The way The Great Gatsby ends leaves Nick’s story unresolved. While the reader is privy to the fact that Nick is leaving New York to head back to the Middle West and that he cuts ties with everyone he has met in West Egg, what he does when he arrives at his later destination and what happens to him is uncertain. Fitzgerald has concluded the novel in this inconclusive manner because after all that Nick has experienced in West Egg, inconclusive is probably the best way to describe the life plan that Nick has for himself as he sits on the beach in the last scene of the novel. Being exposed to the careless social elite lifestyle of the West and being witness to the demise of the Great Gatsby has largely diminished his once strong faith in people, goals, and his own aspirations.
Jay Gatsby was a man of dreams. He dreamed up a dream house and dream lifestyle to attract his dream girl, who he foolishly let get away in his youth. Everything that he did in his life after Daisy slipped away was to somehow bring her back to him again. While patiently waiting and planning had brought Daisy back into his life, the dream of her had become overly glorified in comparison to his actual reunion with her. Just as Gatsby hypes up Daisy in his mind, it seems that the American dream has become so enshrined that once it is achieved, those who are in possession of it either do not know what to do with it or are still unsatisfied because it is not all they had thought it up to be. In addition to being over-estimated, the American dream appears to be just barely out of reach at all times. In Gatsby’s case, he spent his whole life working to obtain the dream. Once he had the last variable of his American dream within reach (Daisy), the whole operation fell to pieces. In the case of Tom and Daisy, they seemed to have it all from the outsider’s perspective. Upon closer speculation, however, it became evident that their lives were less than perfect. Though Nick is the main character in the novel, he plays the role of observer more than partaker in his own story. Through all of his observations, he comes to the realization that the pursuit of the American dream is fruitless. Not because there is no such thing as the American dream, but because there is such a thing as men. While Nick says that Gatsby turned out all right in the end, he then goes on to say that "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". The foul dust or the corruption of men had thwarted Gatsby from achieving what he had worked for all his life. Realizing that though this foul dust is more prominent in the city, it is present everywhere, Nick seems to be discouraged in his own life. Nick goes on to say in the end, “to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther….And one fine morning—“. This incomplete thought is a representation of Gatsby’s incomplete life and Nick’s newfound outlook on the life of men and the American dream.