In Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby, the reader discovers multiple interpretations of utopia. Each character desires a particular paradise. Only one character actually reaches utopia, and the arrival is a mixed blessing at best. The concept of heaven in The Great Gatsby is "a shifting, evanescent illusion of happiness, joy, love, and perfection, a mirage that leads each character to reach deeper, to look deeper, to try harder" (Lehan , 57). Meanwhile, time distances each individual from the moment he seeks it. There's Myrtle Wilson's flashy, flashy paradise hotel where she can pretend to be glamorous, elite, sought-after and loved. He clings fiercely enough to this threadbare dream to defy the wrath of Tom Buchanan by expressing his jealous terror that he will return to his wife. There is a desperation to his full and lively lifestyle, he wants so badly to escape the gray and dead land of the Valley of Ashes that he colors his life with every brightness he can find, be it broken glass or diamonds. Nick describes the land he finds himself in as a wasteland, a desert, saying "this is the Valley of Ashes - a fantastic farm where the ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens, where the ashes take the shape of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, of men moving confusedly and already crumbling in the dusty air" (Fitzgerald, 27). It is from this that Myrtle seeks to escape, from this life-death valley that embodies the soft underbelly of New York's glitter and lights and trappings, and into which she is dragged back by the nascent jealous rage of a normally unassuming husband. To escape the greyness and death, the col...... middle of paper ......any fall from grace, only Nick reemerges, burdened by his understanding of the whole tragedy. Works Cited and Consulted:Claridge, Henry, ed. F. Scott Fitzgerald: Critical Assessments. 4 vols. Robertsbridge, UK: Helm, 1992. Donaldson, Scott, ed. Critical essays on "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1984. Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. Ed. Matteo J. Bruccoli. Toronto: Simon & Schuster Inc, 1995. Lehan, Richard D. F. "The Great Gatsby": The Limits of Wonder. Boston: Twayne, 1990. Rowe, Joyce A. “Delusions of American Idealism.” In readings on the great Gatsby. edited by Katie de Koster.San Diego, California: Greenhaven Press. 1998. 87-95. Trillo, Lionel. “F. Scott Fitzgerald.” Critical essays on Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby". Ed. Scott Donaldson. Boston: Hall, 1984. 13-20.