Imperfect Reality, Unattainable Dream Essay

A dream creates ideal circumstances which are not ideal in reality. Reality instigates the destruction of the ideal and therefore encourages one to fantasize about that which is unattainable in actuality. In one’s imperfect reality, a dream is unattainable; thus, one may often compromise or modify his dream in order for it to match or perhaps justify the practical. This imperfect reality generates an unattainable dream. Jay Gatsby’s disillusionment in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby permits Gatsby to imagine that which will never exist. When his reality and fantasy collide in such a way, his fantasy perishes, and additional conflicted dreams and imperfect reality ensue. Gatsby’s passion is an exercise in futility because reality prohibits the execution of such a dream. Gatsby’s passionate illusion develops based on wishes which cannot be met in his reality. Human wonder allows him to envision his fantastic image; however, he finds that it is â€Å"pervaded with a melancholy beauty† because the potential of his beautiful dream deteriorates in his harsh material world (Fitzgerald 152).Gatsby fails to realize that Daisy is the type of woman who cannot â€Å"be over- dreamed† for she lives her life in a concrete world with which Gatsby is unfamiliar (Fitzgerald 96). Gatsby’s failure to recognize that Daisy flourishes in the material world leads him to believe that she loves him, and that she â€Å"never loved† her husband (Fitzgerald 103). Gatsby’s reality does not match his fantasy, though, for he loses â€Å"the freshest and the best† his reality offers when Daisy refuses to marry him (Fitzgerald 153). His reality and his dream become unaligned after Daisy’s refusal; he begins to reconstruct and embellish his vision and consequently, he exhausts and eradicates his reality. Gatsby’s i ntention to marry and love Daisy is honorable until he exhausts the tangible. He begins to revere his dream and, as a result, he fails to recognize that his illusion is unfeasible in actuality. He continues to de-humanize Daisy until he no longer loves her, but rather his illusion of her. Daisy’s flaws are human, but Gatsby eliminates such flaws in his dream; therefore he sets a standard which Daisy never achieves. Gatsby ultimately pays â€Å"a high price for living too long with a single dream† and never regains a sense of the â€Å"old warm world† where everything is definite and concrete; he continues to try to create what is â€Å"no longer tangible† (Fitzgerald 161.161.134). His attempts are in vain because his reality never matches his fantasy; his dreams are passionate but Gatsby’s realization that his idealized vision is neither practical nor palpable both metaphorically and physically deteriorates him. When the â€Å"colossal significance† of his illusion vanishes, â€Å"only the dead dream† keeps him alive (Fitzgerald 93.134). The destruction of Gatsby’s dream parallels the destruction of innocence. The eradication of his sole hope and desire forces Gatsby into a world foreign to him: reality. The concrete world slowly deteriorates Gatsby’s mind until the â€Å"holocaust† is complete (Fitzgerald 162). Gatsby’s physical death is not as â€Å"invariably saddening† as the metaphorical death of his dream, for upon the destruction of his dream, he has nothing for which to live The standards set in Gatsby’s dream never match his reality, thus his continued attempts to achieve such standards are in vain. Unfortunately, his disillusionment allows a cyclical pattern to develop in which his imperfect reality constantly fuels his dream. Without the recognition that his dream will never match his reality, Gatsby remains an unsatisfied man. His dissatisfaction consequently corrupts his dream and instigates the cycle of discontent with which he lives until his unfortunate death.