d, this time to insinuate the lost dreams of a common woman. Fitzgerald also uses this symbol when he writes of Gatsby's vanquished hopes. Gatsby was a man who had fulfilled most of his dreams. He had a large house, lots of money, and he mingled with the rich and famous, but he still had one thing that he needed to make him happy (50; ch. 3). Gatsby had achieved all that he had for one purpose: to win the woman that he loved, Daisy (79; ch. 4). Gatsby finally had realized his dreams for a short while, when Daisy told him that she loved him (116; ch. 7). However, this perfection didn't last very long. Daisy soon went back to Tom, and Gatsby's visions of his ideal life were destroyed. When Nick visits Gatsby's house after Daisy had gone back to Tom, he noticed that "there was an inexplicable amount of dust everywhere" (147, ch. 8). This dust was what remained of Gatsby's obliterated fantasies. Fitzgerald foreshadows the end of Gatsby's hopes in the very beginning of the novel also by talking about dust. "It is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men" (2; ch. 1). This reference to the conclusion of the book shows Fitzgerald's view that happiness is only available for a short period of time. Dust again portrays the image of the tiny fragments of hope left in the trail of dashed dreams. In conclusion, F. Scott Fitzgerald writes of many themes and uses many symbols in The Great Gatsby, but none is more obvious than the theme of the impossibility of the perfect life. By the end of the novel, none of the characters has achieved happiness through their dreams or actions, and Fitzgerald often refers to dust in order to symbolize lost hopes and aspirations of the common-born characters that try to move up in society. Myrtle Wilson was an ordinary, poor woman who dreams of a better life, and dust is used in...
