Examples Of Alienation In The Great Gatsby

If you were a lone swan striving to be assimilated into a flock of ducks, what would cause them to think of you as inferior and torment you with every kind of abuse imaginable? As a metaphor, this question can relate to the causes of African-American discrimination during the era of the Harlem Renaissance. Whether it was a result of fear, hatred, or the aftermath of a history of slavery, alienation between the dark-skinned and the rest of society was created and never forgotten. In “The Great Gatsby” by Scott Fitzgerald, the author conceives that alienation can be provoked by one’s memories of the past and their unwillingness to accept that what they remember and the present may differ. On the other hand, Paul Laurence Dunbar refers that alienation can be a result of ignorance and lack of action in his poem “We Wear the Mask”. “A Black Man Talks of Reaping”, a poem written by Arna Bontemps, …show more content…
In the story, Mr. Nick Carraway describes the story of his good friend Jay Gatsby, who gave his life to a memory of his old sweetheart before he went off to was “just as if it were five years ago”. However, unbeknownst to the “colossal vitality of his illusion”, the now married Daisy Buchanan had changed a lot. Due to his “living too long with a single dream” and through a series of unfortunate events, Gatsby, who had “lost the old warm world” he once knew, was found dead and Daisy, along with her husband Tom, were never seen or heard of again. This story can be seen as a cause of alienation because, much like Gatsby, people of white-skinned origin are unwilling to change their hostility towards the dark-skinned because of the given history of blacks being slaves to those who are white. Much like a dog chasing its own tail, one may chase the past but will get nowhere. Hence the only way is to forget the past and choose a new