Failure of American Ideal Dream: A Reverse Irony inThe Great Gatsby

Abstract

This research is a study of F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby from the view point of American dream and discourses of irony. Fitzgerald, in his process of representing the American history, explains the issues of post first world war American society and ironical feature of American ideal dream. It is deeply rooted in the history of American society where there is the gap between what is said and what it appears. One the one hand, the protagonist as a representative ideal figure of American dream seems to be extreme crazy, money minded and mater oriented. He is influenced by his lover Daisy’s betrayal in love that destroys his whole dream because he sees happiness through regaining his past love in relation to money and matter. One the other hand, there is inseparable relation with matter and money with American society in the post first world era due to their cut throat competition among the characters except narrator Nick and Mrs. Wilson. That also creates a situation filled with hatred, separation, materialistic desire, spiritless over ambition and egoism. They reverse the underlying fact that the American dream fails to protect American ideal. Then, it really passes through the ironical tone. Thus, Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby depicts the reality of post world war American society and its failure situation in material prosperity, which finally reveals the fact of reversal irony.