TheGreatGatsbyMotifEssay - Frank Xu January 5th 2017...

Frank Xu
January 5th, 2017
Teacher Suzanne
English 11
Humans are fascinated with pursuing their dream, and the book The Great Gatsby
successfully expresses this message. In the book, the author F.Scott Fitzgerald talks about the
failure of American dream. The characters in the book are seduced by their dream of moving into
higher social class and the dream finally causes their death. Despite of their perseverance and
optimism, their dreams finally become bubbles and break down as the time moves on. In tracing
the motif of “car” in the novel, readers come to understand that car is closely related to social
mobility. The author conveys a message that the barrier between different social classes is
impossible to overcome.
Gatsby doesn’t understand how cars differentiate him from the upper class people. He
considers showy car as a representation of social status. In the novel, Gatsby has countless cars.
“It was a rich cream color, bright with nickel, swollen here and there in its monstrous length with
triumphant hat boxes and supper-boxes and toolboxes, and terraced with a labyrinth of
windshields that mirrored a dozen suns. Sitting down behind many layers of glass in a sort of
green leather conservatory we started to town.”(64) Gatsby’s car represents his social status. It
express the message that he is extremely wealthy. However, it only shows his gaudiness with the
excessive adornment but not the noble connotation of the “old money”. The “monstrous length”