Examples Of Satire In The Great Gatsby

American Dream or Naw?

What is the American Dream? The Declaration of Independence gives American people the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of property. The American Dream is the idea that you can become prosperous than those before you no matter where you started in life, wether it is rich or poor. In the book The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald is writing a commentary on one man's specific version of the "American Dream" and its effect on the other people around him. Fitzgerald is writing a satire that comments on American Dream. Examples of satire in The Great Gatsby include James Gatz's name change, Jay's lack of consideration of consequences, and Jay Gatsby's lust for Daisy.

Young James Gatz was born to two poor farmers along

the shores of Lake Superior with nothing but the shirts on the backs. During his middle years James spent time as a clam digger and salmon fisher along the shores of Lake Superior. Until at one point he meets a one Mr. Dan Cody and, by embracing his alter ego, becomes Jay Gatsby. This change to some readers would seem a petty little detail that does not mean anything to the story, but it actually one of the most important points in the entire novel. James Gatz's name change represents the changes that people must make to become "successful". It highlights the fundamental change that people have to go through to achieve their American Dream. James lost apart of who he was when he decided to become the refined Gatsby. He was so afraid to be a nobody that he fabricated a whole new life on lie. This means that nothing Gatsby does can truly be real or genuine because his entire life I built on a lie. He not only left his home but also he left his family behind in an effort to become wealthy, and thought James did achieve his goal by become rich he never succeeded in becoming happy. There always was something more he wanted.
Jay Gatsby's lust for Daisy is an another example of satire in the novel.

"He stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and far as I was from him I could have sworn he was trembling", Though at this point in the novel the reader does not know what this is about they understand that Gatsby must struggling with something. In later chapters the reader discovers that this is Gatsby reaching out across the water to Daisy. This could be interpreted as an honest gesture of compassion from Gatsby to Daisy, but it is actually another point where F. Scott Fitzgerald uses satire to further the idea that the American Dream is unattainable. Gatsby lives in a monstrous home on the waterfront in a very happening neighborhood. The parties he almost every night are all the rage in both the East and West egg. Gatsby has almost everything anyone could ask for but he still focuses all his energy on the one thing he can not have, Daisy. This shows the reader that Gataby's American Dream, THE American Dream, is a very greedy and selfish one. James Gatsby is never satisfied. He as a seventeen year old kid he was not satisfied with who he was and where he came from, so he changed his name. As a rich man with everything one could want he finds one thing he believes he needs and focuses all his energy on it. His greed represents all the greed of the American people, and their disregard for consequences of their

actions.
James like many other Americans trying to achieve their versions of the American Dream does not care who he have to step over to get what he wants. Gatsby still looks Tom in the eyes even though he is seeing his wife with out his knowing. He does not even consider Tom in his quest for Daisy. Another person who Gatsby completely does not consider is Daisy.
When Gatsby says,"It doesn’t matter any more. Just tell him the truth—that you never loved him—and it’s all wiped out forever" his true disregard for Daisy's feelings becomes apparent. He wants a women to just tell her husband, the father of her child, that she had never felt anything for him. That all along she had been waiting for Jay. Gatsby later again shows his lack of empathy when he meets Daisy's daughter. "Afterward he kept looking at the child(Daisy's daughter) with surprise. I don't think he had ever really believed in its existence before". This quote shows that he doesn't care about Daisy or her child; he only cares about returning to the times before the war. He never once believed that his love, Daisy, could have possibly had someone else's child.
The Great Gatsby is considered by some to be a perfect representation of the American Dream, and that determination and worth ethic can get you anywhere, but when reading through a more cautious lens one can discern that it is actually describing the flaws in the American Dream. It shows that the American Dream is selfish, ungrateful, and conformist.