The Great Gatsby and Hope

Whilst googling the term 'Hope Springs Eternal' I found numerous results from across the globe, all linking to completely unrelated events with just one thing in common - the promotion of optimism, despite bad forecasting.

Hope for the future is what keeps a man going - this is what Alexander Pope was trying to convey when he wrote this verse within An Essay on Man, and this too is what Fitzgerald, an educated man who would have been familiar with Pope, embodies throughout his novel The Great Gatsby. 

Fitzgerald promotes the ideal of seeking happiness, of reaching for your dream and grasping it with both hands, but not blindly, and definitely not to the expense of all others. In The Great Gatsby he champions the dreamer, the optimistic man who strives for excellence because of a vision he has - his individually unique American Dream. And although he clearly expresses doubts as to the importance that dream should have in your life, and the methods you should use to get it, he does endorse the importance of having a dream.

This optimism is still alive today, and may well survive into the endless and unknown future - something untouched by time and society. Dreams can become corrupted, as we see with Gatsby's vision of Daisy, but optimism is a state of being that all people must enter in order to find existence bearable. Whether we hope for death or hope for life, we all express hope.

http://www.wickedlocal.com/waltham/news/x1626870456/Waltham-voices-Can-hope-spring-eternal#axzz1gQ3lfpqR

This article from the website of a local news company in Waltham, MA questions whether hope can really spring eternal. It asks, 'what makes hope worthwhile in this secular life?' in much the same way Fitzgerald questions the value of hoping for something honest in the hedonistic society of 1920s America.

The article goes on to relate hope and expectations to the upcoming holiday season, speaking of the anticipation of receiving expensive gifts and the high expectations people hold, regardless of the current economic climate. It indicates that we come to expect too much from other people, and put too much pressure on ourselves to spend money on gifts - money that may have a better and more practical use.

This is very reminiscent of the attitude Gatsby holds towards Daisy - he embodies her with qualities she doesn't have, and strives to better himself in expensive and complicated ways because this is what society would expect from him. And just like Gatsby, upon achieving a pale version of his dream, people are inevitably disappointed over the Christmas period when they do not always receive what they want, or what they want is not everything it should be.

The author of this piece hints that hope cannot exist without conflict, but that the main conflict in life exists within ourselves and the battle we have over doing the right thing. Throughout The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald can be seen to be in agreement with this notion, especially with regards to the character and choice of narrative in Nick Carraway - a man who struggles to see the good in a world that is growing increasingly convoluted. Through Nick, Fitzgerald admires Gatsby as a great dreamer, but he doubts in his character because of the ways he tries to achieve his dream - the bootlegging and other nefarious activities we are left to guess about.

The article then suggests that 'Whatever conflict(s) occur in our lives, the combination of optimism and positive thinking just may be the best approach to avoiding hopelessness.' And I think, were Fitzgerald alive today, he would agree with this summary. Gatsby may have had a tragic end, but his hope kept him alive for that long, and if in the end the right thing had been done, he may have survived to see another day.