The Great Gatsby Essay Conclusion

The Great Gatsby essay conclusion is an essay that summarizes and recounts the fictional novel ‘The Great Gatsby’ written by F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1925. This novel fits the title ‘great American novel’ since it covers a lot of the themes that contributed to the development of the American nation. It discusses social class, war, entrepreneurship, young love, and the great American dream. These topics talk of the developmental challenges America was facing as it was being birthed into the nation we know today.

The Great Gatsby Novel Summary

The novel introduces Nick Carraway, who begins narrating by quoting his father on trying to relate to everyone’s point of view. He does this to assure the reader that the story he is about to give is reliable. Nick moves to West Egg in Long Island, where people with new money live. He moved there to start a job in the bond business and be close to his cousin Daisy Buchanan, who lives with her husband, Tom Buchanan, in East Egg.

The novel portrays East egg as a more fashionable town since people with old money, inherited from their dead relatives who lived there. Nick heads over to East Egg to visit her cousin Daisy, and on reaching there, he meets Jordan Baker, a professional golf player and a childhood friend to Daisy. Jordan Baker immediately becomes a romantic interest to Nick, who is still getting acquainted with the city.

After visiting Daisy in East Egg, Nick returns to his house in West Egg, where he realizes he is the neighbor to Jay Gatsby. He sees his neighbor Gatsby at the end of his dock, stretching his arms towards the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock.

The next day, Nick and Tom plan on meeting up and heading to New York City. While there, Tom introduces Nick to his mistress, Myrtle Wilson, the wife of George Wilson. They head to the Plaza Hotel, where Tom has rented an apartment for his affair with Myrtle, and they spend time there drinking and partying till the evening. While partying, Myrtle and Tom get into a fight when Myrtle mentions Tom’s wife, Daisy.

Nick later goes home after partying with Tom and receives an invitation to one of great Gatsby’s extravagant parties that weekend. He attends the party but doesn’t seem to locate Gatsby anywhere. Nick describes the exciting stories he was told about Gatsby by the partygoers. They mention his life in the war and how they thought Gatsby was a mysterious man whom no one had an idea how he looked like.

While at the party, Nick meets Jordan Baker, and he is glad to see her since he does not know anyone else there, and the host is a no-show. Suddenly, Gatsby makes himself known to Nick and Jordan only. Gatsby pulls Jordan away from Nick and speaks to her about Daisy and how he loves her. Gatsby asks Jordan to have tea with Nick the next day to explain why Nick was invited to the party.

Later the next day, Nick meets with Jordan for tea and explains what is going on. Jordan explains to Nick that Gatsby is in love with Nick’s cousin, Daisy, and they have been sweethearts for a long time before Gatsby got pulled into the first world war. She explained Gatsby could provide nothing for Daisy at the time because he was financially unstable to maintain her. That is why Daisy and Gatsby have been estranged. She narrates that Gatsby later on accumulated extreme wealth and bought the mansion across from Nick’s cousin’s house so that he could win Daisy back.

Jordan explains the plan she had cooked up with Gatsby about arranging tea with Daisy at Nick’s house, where Gatsby would show up. The meeting goes as planned, and Daisy meets up with Nick in his house for tea. Once there, Gatsby shows up, and it becomes awkward for the two of them since it has been a while since they saw each other. Nick steps away and gives the two lovebirds time to talk and reconnect.

On returning to the house, Nick finds that Daisy and Gatsby have reconnected, and they are pretty comfortable with each other now. Gatsby takes Daisy and Nick back to the mansion for a tour of his own house. Gatsby tries to impress Daisy by showing her the great wealth he has accumulated for her. While at Gatsby’s mansion, Nick explains the truth about his accumulated wealth. He describes his mentor Dan Cody, who helped him reinvent himself to Daisy and Nick for the first time.

Daisy and Gatsby continue their colossal affair throughout the summer, making Tom suspect the two were together. In the days following the reconnection, Jay and Nick head to Buchanan’s house for lunch, where they decide to drive to the city and get a suite from the Plaza Hotel. Before reaching the hotel, Tom stops at Wilson’s garage to take Myrtle and go to the Plaza Hotel with her. Much to Tom’s surprise, Myrtle’s husband refuses to let Myrtle go with him. He leaves there infuriated and gets into the car to drive to the hotel in New York.

While there, they book rooms and settle there while drinking mint juleps to help them relax. Amid them relaxing, tempers flare because of the combination of the heat and the alcohol they have been drinking that whole afternoon. Tom and Jay become aggressive, leading Tom to grill Jay about his education, past, shady business, and intentions with his wife, Daisy.

Jay tries to force Daisy to admit that she was never in love with Tom, but she cannot do that. She instead says that she loves both of them and can never deny her husband. Tom then commands Daisy and Jay to drive back to his home in East Egg, feeling utterly confident that Daisy can never leave him for someone like Jay Gatsby.

On the way to the home, Jay and Daisy spot Myrtle outside her husband’s garage in the Valley of Ash. Since Daisy was the driver, she killed Myrtle by running her over with Jay’s car. Jay decides to take the blame for Daisy and tells Tom that it was him who ran over Myrtle. Tom was so furious that he left the house and met up with Myrtle’s husband. He told George that Jay was the one to blame for killing his wife.

When Jay returns to his house in West Egg later that evening, he decides to go to the pool and relax after the day he just had. While resting, George Wilson surprised Jay in his house and shot him dead right there in the pool. George, later on, shot himself, and they both died at Gatsby’s house.

