Fish in a Fish Bowl

I feel that Gatsby never awoke from his dream. Even until the end (end of the novel, end of working his life up to be the way it was, and the end of his life!) Gatsby still was in his imaginary life and grasping onto that American Dream. But I do think he was definitely aware of the mistakes he was making and also that this life that he had created for himself wasn't real. Or in other words, he did comprehend the real world and his real self in which he should be living. He did realize as he "looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves...and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass. A new world, material without being real,..." He just didn't want to change. He couldn't--he didn't know how or who else he could be.

I basically see Gatsby as a fish in a glass fish bowl. He is engulfed in a world in which he calls his own, but he can also see the outside world and the reality of it. Inside his world (bowl) he has what seems to be ideal to him, but when he looks outside the glass he can see he is wrong. But, he just keeps swimming in his own current and denies what he see's or the influences around him. (Knowing that Daisy really loves Tom too, his business is in vain, he is not Jay Gatsby).

What Nick states in his internal thoughts at the end of the novel about Gatsby is entirely true--that he did come so close to that ideal dream and that he "was so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it." That sentence, along with Gatsby's death, made me so sad within the end of the book! And I disagree that he did realize that "...it was already behind him." That was evident within the first meeting with Daisy. Even though he lived in this unobtainable world, he was still striving for something greater in life and had goals in which he would die to succeed upon--even if they weren't moral or valuable, he still had the character traits for someone with much dedication, perseverance, and potential.