Why I Despise The Great Gatsby

Does The Great Gatsby merit the praise that it has received for many decades? “Why I despise The Great Gatsby” is an essay by Kathryn Schulz at New York Magazine in which Schulz states that she has read it five times without obtaining any pleasure from it. Long viewed as Fitzgerald’s masterpiece and placed at or near the uppermost section of the English literary list, The Great Gatsby has been used as a teaching source in high schools and universities across the United States. The novel is narrated by Nick Carraway, a Midwesterner who moved to Long Island, next door to an elegant mansion owned by a mysterious and affluent Jay Gatsby. The story follows Gatsby and Nick’s unusual friendship and Gatsby’s pursuit of a married woman named Daisy.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is said to be one of the greatest pieces of American literature ever written, but Schulz believes otherwise, she claims that the book is aesthetically overrated, psychologically vacant, and morally complacent. I must agree with Schulz’s reasons behind why the novel is poorly made and certainly is not anything special.
Fitzgerald’s linguistic style is clearly and heavily shown in the novel; he embeds numerous profound sentences, so much so that it makes the book comes out as being pretentious and implausible. Kathryn Schulz’s claim that Gatsby is aesthetically overrated is indeed valid. The amount of attention and success that it has received is chiefly a modern phenomenon. Fewer than 24,000 copies of Gatsby were printed by the time of Fitzgerald’s death in 1940, and was considered a failure of Fitzgerald’s potential and standard. Fitzgerald never learned what impact his work has on the millions of students in America. “By the 1950s, the literary critics rediscovered Gatsby. They pointed at Gatsby's astute assessment of the nouveau riche and the smashup of idealism and materialism of the 1920s' go-go era as a sign of Fitzgerald's brilliance. During the 1950s, Gatsby became a regular sight in bookstores and sold like hot cakes. By 1960, its place among the Great American Novels was assured” (Hartmann). Many film theater adaptations and even video games have been made, boosting the book’s fame. It has become very unlikely to find any American high school students who has not read the novel. In short, Gatsby is viewed as a big deal.
The book’s failures to establish a convincing story and its immense level of acclaim have proven it to be overrated. The plot of Gatsby is nowhere near complex or immersive. Schulz manages to perfectly synopsize the book in just one paragraph; the accuracy of the summary displays the lack of complexity in the novel’s plot and Fitzgerald’s intention to turn such a plot into a short novel by overloading with too many unnecessary details and insights. I am in agreement with Schulz that Gatsby is seen as more aesthetically pleasing than it deserves. This is because the book also has two other major flaws as Schulz states in her essay, “psychologically vacant and morally complacent,” The two additional weaknesses that she pointed out serve as further support for why the novel is aesthetically overrated.
One of the most significant aspect of a book is connection with the audience, making the readers feel as though they are immersed in the storytelling.

But Gatsby missed much of this, the character developments feel empty adding to the fact that the novel is being told from a boring point of view of the character Nick Carraway. As a result, the book becomes psychologically vacant. Schulz asserts, “The Great Gatsby is less involved with human emotion than any book of comparable fame I can think of. None of its characters are likeable. None of them are even dislikable, though nearly all of them are despicable” (Paragraph 11). It is sadly true, just look at the main character, Jay Gatsby. He seems like an interesting person who is lovable and charismatic, but it would be wrong and unlikely for the readers to feel connected with him because of his criminal past. Daisy Buchanan also display to the audience uncertain characteristics of likability and unlikability. If she is solely portrayed as a careless character who kills Myrtle Wilson and allows Gatsby to take the blame for her then she would truly be despised, but she is simultaneously depicted as an innocent and naive girl which pacify any intense feelings the readers have for her other than the feeling of disgust for nearly all of the characters. In addition, Gatsby fails to engross the readers to a degree of many books of comparable popularity. The book does not appeal to the interest of readers, in that, it does not strike

