A Freudian Reading of The Great GatsbyF. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby is generally considered to be an excellent novel that expresses much more than the superficial plot. The Great Gatsby, however, might be more complex than the average reader might imagine. The Great Gatsby is often interpreted as the corruption of the American dream. In this framework, the Buchanans are seen as the example of irresponsibility and degradation, and Gatsby the embodiment of idealism and sentimentality. In this essay, I wish to offer an alternative reading of The Great Gatsby within the Freudian frame of reference. I like to start with the last one. In the final chapter of this novel we are confronted with the mystifying passage: ... gradually I became aware of the old island here that once flourished before the eyes of Dutch sailors - a fresh, green breast of the new world. its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby's house, had once yielded in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for an enchanted moment, man had to hold his breath in the presence of this continent, forced into an aesthetic contemplation that he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something to measure of its capacity for wonder. is important and should not be easily overlooked. The “fresh, green breast of the new world” and the “last and greatest of all human dreams” are two fatal phrases that help launch my Freudian reading of The Great Gatsby. According to Freud's theory, at the beginning of the sexual development of both boys and girls, the mother is the first desired object, considered omnipotent and capable...... middle of paper ...... illusion: " Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that recedes before us year by year” (228) Nick and Gatsby move away from adult sexuality and toward the infant state in which the breasts of the mother are desired. This withdrawal is expressed most obviously in the last sentence: “So we continued, boats against the current, constantly brought back into the past” (228).Notes(1) The question. of Nick's sexuality is discussed in detail and in depth in Keath's Another Reading of The Great Gatsby. Works Cited Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. by The Great Gatsby." The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Ed. Harold Bloom. NY: Chelsea House Publishers, 1986. 57-70. Green, Keith and Jill LeBihan. Critical Theory and Practice: A Coursebook. New York: Routledge, 1996.