A Status Report on the American Dream

We find ourselves drawn to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” because it possesses everything that a good story should. Fitzgerald crafts its sentences with the perfect mix of heartache, drama, and romance. His world is one of extravagant parties and mint juleps and gorgeous people, and the image of the epic West Egg soiree has a quality so irresistible that it has inspired a number of endearing but unsuccessful attempts at Gatsby-themed events here on campus (Great Fratsby? STOP) as well as a new Hollywood film (Ah! Leo! Jay-Z! Clothes!). Yes, The Great Gatsby is sexy, but, as Sarah Churchwell appropriately reminds us in the Guardian’s movie review, the book actually spends little time inviting readers into bashes at Jay’s big white house: “Fitzgerald's novel in fact features just three parties, and only one of these offers paeans to its own splendours.” The Great Gatsby is important not because of glamour and booze, but because it cuts straight to my deepest fears. Fitzgerald highlights the great tragedy beneath the American experience, and his commentary hits my generation, my Harvard peers, and me right where it hurts.

To some extent, we all live like Nick Carraway, “within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.” We remain active members of American culture, even when it disgusts us. My classmates and I came of age under the burden of a slow recovery from a recession created by the greed of few and inflicted on the shoulders of many. We wear the scars of school shootings, yet our government remains incapable of passing basic safeguards against gun violence. Like members of the Lost Generation in the 1920s, our generation has reason to be disillusioned.

Churchwell writes of “the founding American myth: that the marketplace can be a religion, that the material can ever be ideal.” I was in eighth grade during the throes of financial crisis in 2008, and when I think about subprime lenders, I’m reminded of the way Nick describes his friends in East Egg: “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness...and let other people clean up the mess they had made.” Greed, poor regulation, and the resulting bailout fit neatly into this narrative.

Fitzgerald’s most iconic image is the symbolic green light on Daisy’s dock, Gatsby’s unshakeable subscription to a nebulous American dream. He writes, “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.” The American definition of success is intensely attractive: If I work hard, I can change the world! Yet the model is replete with inconsistencies.

A Harvard student has the drive and determination of a young Jay Gatz. His father, Henry Gatz, describes him just like any of our parents might describe us: “Jimmy was bound to get ahead. He always had some resolves like this or something. Do you notice what he’s got about improving his mind?” In high school, I strove to create the best possible version of myself. Like so many of my classmates, I studied for hours each day, motivated by an idealized image of a letter that I believed would be my success: An acceptance to Harvard would give me the opportunity to acquire skills that could change my life and the lives of others.

We are all here because we worked hard, but something sinister lurks underneath every long night I spend in Lamont. I am faced with cold reality—that luck is what carried me here, and there are thousands of others with potential, smarts, and drive who did not receive the same opportunity. I’m not talking about those unlucky individuals who were forced to go to sub-par schools like Yale. I’m talking about those who may not have had time for homework because they had to hold down a job and take care of their siblings, or those who were never even told that college was a possibility for them. Nick’s dad once told him to “remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.” Inequity of opportunity is the dark side of the American dream, and another dimension to this underside is a nagging fear that our political system might fail to correct society’s deficiencies.

I wonder whether we are all working toward the same green light here at Harvard. Bearing witness to a dismal job market has forced some to seek economics degrees in an attempt to make sense of the financial mess and achieve the coveted financial security that a liberal arts degree no longer guarantees. What happened to civic responsibility? Many of us have idealistic goals, but for others, cynicism and distrust have led to less altruistic aims.

Are those with a distant vision of a unified country simply ignorant, or are they latching onto something profound that I cannot grasp? When will we arrive at a land of equal opportunity? Is it even possible for our broken political system to carry us to this new, greenly lit frontier any time soon? Fitzgerald’s prose has colored the lens through which I view some of the most important experiences of my lifetime. If I’m asking for a book to speak to my generation, I feel I should look no further.

Jenny A. Gathright ’16, a Crimson editorial writer, lives in Wigglesworth Hall.