In the final few paragraphs of the novel, Nick Carraway, the narrator, says, "I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors' eyes -- fresh, green breast of the new world." When Gatsby (and George and Myrtle Wilson) died, Nick seemed to reach a certain level of understanding regarding the American Dream: the idea that anyone can, through hard work and perseverance, prosper. He comes to realize that the dream is really a fiction, that it is not actually attainable (in fact, the attempt to attain it has killed three people he knew), but he references the Dutch as those who settled this part of the country and, perhaps, initiated this dream. He considers what they must have thought when they saw this beauty and how it would have "compelled [each of them] into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired [...]." He imagines their wonder, their sense that anything might be possible in this beautiful place, comparing them and their feelings to Gatsby and his undying belief in the American dream. The fact that Nick refers to this belief as a kind of "enchant[ment]" shows that he no longer believes that the dream is truly possible.
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