The Power Of Reality In The Great Gatsby

The only thing that matters for Gatsby is the future: achieving his goal of reclaiming Daisy. That is a part of the power of the American Dream—the insignificance of the past. A fictional history is just as useful as a truthful history. So Gatsby constructs lavish lies that he doesn’t even bother to hide in a shred of reality. For instance, when he decides to convince Nick Carraway that he isn’t a “nobody,” Gatsby casually mentions that he’s the “‘son of wealthy people in the Middle West … but well educated at Oxford, because all my ancestors have been educated there for many years’” (ch. 4 pg64).