The beginning of the novel evokes our stereotypes about the 1920s in America. "Our" stereotypes are those of people who could not see the reality of that historical era—people living at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st centuries.
Probably, many readers associate 1920s America with jazz among other things. The author also mentions jazz melodies at the start of the novel’s events, and the reader becomes enchanted by the atmosphere surrounding them. Yes, this work can be fully described as atmospheric, with a long, lazy beginning and an intense, saturated resolution.
Later, closer to the middle of the story, the reader becomes disillusioned. In a psychotherapeutic sense, they begin to see reality.
The author seems to hint at this future turn of events by describing the narrator’s listening abilities at the start of the novel. He doesn’t call them psychotherapeutic, but we can. After all, it is these personality traits of the narrator that allowed many people in his circle to open up to him. Even though he "didn’t seek such trust at all" (c).
The protagonist himself modestly speaks of his "restraint in judgment," which he calls the "key to boundless hope" (c). From there, it’s only a step away from unconditional acceptance.
Thanks to this restraint in judgment, the Great Gatsby is revealed to the narrator—the man whose name the narrator gives to the book. A man about whom the other characters in the novel tell each other various tall tales.
It could be said that the novel itself is about the myths we create and tell—primarily to ourselves.
Each character invents something about real people and life situations, then communicates with their own fabrications.
Gatsby invents Daisy for himself and the possibility of returning to the past.
Gatsby’s father invents a good boy for himself who did everything right, despite having once caused his parents great pain.
The author invents a mysterious and criminal Gatsby.
Tom, Daisy’s husband, invents a reality in which both his wife and his mistress are his property, unable to escape. His actions in this reality are considered perfectly normal and correct.
The husband of Tom’s mistress invents for himself a faithful wife and a good friend in Tom.
None of them want to see reality. But reality does not change just because they refuse to acknowledge it.
Reality turns out to be not romantic or sensitive but mundane, repulsively earthly—and this costs Gatsby his life.
The very name Gatsby turns out to be a fabrication. Jay Gatsby is Jimmy Gatz, who as a boy made a "Schedule" for himself and adopted "General Resolves." Not just made and adopted, as we likely have done many times in our lives, but he fulfilled these promises to himself. In adulthood, he added other achievements.
Yet in adulthood, when we see him shrouded in an aura of success, he is not happy. To clarify this paradox, we might ask an important psychological question: "Why?" Not "why," but "what for"—to achieve wealth, fame, and luxury. It turns out not to enjoy the fruits of his achievements, not to live with self-respect, not in the present.
No, it’s all for Daisy to understand (on her own!) that she must be with him. Then, and only then, will happiness come. "Gatsby believed in that green light—the colossally happy future that year after year eludes us, slipping further and further away" (c).
It’s not the real Daisy who must understand, but the Daisy he invented. Like the famous hero of Cervantes, he invents for himself a Beautiful Lady. He refuses to see that the real Daisy shares only her outward beauty with the Beautiful Lady.
Self-deception ends dramatically for the characters. Tragically—for Jimmy Gatz. Only the "carefree people" remain alive and well. Those who "wrecked things and people, then fled, hiding behind their money, or their boundless carefreeness, or whatever bound them together—and let others clean up after them" (c).
Concluding the story, the author writes that "we, people of the West, are missing something" (c). Perhaps what they lack, as depicted by the author, is self-sufficiency…