intense feelings such as uncomfortability. Schulz points out, “ At no point are we made to feel uncomfortable about either pleasure, let alone their conjunction. At no point are we given cause or room, to feel complicit. Our position throughout is that of an innocent bystander” (17), for the narration through Nick Carraway is passive and dull. The narrator seems to be a third-party, not implicated, absolutely separate; as a reader of the book, I find this to be quite true, you don’t really think of Nick having a part, a responsibility, or a blame throughout the novel. To add on to the psychologically vacancy, Nick almost never get involved in the corruptions and vices that are surrounding him constantly, “Yet he never admits to collusion with or seduction by all the fabulous depravity around him” (17), which proves just how empty and unconvincing Nick Carraway as a character really is; as a result, the narration of Gatsby is greatly weakened and incapacitated. To sum up, the book is viewed as psychologically vacant for the reason that the characters themselves are plain and empty.
The last significant point as to why Gatsby is far from a masterpiece is that it is morally complacent. Fitzgerald’s attempt to insert himself in the novel is distinctly seen. He even claimed to be a moralist at heart, wishing to preach about his view on wealth. But he has conflicted feelings about wealth in America. Schulz calls him a “hypocrite” for criticizing precisely what he indulges in and wishes for. Looking back through his life, Fitzgerald was not born into a poor family. He was able to acquire education without problem, and became a writer at a very young age. F. Scott Fitzgerald quickly enjoyed his newly acquired celebrity status and began to live out his new extravagant lifestyle that earned him a reputation as a playboy and obstructed his reputation as a serious literary writer. After he finished The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald's life began to untangle. Always a heavy drinker, he progressed steadily into alcoholism and suffered prolonged bouts of writer's block. He and his wife also had the wealth to travel back and forth between Delaware and France in the 1920s (“F. Scott”). Fitzgerald may not be as rich as his characters in the novel, but he did embarked on a lifestyle similar to theirs. He indulges in drinking and traveling, all of which during his period were signs of wealth. So Shulz’s statement about him being a hypocrite is not wrong, for in his book he criticizes and denounces the American Dream. The readers get to understand characters who are near the pinnacle of their American Dream, but remain miserable. Tom Buchanan is wealthy and has a lovely wife, but he still finds it not to be enough and begins his secretive affair with the married Myrtle Wilson.
Daisy is married and has all the wealth that she can ever want, but she is unhappy because she knows that her husband is cheating on her and, on the other hand, she still has feelings for Jay Gatsby. Lastly, it is safe to say that the book is morally complacent because Fitzgerald did indeed channel himself into the character Nick to tell us “his” views on the topic of the American Dream. Nick is basically Fitzgerald for the reasons previously stated, Nick’s role is nearly irrelevant to the story, turning a great deal of his perspective into a passive narration, much like a third-person point of view being told by the author himself.
Furthermore, Gatsby has a few small flaws. One being Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship. It is very unconvincing, and this is something that even Fitzgerald himself acknowledged about the book, “he admitted, ‘I gave no account (and had no feeling about or knowledge of) the emotional relations between Gatsby and Daisy”’(12). He never really understood the romance that was between them. If he had expand on their relationship, I certainly believe that it would have made the book much more interesting. Another missed opportunity was the chance to implement humor into the novel. As Schulz states, “a dash of humor is--how it can lift up or deflate, jostle or soothe, comfort or eviscerate” (18). By omitting humor, Fitzgerald creates solemn and conceited message that induces morally complacency into the book. The lack of humor and romance are just some of the many flaws of the book that greatly affect its reputation as a masterpiece.
Is The Great Gatsby one of the greatest novels in American history?

No, far from it. Although I will admit that it did create a decent image of the period, but I find the story lacking in substance. It is as Kathryn Schulz asserts, “aesthetically overrated, psychologically vacant, and morally complacent.” The book is widely seen as a Great American Novel, which implies that it has much significant points to convey about the twenties, but it displays an unlikely story that is not close to an exact rendition of the 1920s. It is a short novel with an absurd plot that scrutinizes only the thinnest part of life in America during the twenties. Gatsby was not well-received when it came out and remains an object of controversy and skepticism for a reason. Fitzgerald does not stand a chance when compared to his contemporaries such as John Steinbeck, William Faulkner, and Ernest hemingway. One may argue otherwise, but I do truly believe that many of the claims made by Schulz are justifiable and to a certain extent,

true.