...In The novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, he creates Gatsby as a character who becomes great. Gatsby is great in a way that ordinary seems normal, and being a lower-class citizen brings great value into becoming a better person. But He dreams of becoming wealthy and living a luxurious life. So, he is great in a way that leads him to the determination in his attempts to win over the girl of his dreams.Throughout Gatsby's life, he gains and loses the title of being great. Gatsby is represented as a great man but he falls short of being great. Gatsby does not achieve love but he possess it by buying material things .He does not use his wealth for good but for selfish reasons. For example, a reason why he is not great is when Nick says, " he talked alot about the past, and i gathered that he wanted to recover something,some idea of himself perhaps.."(chapter 6). Gatsby knows he can not change his past but he wants to anyways. His past is not something he or anyone should be proud of. It shows what kind of man he is. A reason why Gatsby is great is when he was named James Gatz. He had a dream of leaving his life on the farm and becoming part of the upper-class. Even Gatsby's...
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...One of the greatest debates in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is whether or not the titular character, Jay Gatsby, is indeed great. At the heart of this debate is whether or not he is a romantic man whose rags-to-riches rise is to be admired or a dishonest conman and criminal. Other people may not like him because of the way he got his money. The main things that shows that Gatsby is a good man is how he is ambitions, humble, romantic relationship with Daisy. One of Gatsby’s most admirable traits is his ambition, which led him to rise from poverty to spectacular wealth. Gatsby grew up poor in rural North Dakota, but he was determined from his youth to transcend his humble beginnings. One example of this early determination is seen when...
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...In The Great Gatsby and Of Mice and Men both authors portray the American Dream that no matter what happens it's going to fail at some point. In The Great Gatsby the author introduces the green light which symbolizes Gatsby’s hopes and dreams for a contented life with Daisy. The author also ironically shares Gatsby life as a kid, with Gatsby growing up poor and hopeless all he wanted to do was be able to make money and to be known for his own success. In Of Mice and Men the author introduce George, whose dream was to work on a farm hard enough that he could one day be able to have his own with Lennie. George’s buddy Lennie had the same dream in mind, he wanted to own a farm with George and raise lots animals specifically rabbits. The characters...
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...The Great Gatsby The Great Gatsby The Great Gatsby is a 1925 novel written by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald that shadows a cast of characters living in the fictional town of West Egg on the prosperous Long Island in the summer of 1922. The story focuses primarily the young and mysterious bachelor Jay Gatsby and his quixotic passion and obsession for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan. The Great Gatsby offers a vivid variety of social commentary, dwelling heavily on the theme of the abandoned American dream, Fitzgerald exposes this due to the apparent blind fixation on the past that the story exhibits with the characterisation of Jay Gatsby. Perhaps none is more sophiscated and well established than the sense of social stratification. The book is regarded as a remarkable piece of writing as it conveys the moral issues different social classes had to deal with in the 1920’s. Through exposing distinct social classes Fitzgerald delivers a strong sense of elitism circulating the society. Fitzgerald’s first method of approach was to create the riches and place them into distinct groups, new money and old money. New money were the people who benefited from the ufrom prohibited business trades such as the illegal selling of liquor Gatsby participated in. Characters in the story that acquired the majority of their wealth through inheritance include Daisy Buchanan, Tom Buchanan and Jordan Baker – these characters are referred to as examples of “old money.” Their family were rich and...
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...The Great Gatsby and Leadership Certain leaders stand out in our memories when thinking about leadership. We remember them for their charm and charisma or maybe we remember the way they presented themselves. We remember that important conversation we shared which was so important to us, and that speech that left the crowd speechless and inspired. We remember the leader who picked us up when we were down and the leader who had faith in us when no one else did. Those leaders were special and unique. They were great and had the ability to lead like no other. Great leaders possess many leadership traits that make them exceptional. Jay Gatsby in my opinion withholds the concept of leadership tremendously. He is someone that everyone looks up to and tries to gain his qualities and roles. He has impeccable communication skills because he is able to portray his confidence, enthusiasm, and enough trustworthiness to engage his audience, no matter how big or small. He believed in himself and by doing so, made others believe in him too. A great leader has empathy. Jay will go the extra mile to gain a better understanding of you as a person, Just like how he confronted Nick in such a manner that was respectable and intriguing. Jay also portrays a great deal of adaptability. The ability to reinvent and reposition yourself is an advantageous skill. Gatsby started out as one thing, a poor boy from a poor family, and ended up as a self-made millionaire. While the steps he took throughout...
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...Persistence, hope, and determination are some of the greatest human traits; but they can also be our downfall. Separately, these traits harbor great potential, but together they can lead to desperation and chasing after unrequited love. Relationships are the greatest example of this, specifically the relationship between Gatsby and Daisy. He spent his whole life stumbling after a girl who enticed him with the merest hint of love, yet fell short when it mattered most. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, the unwillingness to let go of his feeling for Daisy was the real cause of Gatsby’s death. Gatsby’s denial of the changes between him and Daisy are prevalent but subtle. It’s been years since he and Daisy were courting each other, yet...
