Primary Theme in the Great Gatsby

Since The Great Gatsby is such a complicated novel, even though it is quite short, it is a little challenging to pinpoint one exact theme for the book. But out of all that we chose, "Death of the American Dream" is the most prominent.

Firstly, and most prominently, are the last two paragraphs of the entire book. They read:

"He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night. 

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter- to−morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . and one fine morning... So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

Since these are the closing paragraphs of the entire novel. it seems fitting that the message they convey would be the message conveyed throughout the entire book.

The second piece of evidence comes from the moment of Gatsby's death (never shown in the actual novel, but described):

"After two years I remember the rest of that day, and that night and the next day, only as an endless drill of police and photographers and newspaper men in and out of Gatsby's front door. A rope stretched across the main gate and a policeman by it kept out the curious, but little boys soon discovered that they could enter through my yard, and there were always a few of them clustered open−mouthed about the pool. Someone with a positive manner, perhaps a detective, used the expression "madman." as he bent over Wilson's body that afternoon, and the adventitious authority of his voice set the key for the newspaper reports next morning.

Most of those reports were a nightmare - grotesque, circumstantial, eager, and untrue. When Michaelis's testimony at the inquest brought to light Wilson's suspicions of his wife I thought the whole tale would shortly be served up in racy pasquinade but Catherine, who might have said anything, didn't say a word. She showed a surprising amount of character about it too looked at the coroner with determined eyes under that corrected brow of hers, and swore that her sister had never seen Gatsby, that her sister was completely happy with her husband, that her sister had been into no mischief whatever. She convinced herself of it, and cried into her handkerchief, as if the very suggestion was more than she could endure. So Wilson was reduced to a man "deranged by grief." in order that the case might remain in its simplist form. And it rested there. 

But all this part of it seemed remote and unessential. 

I found myself on Gatsby's side, and alone.

 From the moment I telephoned news of the catastrophe to West Egg village, every surmise about him, and every practical question, was referred to me. At first I was surprised and confused; then, as he lay in his house and didn't move or breathe or speak, hour upon hour, it grew upon me that I was responsible, because no one else was interested − interested, I mean, with that intense personal interest to which every one has some vague right at the end.

 I called up Daisy half an hour after we found him, called her instinctively and without hesitation. But she and Tom had gone away early that afternoon, and taken baggage with them."

One of the most discussed parts of the book (particularly in relation to this theory), here we see the result of Gatsby taking the fall for Daisy: his inevitable death. Gatsby himself, throughout the entire novel, represented the American Dream, and so his death would only naturally be analogous to the death of the American Dream.

Our final piece of evidence:

"His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy's white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning−fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips' touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete." 

Here is much less obvious, but I still found it interesting nonetheless. Here, we see that Gatsby seems to have made it with his ultimate (but ultimately unattainable) goal: Daisy Buchanan. With this kiss, he is almost bound to her in a way. It lights up a spark in Gatsby that quite possibly shapes his decisions in the rest of the novel. Therefore, I would say that this particular moment represents the obsessive connection to the American Dream that Gatsby had.