The great gatsby is not an inherently optimistic book. You start with this character that has idealistic views and impossible aspirations – Gatsby believing that Daisy continues to love him and will take him back in a heartbeat – and that have those very dreams crushed as Gatsby is rejected by Daisy by any number of reasons (that he doesn’t come from old wealth, she doesn’t truly care for him and simply wanted some excitement in her life). And yet, I’d argue that, despite the events of the book, it does in fact have an optimistic tone.
Looking at the first two chapters, I think it’s important to talk about the juxtaposition that is present. On the one hand, you have exposition describing both the location and the inhabitants of the West and East eggs. Throughout the chapter, this sense of great beauty comes though, with descriptions of Gatsby’s house, and that characters such as “Daisy” and “Jordan Baker”. The description of the valley of ash, in Chapter 2, stands in start contrast – it’s very title signifying this idea of decay. It’s the location where more unpleasant events, such as Tom cheating on his wife, take place. In fact, many of the more unpleasant events in the book (the confrontation between Tom and Gatsby, and the murder of George Wilson) take place – whereas the West and East egg seem relatively void of such events; the analogy of an ideal utopia versus the grittier, real-world, seems apt.
There’s one detail in particular that captures my attention in Chapter 2, the idea that the land is “grey”, and that there are “spasms of bleak dust”. There’s an immediate connection that can be made to the quote in the end:
“Gatsby turned out all right in the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.”
**Develop this post at a later time**
