The characters seem to have this idea that they're always chasing happiness. Gatsby thinks that if he can only have Daisy, then everything will be perfect and he'll be happy. Wrong. The American dream is about the fact that you don't have to be royal to be rich - but this book seems to beat that up.
The narrator is Nick Carraway. Care Away?? He starts off with some wise words: Reserving judgment is a matter of infinite hope - the grasp of hope or pursuit of what people want is what keeps them chasing happiness. They're all a bunch of shallow fools who are always chasing something, but never finding it. Just like in Romeo and Juliet - people who are born to privilege often run straight into disaster and it ruins them.
These characters are people who aren't willing to do the work. Nick inherited his money from someone who paid another person off so he wouldn't have to go fight the civil war for them. Gatsby throws all the parties just for one reason: To win back Daisy (or is it to win her mansion)
Early in the book they're at a party and a guy gets in an accident. The wheel falls of his car but he keeps trying to drive it. To me, this is like Trump!! The wheels are falling off dude. It's time to get out - but just like the guy in the book, he won't get out. He will keep driving the car until it is ruined.
Gold and yellow seem to be colors given status: Gatsby's car, his tie, the button on Daisy's dress, money, the flowers that Nick says smell like pale gold. The green light at the end of Daisy's dock that Gatsby is always looking at across the bay is also similar. Gatsby thirsts for that light...the house....Daisy. Nick calls it an enchanted object - a false God, I'd say. We all have things that we chase and give honor to that aren't worth anything long term.
The yellow is actually corruption, a-morality, and in the end, death. Right now, in American politics, it seems like people really love Trump mostly because of his success with creating wealth. Just like Trump, no one came across their money honestly and there is never enough money. Everyone always wants more and more and more wealth. The car that Daisy is driving when she kills someone, is also yellow. Pursuing all that stuff makes you unhappy and maybe even evil in the end.
Daisy tells a story about a butler who used to polish silver for the rich people he worked for. He did it day and night until the silver polish ruined his nose. Lesson?! These parties won't last forever and the pursuit of money is not equal to the pursuit of happiness. In the end, Gatsby dies and no one attends his funeral or cares. They just want to pick up their shoes from the house before they're lost. Everyone wants a care-free life - but in the end, Gatsby was not ok. He was chasing happiness but never found it.
Goodreads says:
A true classic of twentieth-century literature, this edition has been updated by Fitzgerald scholar James L.W. West III to include the author’s final revisions and features a note on the composition and text, a personal foreword by Fitzgerald’s granddaughter, Eleanor Lanahan—and a new introduction by two-time National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward.
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s third book, stands as the supreme achievement of his career. First published in 1925, this quintessential novel of the Jazz Age has been acclaimed by generations of readers. The story of the mysteriously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan, of lavish parties on Long Island at a time when The New York Times noted “gin was the national drink and sex the national obsession,” it is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s.
