I had 2 misconceptions about this story. 1) I thought it was a romance: a poor man's unsuccessful struggle to win a rich girl's heart. 2) This book is overestimated: it's not worth being a class.
After reading the whole book and the book club discussion, I discovered, The Great Gatsby is not just a common, insipid lover story. There is a man who is obsessed with climbing up the status ladder by getting married to a woman with a fine inherited position.
Gatsby was driven by his love/desire for a woman who symbolized everything he wanted, but she led him towards everything he despised. He seems to idealize her in his mind. It's vile and disgusting when Daisy and Tom calmly eat things even after the car accident as if nothing had happened. They're despicable and pathetic people who never care about other people's pain and sorrow.
This story depicts the moral failure of a society obsessed with wealth and status by chronicling Gatsby's tragic pursuit of his dream. His desire is synonymous with American dream. If the eponymous character's desire for a woman is not metaphoric for American dream, his acts are inexplicable for me.
After all, the story represents a decadent time in American history and I think this is why it became Fitzgerald's magnum opus.
The picture above is the original cover of the book. I like it because it shows decaying aspects of the opulent twenties in the US.
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