Many individuals in the past and present have been ashamed of their lineage, so in order to gain a sense self-fulfillment those individuals might choose to create a new identity. In The Great Gatsby (1925) by F. Scotts Fitzgerald and The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man (1912) by James Weldon Johnson both writers examine the possibilities and tragedies associated the with the American Dream. By examining Jay Gatsby’s relationship with Nick Carraway, Daisy Buchanan, and Tom Buchanan, and by examining the Ex-Coloured man’s relationship with his mother, Shiny, and his fascination of Booker T. Washington, we understand how each protagonist is influenced to pursue a false identity. First, I will discuss about Gatsby’s relationship with Nick Carraway.
Nick is a compassionate and intellectual individual whose white heritage becomes the focal point to Gatsby’s relentless effort to mask his identity. Nick is the narrator in this novel who writes about the experiences he has during the summer of 1922. Nick moves to New York from the Mid-West, in pursuit of a job as a bond dealer. Nick’s main objective is to determine the truth behind the “American Dream”. Instead of a ascertaining the ramifications of the “American Dream”, Nick encounters an American nightmare, which ultimately changes the way he thinks about mankind. On the second page of this novel, Fitzgerald gives a rather interesting explanation on Nick’s observation of Gatsby. In retrospect, Nick ponders about Gatsby and the frivolous thrills that allure, him when Fitzgerald assert: “No-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” (2). What Fitzgerald does in this novel is that he gives us the end of the story in the beginning, which is a good writer’s tool in letting the reader understand some of what the character(s) are trying...