F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is a classic American tragedy. The novel has all the basic elements necessary to classify a story as a tragedy: a tragic hero, his character flaw, and a twist of fate which results in the hero's ultimate destruction. Jay Gatsby is the doomed tragic hero, blinded by his irrational dream to relive the past. Fate interferes in the form of the unexpected manslaughter of one character's mistress by his …showed first 75 words of 935 total…

…showed last 75 words of 935 total…dream tumbled into a brick wall and things were sent spinning in disarray, there was no longer a place for Jay Gatsby. He had come to belong only to his dream, and was consumed by it. "...Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men."