All Things Biology

Identity, Illusion, and the American Dream: The Great Gatsby and Death of a Salesman

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman are both deeply concerned with the nature of identity and the forces that shape it. Written in the aftermath of two world wars and set in periods of intense social change, the novel and the play explore how identity is formed, performed, and ultimately destabilised by shifting social values. Fitzgerald’s novel, set in the 1920s, presents identity as something constructed through wealth, illusion, and desire during the economic boom of the Roaring Twenties. In contrast, Miller’s play, set in the late 1940s, exposes how urbanisation and capitalism fracture identity in post-war America.

Together, the texts examine how identity is shaped by the American Dream, personal ambition, love, and social expectation. Rather than presenting identity as fixed or authentic, both writers suggest it is fragile, performative, and dependent on perception. Through their protagonists, Jay Gatsby and Willy Loman, Fitzgerald and Miller ultimately question whether personal identity has any real substance at all.

Setting as a Mirror of Identity

Both writers use setting to reflect their protagonists’ identities, initially presenting an image of success before gradually dismantling it. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald introduces Gatsby’s mansion as a lavish imitation of European grandeur, emphasising its excess rather than its authenticity. The house functions as a performance: it exists to project power, wealth, and social belonging. Gatsby’s identity is similarly performative — carefully constructed to suggest he belongs to the world of old money.

This illusion is reinforced through Fitzgerald’s use of colour symbolism. Gatsby’s parties are saturated with yellow imagery, from music to clothing, a colour traditionally associated with wealth and status. At first, this suggests Gatsby’s success. However, Fitzgerald subtly undermines this impression by reserving the colour gold, a more authentic symbol of wealth, for characters who genuinely belong to the upper class. In doing so, Fitzgerald exposes Gatsby’s identity as imitation rather than reality, creating ambiguity around who Gatsby truly is and where his wealth comes from.

This fragility becomes explicit after Gatsby’s death, when his mansion is described as a failed and incoherent structure. The collapse of the house mirrors the collapse of Gatsby’s identity, revealing that his carefully constructed image was ultimately empty. Fitzgerald suggests that an identity built on materialism and social performance cannot endure once it is no longer being observed.

Miller uses setting in a similar but more oppressive way. In Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman’s house is physically overshadowed by towering apartment buildings, visually trapping him within an urban landscape that no longer has space for him. The set conveys a sense of confinement and violence, emphasising Willy’s powerlessness within a capitalist system. Unlike Gatsby, who chooses to construct his environment, Willy is overwhelmed by his.

Willy’s longing for the past is expressed through pastoral language, as he reminisces about trees, gardens, and open space, symbols of a world that has been lost to urbanisation. These memories suggest that Willy’s identity belongs to a different time and place. While Gatsby’s identity disintegrates when his illusion is exposed, Willy’s identity deteriorates because he cannot reconcile who he is within the society he lives in. In both texts, setting becomes a visual representation of identity under pressure.

The American Dream and the Fracturing of Identity

A central concern of both texts is the American Dream and its impact on identity. Gatsby initially appears to embody the dream: wealth, luxury, freedom, and social mobility. His extravagant lifestyle, involving expensive cars, lavish parties, and material excess, aligns him with the optimism and consumerism of 1920s America. At first, his identity seems inseparable from this dream.

However, Fitzgerald complicates this image by revealing that Gatsby’s wealth is built on illegal activity. This revelation destabilises the reader’s perception of Gatsby and exposes the American Dream as morally compromised and fragile. Gatsby’s identity, once admired, becomes tainted, suggesting that success achieved through corruption offers no genuine fulfilment.

Yet Fitzgerald also challenges the idea that Gatsby is primarily motivated by wealth. Gatsby’s indifference towards his possessions and his willingness to abandon his parties for Daisy suggest that love, rather than money, lies at the heart of his identity. This tension complicates Gatsby’s character: while he appears to represent the American Dream, he ultimately rejects its values in favour of personal devotion. Fitzgerald suggests that Gatsby’s association with the American Dream is superficial, an image imposed upon him rather than his true motivation.

