Dr Pragya Khanna
kpragyaprannath@gmail.com
Adamic Failures and Quixotic Redemptions is a thoughtful and engaging book in which Dr. Seema Arora looks closely at the American Dream as it appears, and often crumbles, in the novels of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Although the book began as a PhD thesis, it does not feel rigid or overly specialized or esoteric. Instead, it reads like a careful, sustained observation on dreams, ideals, and the quiet disillusionment or rude awakening that follows when those dreams meet reality.
The title itself sets the mood of the study. “Adamic failures” suggests the loss of innocence or purity that once lay at the heart of the American self-image, while “quixotic redemptions” points to the almost stubborn hope with which Fitzgerald’s characters keep chasing meaning, even when the odds are against them. Dr. Arora uses these ideas gently but effectively, allowing them to guide her reading of Fitzgerald rather than forcing theory onto the novels. In the Preface of the book, the author clearly explains how the American Dream shifted over time. What began as a hopeful and rosy vision of moral and personal growth gradually turned into a race for money, status, and power. By drawing on R. W. B. Lewis’s idea of the “American Adam,” Dr. Arora shows how Americans once believed themselves to be starting afresh, free from history and old-world burdens. Fitzgerald’s fiction, she argues, exposes how frail and flimsy this belief really was, especially during the Jazz Age and the Great Depression.
The Introduction sets up the main concerns of the book without sounding heavy or intimidating. Dr. Arora treats the American Dream neither as a myth to be worshipped nor as a fantasy to be completely declined. Instead, she projects it as something profoundly human, capable of inspiring hope but also liable for deep disappointment. Each chapter focuses on one of Fitzgerald’s major novels and follows the gradual and slow collapse of the dream. In ‘This Side of Paradise’, failure becomes a kind of awakening, forcing the hero to face life beyond youthful hope and idealism. ‘The Beautiful and Damned’ moves further into emotional emptiness, showing how pleasure without purpose leads to loss rather than fulfilment. The chapter on ‘The Great Gatsby’ is especially noteworthy. Gatsby comes across as both admirable and tragic, a man who believes genuinely and passionately in his dream, even when the world around him is hollow. Dr. Arora suggests that Gatsby’s greatness lies not in what he achieves, but in his capability to dream at all.
In ‘Tender Is the Night’, values like honour and courage appear increasingly fragile, worn down by social pressures and personal weakness. ‘The Last Tycoon’, Fitzgerald’s unfinished novel, is read as a more inward story, one that reflects a restless search for identity and meaning rather than clear success or failure.
The Epilogue in the end steps back to ask a simple but powerful question: do our dreams make us successful, or do they quietly defeat us? By connecting Fitzgerald’s characters to broader philosophical ideas, Dr. Arora reminds us that these struggles are not limited to one country or one era. They are part of the human condition. Overall, in my opinion, ‘Adamic Failures and Quixotic Redemptions’ is a sensitive and well-written study that goes beyond literary analysis. It encourages readers to think about why we dream, what we sacrifice in the process, and whether the dreams we chase are truly worth their cost. The book will appeal not only to students and scholars of American literature, but also to anyone interested in the uneasy relationship between hope and reality.
(The reviewer is Principal GDC Hiranagar)
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