluded by thinking if we finally get what we want, or the woman of our dreams, that we’d be happy?
What did Gatsby want even after he had Daisy? He wants her to not only denounce her love for Tom Buchanan, but to admit she never loved him before, not once. He wants her total devotion... but she even admits that he wants too much, she can’t give him that.
"They were careless people, Tom and Daisy — they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money of their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made."
They weren’t necessarily evil or harmful, they just didn’t care enough. And that was the fate of The Great Gatsby, he was a mess made by careless people. and drifted into nothingness and his death was nothing.
If you didn’t notice, he died the moment he realized the receiver wasn’t Daisy but was Nick.
If you think, hey Gatsby could have gotten what he wanted only if the conditions were right, it was so close for him to finally be happy, if only.... Then take Tom Buchanan as an example, one of the earlier scenes in his house we saw the trophies and medals and his past glory in being a polo player champion.
When Gatsby introduced the senator to Mr. Buchanan.
‘Mr. Buchanan, a polo player.’
‘No, not me.’
‘I’d rather not be the polo player.’
“He was one of those men who achieved such an acute, limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterwards savors of anti-climax.”
That is the plague of the American Dream, and it is an enormous let-down.
Ecclesiastes 1:14
“ I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind. “
Gatsby was a testament of Qoheleth, striving after Daisy after more that he loved, which was all nothing. In fact that American Dream itself is a testament to that, all the toiling and striving, it’s all striving after the wind, after emptiness, never satisfied. We are all a testament to that, that we live each day in hope of better things of dreams coming to life, being our own laboratory test case, and it’s all like the American Dream, a vanity and a striving after the wind.
END
The green light at the other side of the bay; the enchanted object that Gatsby has been reaching and striving for, it’s a symbolism of desire so close to Gatsby’s reach yet he could never attain. More than that, that’s what enchanted objects are literary and realistically, it’s a reminder:
"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 farther . . . . And one fine morning — So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
WHAT IS OUR OWN green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. that eluded us then, but no worries for every tomorrow we can still run harder, strive harder, stretch our arms further closer to grabbing that light, that as we do so... we borne back ceaselessly into the past?
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