The Great Gatsby 读后感

The Great Gatsby is the representative work of American writer Francis Scoot Fitzgerald. It is a true reflection of the 1920s. The book is a classical novel and has profound meaning of the essence of the American dream’s illusory. The writer showed the American society after the WWI in the book. It uncovers the money worship and hedonism in the Jazz Age and people’s selfishness in indifference at that time. What the novel describes is a tragic story about the disillusion of the American dream.

The theme of the novel is to present the tragedy of the American dream’s disillusion by showing the story of Gatsby’s pursuing of dream. The so-called ‘American dream’ means that in America everyone is equality of opportunity. People can realize their dream and achieve success just by their struggle. The American dream has always been an ideal that people are convinced of and pursue of. It is a kind of spiritual strength that promote America to develop and become flourishing quickly. After the WWI, America entered an unprecedented era of prosperity and the American dream became a crazy worship to money. The wind of money worship prevailed. Therefore, the American dream had been deteriorated as the social develop.

In this novel, the short life of Gatsby has gone through the process of dream from starting to burst. It symbolizes the rise and burst of the American dream at the same time. One side of his American dream is the dream of money. He realized this dream by illegal business which made him from a poor boy to a millionaire. However, the other side of his dream is the dream of love and it led him to a sad ending. In fact, his loving dream is another form of his money dream. At first when he fell in love with Daisy, he was attracted by her material life. Daisy is the combination of love and money which he’s longing for. She is the represent of a beautiful life. However, in real life, Daisy is far from what Gatsby imagines. She is a selfish, shallow and timid girl and all she wants are money and high social life. Finally Gatsby’s dream broke and it also symbolizes the broken American dream. The essence of the tragedy of Gatsby is the tragedy of American idealism. But then again, although Gatsby’s effort did not pay off, his spirit of struggling to realize his dream and change the fate is moving and deserves our admiration and learning.