Nick Carraway gets shocked when he learns of Gatsby’s death and decides to do a funeral for him. He was sure that when he held the funeral, all the people who used to come to his parties would show up, but none of them did. Only the servants he had hired, and Nick turned up for Jay’s funeral. Tom and Daisy even leave for a trip, and they never send flowers or a note for Jay’s funeral.

Nick later bumps into Tom Buchanan in the city. He is overcome with loath for Tom after he tells him he had a hand in the death of Jay Gatsby. He tells Nick that he went over to George Wilson’s house and told him it was Jay’s fault that his wife was killed. Nick had no more contact with Daisy or Tom after that. The novel concludes with Nick returning to Gatsby’s dock and looking at the green light that illuminated Daisy’s house.

The Great Gatsby’s Essay Conclusion Analysis

The Eyes of T.J. Eckleburg

In the great gatsby essay conclusion,  Nick’s commute from West Egg, he goes through the Valley of Ashes, where a billboard of T.J. Eckleburg is prominent. Here is a quote from the novel that describes the billboard;

“The eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic. Their retinas are one yard high. They look out of no face but from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a non-existent nose. Evident some wild wag of an oculist set them there to fatten his practice in the borough of Queens, and then sank down himself into eternal blindness or forgot them and moved away” (Page 26).

Many experts of Scott Fitzgerald’s novels argue these eyes represented the eyes of God, which are omniscient. They say that they represent the eyes of karma or fate and should be viewed with great sagacity that what the novel’s characters are capable of.

Cold Fried Chicken

After Daisy hits Myrtle with Gatsby’s car, Nick makes his way to the Buchanan residence and sees Tom and Daisy eating cold fried chicken through the kitchen window. Below is a quote from the novel ;

“Tom and Daisy were sitting opposite each other at the kitchen table eating a plate of cold fried chicken and two bottles of ale. He was talking intently across the table at her, and his earnestness his hand had fallen upon and covered her own. Once in a while, she looked up at him and nodded in agreement. Happiness was not present at the table, and neither of them had touched the chicken or the ale. There was an unmistakable air of natural intimacy about the picture, and anybody would have said they were conspiring together! (Page 155)

Based on this, it could be noted that Daisy and Tom were conspiring to let Jay take the fall for Myrtle’s death. The cold fried chicken could be taken to represent Gatsby’s corpse, discarded, and left unacknowledged by both of them. Scott Fitzgerald used foreshadowing and symbolism to describe the loss of life of the Great Gatsby in the novel.

The Green Light

Many scholars have interpreted the green light differently in the novel. Some represent it as the ill effects of money, greed, and envy since Gatsby envies Tom. The green light could mean a lot of themes that Scott Fitzgerald was trying to describe in America when it was written.

Characters of the Great Gatsby

Nick Carraway

Nick is the main narrator of the story in the novel. We encounter and experience stories through Nick’s eyes, since he is trustworthy. This is because he does not originate from extreme wealth like some characters, and so he does not take anyone for granted. Nick is also Daisy’s cousin, married to Tom Buchanan, a wealthy man who inherits great wealth from his father.

Daisy Buchanan

Daisy is Nick’s Second cousin and the long-lost love of the great Gatsby. She comes from the old southern money, which means generations of wealth in her family. She is married to Tom Buchanan and lives with him in their home at East Egg.

Tom Buchanan

Tom is Daisy’s husband. He is arrogant and aggressive, but all that is swallowed by his coming from a generation of old money. He is also having an affair with Myrtle Wilson, who is, in fact, married.

Jordan Baker

Jordan is Daisy’s childhood friend and also a professional golf player. She also becomes a romantic interest for Nick Carraway, who is a great friend to Jay Gatsby.

Jay Gatsby

Jay is the main character in the novel. He was born to a poor farmer and later reinvented himself through the help of a billionaire, Dan Cody. Gatsby’s dream was to reconnect with his long-lost love, Daisy, but this does not seem to be due to Daisy being married already. Gatsby’s character is used to describe the American dream that most people want to have once they move to New York. The Great Gatsby essay seeks to explain Gatsby’s life as an example of how people living in America used to dream their lives to be like.

Themes in Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby Novel

The American Dream

The great American dream promises that anyone can become anything they want to be. Jay Gatsby believed in the American dream, where he could have a life of wealth, power, luxury, and love for himself. He cannot achieve this dream despite this belief since his wealth is built on criminal activity and dishonesty. These traits are considered imperfect within the American dream view.

Social status

The novel shows that wealth is not everything. As much as Gatsby tried to accumulate wealth, it was not enough to fully win back Daisy’s love. In the novel, there were four classes of social status; The lower class, the middle class, the new money, and the highest being the old money class. They could not be interchanged easily without conflict.

Money and Power

As Nick and Jay quickly realize, money does not equate to power. They are aware of the socioeconomic class because they were not born into a super-wealthy family but spent their time with those who were like Tom. At the end of the novel, Nick reflects how money equaled carelessness when Tom and Daisy proved untouchable because they had money.

Conclusion

The Great Gatsby captures a period in American history where glamour and the roaring twenties were the years of excess before the fall of the great depression. Scott Fitzgerald used the characters in this novel to show that the great American dream can never make someone fully happy. This is because they will always want more than what they get, which makes achieving the dream useless.

The author further portrays that for people to be happy, they should not have boundless goals but instead learn to appreciate the present rather than obsess about the future. Fitzgerald also supported the idea that it does not matter what class of society you come from; you can also achieve success in your life.

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