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James P. Lessner
Mrs. Kwiatkowski
Honors English 11
18 April 2016
The Great Gatsby Romance or Tragedy?
When The Great Gatsby was released it was considered by many to be a commercial
failure. Why was this? Was it a boring story? Was it bad writing? Maybe it was because it was
marketed as a romance when it was actually a tragedy. The Great Gatsby is a story about the
wealthy Jay Gatsby and his quest to woo his long lost lover Daisy Buchanan. In this quest Gatsby
finds his fatal flaw making this romance a tragedy.
The Great Gatsby follows the Shakespearean format for tragedies with a prologue, rising action, a
climax, a falling action, and a denouement. In chapter one, which is part of the prologue, you meet
the narrator, Nick; his cousin, Daisy; her husband, Tom; and one of Daisys friends, Jordan. After a
short gathering Nick returns to his house in West Egg, where the newly wealthy go to flaunt their
riches, before entering his home, he sees Gatsby standing on his lawn staring at a light in the
distance. In the second chapter you move from East Egg, the sophisticated, wealthy, to an area
referred to as the Valley of Ashes, where the working class people live. Here Tom introduces Nick
to his affair named Myrtle. The prologue ends here starting the rising action. Eventually Nick
reintroduces Daisy to Gatsby and the couple spends their afternoons together and its all wondrous.
All seems well to Gatsby like soon Daisy will divorce her husband and marry him, but all this
change in the climax of the story. Here Gatsbys dream is crushed. He spent his entire youth
aspiring to be great enough and wealthy enough to catch Daisys attention and now that he has it he
has no purpose. Here starts the falling action where Myrtle's infidelity is found out by her husband,
although he hasnt found out her lover, and Tom has notice Daisys clear feelings for Gatsby. When
the group of Daisy, Gatsby, Jordan, Nick, and Tom arrived at their destination Tom confronts
Gatsby about his love for Daisy. Tom wins this argument with Daisys support. While driving back

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Jordan, Nick, and Tom finds the scene of a dead Myrtle, whose husband assumes Gatsby hit her.
Finally a conclusion is reached when Myrtles husband Wilson tracks down Gatsby, whom he thinks
hit and killed Myrtle, and kills him and then himself. This is the traditional way to format a tragedy
and with a few more key elements the stage for a catastrophe is set. The Great Gatsby follows the
format of a typical Greek tragedy, Someone extraordinary is brought from happiness to agony
(Costello 3). It follows the format which was developed by Gustav Freytag, who described a
pyramidal structure (Deis). Next comes Gatsbys fatal flaw.
While some may argue that it was Gatsbys faith in the American Dream that led to his
demise, it was actually his faith in his love Daisy that ended him. Firstly, let's talk about the
American Dream. In James Truslow Adams book, The Epic of America written in 1931, he
describes the American Dream on pages 214 and 215 as follows:
[The] American dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and
fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a
difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us
ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high
wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able
to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by
others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.
Gatsby was a living example of what Adams called the American Dream. He was born to a couple of
poor farmers then made to a position of wealth and power. Wealth was exemplified in his partiesy's
shown by a corps of caterers and the orchestra ... no thin five piece affair but a whole pit
(Fitzgerald 44). A prime example of his power would be when he does not get pulled over by a
policeman for speeding in the city. Nick describes the experience as this, Taking a white card from
his wallet he waved it before the mans eyes (72). After this the policeman apologizes, then lets

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Gatsby continue to speed. These are prime examples that Gatsby is living the American Dream. In
all this wealth and power he is still missing one thing, Daisy. Gatsby puts all his stock in the belief
that he can convince Daisy to run away from Tom with her child and come crawling to Gatsby. He
believes this with all heart, making this Gatsbys fatal flaw. This can be compared to Homers
arrogance in the Odyssey; where Homer though he could out match the God of the Sea, Poseidon. In
the end Gatsby lost Daisy to Tom; still believing in Daisy he takes the blame for hitting Myrtle
covering for Daisy ultimately leading to Gatsbys demise ending this supposed romance in tragedy.
In conclusion The Great Gatsby actually a tragedy, not a romance. This is why the book was
commercial failure. By the end of it first run it was still short of 20,000 (MIZENER) It took
making a Broadway play out of the book to bring in money for Fitzgerald. Even Fitzgerald on his
final days said that the downfall of the book was not having Gatsby let go of Daisy in the end.

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Works Cited
Adams, James T. "The American DreamWhat Is The American Dream?" Students. Library of
Congress, n.d. Web. 18 Apr. 2016.
<http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/lessons/americandream/students/thedream.html>
Deis, Frank. "FIVE ACT PLAY." Five Act Play. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Apr. 2016.
<http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~deis/fiveact.html>
Fitzgerald, F. Scott, and Matthew J. Bruccoli. The Great Gatsby. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.
Mizener, Arthur. "Gatsby, 35 Years Later." New York Times. New York Times, n.d. Web. 18 Apr.
2016. <http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/12/24/specials/fitzgerald-gatsby60.html>

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