There are a few, very rare, moments where Fitzgerald allows some insights in the characters of his novel, The Great Gatsby. These occasions should be marked red. Most of the time, the story annoys the reader with imaginary pictures of the Golden 20s, which really were never that golden, or images of our hero, Gatsby. All the wonderful things that critics see in the story: the novel of manners, love, American Dream, and romance have been interpreted into the story long after the fact. There are some slight hints towards these topics, but they are not really developed by Fitzgerald (e. the love between J. Gatz and Daisy Fay).
The missing relationship between Gatsby and Daisy is but one of the flaws of the novel. Fitzgerald shows a lack of care in developing Gatsby as a person of the “New Money”, dreaming all the day, having and being tasteless in everything he has and is, in addition to being a criminal (though theres no real evidence for that), and developing Daisy as a character, coming from a well-known family “Old Money” and being not guilty (“white”, to use Fitzgeralds riduculas color symbolism).
It was just impossible for a mediocre writer like Fitzgerald was, to develop a relationship between such different persons (though they have one thing in common: their lack of taste). The Great Gatsby is an absurd story. One cannot consider this masterpiece as a love story – the only love is one by a shy daydreamer, admiring a lady from the upperclass and doing every possible stupid thing to get her, but who, after not having succeeded, becomes a “tragic hero”. Just blindly applying ancient and worn storylines doesnt make a good book.
One cannot consider it as a plain record of lifestyle in the 20s because it simply is not. To suppose that it is a symbol for the American Dream (which isnt dreamt by Americans only) it is just ridiculous. These things are not definable by some characters written on a virgin white (color symbolism !!! ) sheet of paper. The same goes for those who consider The Great Gatsby as a romantic novel: Ripping off people who buy alcohol, accumulating that dark (color symbolism !!! ) money and then filling a pool with it, just to impress a teen love is not very romantic in the opinion of most people.
Everything in the novel is totally exaggerated. Gatsby being the gallant knight, living in an enormous white house (color symbolism – totally misused !! ), begging his princess to love him again, after years not having spoken to her one word. Then… the parties: There were definitely such parties at that time, but it is really ridiculous using them just to hear something about an ex-love. .. and names: How can an author use animal names for the party guests ? As far as I know, The Great Gatsby was intended as a novel and not as a fairy tale.
The same applies for Daisy Fay. There are many other flaws in that “great piece of American literature”. Thoroughly searching the novel for flaws would yield an enormous list and would take up a considerable amount of time, which the book is just not worth. One could continue summing up arguments against this book, but it is not worth neither the time nor the work. A short evaluation instead might help more : “The Great Gatsby” is a ‘highly sensational, loud, blatant, ugly and pointless’ book (H. Eagleton, quoted from Dallas Morning News, May 10, 1925) .
