ShmoopTube

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We speak student!

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The Great Gatsby

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The In Crowd

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a la Shmoop

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You know, one of the themes

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that grabs me about Gatsby

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is that people care

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so much about being on this in crowd

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and the wealthy, even though it's not them.

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They'll never be accepted anyway,

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even if they really wanted to be.

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What does Fitzgerald say about the American Dream in his novel?

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I mean, it's basically the idea of the unachievable dream, right?

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Everyone in this book wants

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to be rich and

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wants to be the life of the party.

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And no one's going to be.

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Even Gatsby, who is the life of the party,

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is a total facade. Nothing about him is real.

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And so, again, this idea of the unachievable dream makes us

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take a step back and think that

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the whole idea of the American Dream -

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coming from nothing and building yourself up and

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becoming rich and successful on your own -

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is also maybe unachievable.

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And so everything Fitzgerald

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says and does and writes about -

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Gatsby, Nick, and the whole gang -

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we always wanna reflect that back on

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American society as a whole.

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Fitzgerald himself and all his buddies

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went to Paris. They left the country because they were like,

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"Well, there's nothing left for us here."

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So they even left. So we kind of see this --

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all these people wanting what they can't have.

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And we reflect that back and say,

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"Oh, this is what Fitzgerald thought about America as a whole."

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What's Myrtle's role in all this?

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She has her nose broken by Tom and...

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[ grunt ]

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[ glass breaks ]

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so on. Talk to us about that.

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How does Myrtle embody Fitzgerald's American Dream?

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Yeah, Myrtle is another one of these accessory characters.

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So she is

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Tom's mistress.

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She's George Wilson's wife.

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And she is just

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a victim through and through.

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Myrtle is kind of like Nick and Gatsby a little bit in that she's

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part of the working class. Her husband, George, is a mechanic.

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And she's kind of trying to make her way in to this other world

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by being Tom's mistress.

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And just like Gatsby and Nick are a little bit on the outside,

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so is Myrtle. She's not part of this wealthy elite,

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but she's kind of trying to make her way in,

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- and it does not work out for her. - Doesn't work.

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[ car horn beeps ]

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[ whooshing ]

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[ whoop ]

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What does Fitzgerald say about the American Dream in his novel?

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How does Myrtle embody Fitzgerald's American Dream?

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[ ooh ]

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