Examples Of Falseness In The Great Gatsby

A motif of falseness can be connected to the Roaring Twenties - the time of jazz, entertainment, freedom, wealth, and American Dream. In 1920s falseness was everywhere: in people and atmosphere in general. People pretended they were free, wealthy, and happy despite the terrors of WW1 that they had just lived through. People were living fake lives to fit into the time of 1920s. Falseness has different connotations: untruth, erroneousness, delusion, or disloyalty. A motif is a recurring idea, symbol, object, movement or concept that repeats throughout a work. If the work is 1920s, then the motif of falseness plays the key role in understanding people and their actions who lived at that time. The concept of falseness also explains how people’s …show more content…
In the novel The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald uses falseness to bare people’s blind tendency to expect, which poisons the symbol of American Dream and makes everything meaninglessness.
In The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald introduces how falseness in the person as well as his desires lead to unrealistic expectations and make him believe in wonder. The main character - Jay Gatsby, is a guy from a very poor family, but with the ambitions for the great future. From the very young age Gatsby had to find the way from the frustrating realities of poor life into the unrealistically exciting world of wealth. James Gatz, future Jay Gatsby, expected from life more than he had, therefore “he invented just sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen-year-old boy would be likely to invent” (page 98). By creating Jay Gatsby, the boy tried to change not just who he is, but also to erase his past and change his future. Jay Gatsby was just a lie - a lie for everybody as well as for the boy itself. Young Gatsby expected to become a part of the wealthy elite society just by changing his name and becoming rich, however he failed to understand that he will never be able to become a part of the …show more content…
Fitzgerald introduces New York as a city with a “racy, adventurous feel”, a romantic atmosphere, and the realization of American Dream; Nick likes to “pick out romantic women from the crowd and imagine that...I was going to enter into their lives, and no one would ever know or disapprove” (page 56). This shows how free was New York - the city where hopes and dreams come true. The realization of dreams like being wealthy or famous in 1920s adds some romantic and even unrealistically magical atmosphere to the New York City. Later, Nick started noticing people in New York, and he started seeing it more like “a trap for dreamers”, and he felt “a haunting loneliness, sometimes and felt it in others” (page 56). Everyone in New York tries to escape from loneliness by creating fake lives and adjusting to the atmosphere of 1920s. The false expectations about New York and 1920s itself refute the possibility of the realization of the American Dream. The atmosphere of 1920s was not the only thing that affected the American Dream. The green light on Daisy’s dock is one of the greatest symbols that moves Gatsby towards his dream. That green light meant the whole world to him, because he imagined that that exact light is so close to Daisy, even touching her, “his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it”

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