In contrast, Death of a Salesman presents the American Dream as an inescapable and destructive force. Willy Loman’s identity is defined entirely by his profession, as implied by the play’s title. He believes success depends on being well-liked and impressive, a belief that repeatedly sets him up for failure. Unlike Gatsby, who achieves wealth but rejects its values, Willy never attains success and yet remains devoted to the dream that denies him dignity.

Miller exposes the tragedy of this devotion by contrasting Willy with characters who embody alternative forms of success. Willy possesses practical skills, particularly in carpentry, that could provide genuine fulfilment, yet he rejects them because they do not align with his idealised vision of success. In pursuing a dream that does not suit his abilities, Willy loses touch with his authentic self. His identity becomes a fantasy sustained by denial rather than reality.

Dreams, Illusions, and Self-Creation

Beyond material ambition, both writers explore how dreams, particularly idealised ones, shape identity. In The Great Gatsby, Daisy becomes the centre of Gatsby’s dream. Initially, Fitzgerald presents Gatsby’s devotion as romantic, revealing only later that Gatsby’s entire life has been shaped around the hope of being reunited with her. Even Gatsby’s house is positioned deliberately across the bay from Daisy’s home, emphasising how deeply his identity is tied to this pursuit.

However, Gatsby’s vision of Daisy is profoundly idealised. She is less a real person than a symbol of everything Gatsby desires; status, belonging, and self-transformation. Fitzgerald reveals this by contrasting Gatsby’s enchanted perception of Daisy with moments that expose her ordinariness and fragility. Ultimately, Gatsby is not pursuing Daisy herself, but an idealised version of himself that he associates with her. His identity, therefore, is built on illusion rather than genuine connection.

Miller presents a similar dynamic through Willy’s memories and fantasies, particularly in his conversations with his brother Ben. Ben represents Willy’s idealised vision of success; effortless, masculine, and absolute. However, Ben exists only in Willy’s imagination, highlighting that this version of success is unattainable. Willy’s identity is shaped not by reality but by an internal narrative that continually undermines him.

Miller reinforces this through the structure of the play, which moves fluidly between past and present. The audience experiences events as Willy perceives them, blurring the line between memory and reality. This fragmented structure mirrors Willy’s fractured identity and emphasises how deeply illusion governs his sense of self.

Narrative Control and the Construction of Identity

Both writers also question how identity is shaped by narration itself. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald presents Gatsby through the voice of Nick Carraway, whose reliability is questionable from the outset. Nick claims to reserve judgement, yet frequently contradicts himself, revealing his own biases. Gatsby’s identity is therefore filtered through Nick’s admiration, guilt, and desire for meaning.

By delaying the truth about Gatsby’s past, Fitzgerald demonstrates how easily identity can be reshaped by new information. Gatsby’s greatness is revealed to be, at least in part, a narrative construction, one sustained by Nick’s romanticism. Gatsby exists not only as a character, but as an idea shaped by the act of storytelling.

Similarly, Miller constructs Willy’s identity through a subjective narrative. The audience is not given an objective account of events, but instead experiences the world as Willy does. His memories are selective, idealised, and eventually destabilised by moments of truth, such as Biff’s discovery of his affair. As Willy’s grip on reality weakens, so too does the coherence of his identity.

By the end of the play, Willy is overwhelmed by voices, memories, and imagined figures, suggesting a complete collapse of self. His suicide becomes the final consequence of an identity built on illusion and denial.

Conclusion

Both The Great Gatsby and Death of a Salesman explore identity as something unstable, constructed, and deeply influenced by social forces. Initially, Gatsby and Willy appear to embody the values of their respective eras: wealth, success, and ambition. However, as their stories unfold, these identities are exposed as fragile façades shaped by illusion, perception, and unattainable dreams.

Fitzgerald presents identity as something narrated and idealised, while Miller exposes identity as something fractured and internally conflicted. In both cases, the writers challenge the idea of a unified or authentic self, suggesting instead that identity is shaped, and often distorted, by society’s expectations. Ultimately, both texts leave us questioning whether identity is something we discover, or something we construct in the hope of being seen.

Bibliography:

Discover more from All Things Biology

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading