What sank the novel in 1925 is the source of its success today. "The Great Gatsby" challenges the myth of the American Dream, glowing like the green light on Daisy's dock in the Roaring '20s: "It eluded us then, but that's no matter -- tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther ... And one fine morning" lose the Dream in the social upheavals, violence and unpleasant realities of the decades after the 1950s. The novel anticipates the disillusionment and emptiness found in the standard version of the Dream that became prevalent, if not accepted, in a later era. In the character of Jay Gatsby, Fitzgerald caught the contradictions of romantic illusion in the heartless, cynical modern society that tolerated criminals like Gatsby as long as they picked up the check. He's the attractive, flawed hero, an early Tony Soprano, whose death seems a tragedy but is the consequence of his old-fashioned chivalrous gesture to save his princess. He's quickly forgotten. No one attends his funeral, and the world of East Egg -- the true American aristocracy -- moves on
