of the original dream on which America was founded. At the end of the novel, Nick returns to the Midwest with this disconcerting knowledge, reflecting on Gatsby's life as the struggle of the American people in a society losing its humanity: "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past" (pg 189). The dream is now utterly lost and can never be resurrected. Through the unfolding events of a doomed romance, Fitzgerald simultaneously unfolds the tragic fate of American values. Gatsby and the other characters of his story act as vessels for the author's true message- the American Dream, once a pure and mighty ideal, has been buried and is pressed into the ground by the inhuman void of money. Nick Carraway conveys this message as an outsider, an honest man who is witnessing the entire ordeal as an observer. The Great Gatsby is not the eulogy of a man named Jay Gatsby; rather, it is the eulogy of an institution which once was, but is now gone and can never be. ...