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...In the novel The Great Gatsby by Scott F. Fitzgerald, the term “American dream” is used quite frequently. What is the American dream? It is defined as the ideal that every US citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination and initiative. In this work, the American dream is shown as only able to be achieved corruptly and dishonestly. One of the biggest portrayals of the corruptness is by Mr. Gatsby himself. James Gatz was born like any other person, into a poor family. When Gatsby was young he did work hard to get what little money he had, but when the opportunity came around, he lied. He lied about his entire identity and became Jay Gatsby, a man born to a rich, midwestern family....
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...capture particular periods in history. The unreachable green light beckoning from across the bay in The Great Gatsby Has become a symbol of the yearning of America in the 1920’s” (David Ignatius). During the time this book was written, a new age broke out called the roaring 20s. This was a time in American history where we defied almost all laws, expressed ourselves in rebellious ways through dancing, music, and partying, as well as demoted many traditional moral standards. The 1920s were filled with wild parties, new ideas about life, and unnecessary drinking with a lot of reckless behavior. In the book, The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, there are many characters who are self centered, manipulative, and carless....
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...Disillusionment and failure in The Great Gatsby In the book The Great Gatsby, author F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the theme of disillusionment, love, lust and failure in order to portray the “American dream”. The American dream is the ideal that every US citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative. Many believe that the American dream is “earned”, but what they don't know is that there is a lot of “behind the scenes” money making deals that occur. And these deals put you at the top without even asking. For example Gatsby wasn't the perfect man that he was imagined to be. Jay Gatsby's real name was, James Gatz and the change seemed right when he “reinvented” himself. Gatsby didn't like being the son of farmers and was embarrassed about where he was from. “His imagination had never really accepted them as his parents at all.” He changed it at the age of 17 because of his transformation when he met Dan Cody. This one of the main reasons he hid his background from people. The other was that in reality Gatsby was indeed an unrepentant criminal, who bootlegged his way through the Prohibition to create his wealth and pursue his dream. The prohibition was a nationwide constitutional ban on the sale, production, importation, and transportation of alcoholic beverages that remained in place from 1920 to 1933. To make his way to the top and to pursue the “American dream” Gatsby basically illegally sold alcoholic beverages...
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...Buying Happiness and Love in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby The American Dream is starting with nothing and through hard work and determination one can achieve millions of dollars and all the happiness one can handle. This may not be true, if that person tries to buy the past to regain the happiness he will never succeed and mostly likely end up very unhappy. A good example of this in fiction is F. Scott Fitzgerald's, The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald criticizes the American dream in his novel, The Great Gatsby, by showing Jay Gatsby's tragic flaw, his belief that money can buy happiness and his love for Daisy. The first example of Gatsby's belief that money can buy his happiness is when Nick Carraway describes the subdivision in which he lives, West Egg. The subdivision across the water is East Egg. The houses are very luxurious to say the least. On the other hand, there is a distinction between the two. The West Egg house are more recently built and are elaborately decorated, where as the houses in East Egg are still as big but very conservative in architecture. The two neighborhoods represent the division in the upper class at this time in America. During the 1920's, the conservative "old rich" despised the "new rich". A good example of an "old rich" family would be the Rockefellers, where as a "new rich" family would be the Kennedys. The East Egg represented the conservative money of the "old rich". For generations their money passed down giving them the belief that the "new rich"...
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...The title of a novel creates the first ideas and pictures of Gatsby before any word is read; great describes Gatsby in simple language and places him on a pedestal before the events of the novel unfold for the reader. Fitzgerald gives the first example of Gatsby’s greatness when describing his mansion as “a factual imitation of some Hôtel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool, and more than forty acres of lawn and garden,” (Fitzgerald 5) but the diction chosen also creates an oxymoron between a great house that is simply a new imitation. For the reader, this brings up the possibility of Gatsby’s facade while also setting the stage for further exploration of outward...
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...American Dream The Great Gatsby, written by Scott F. Fitzgerald in 1925, follows the life of the various characters that lived in West Egg, a fictional town on Long Island. It is narrated by Nicholas “Nick” Caraway, a Yale graduate and one of the main characters. By the way the book is written, one can deduce that Nick lived through all the events, or wrote what others told him about the events he was not present in, and wrote the book by end of it all. Its main theme is the pursuit of the American Dream, and what characters have to do to reach it, and how it can all crumble down. Basically, in this essay I will show the different ‘American dreams’ that are strongly projected in this novel. The first dream, the one with the strongest portrayal, was the desire of escalating in the social status ladder. There were characters with a high social status for their family’s name, like Tom Buchanan who inherited his family fortune. He was described as the kind of person that thinks money allows him to treat people as the lowest scum; even though his mannerism and tastes were exquisite, his attitude towards those who were not on the same status as him was detestable. “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.” (Page 188, The Great Gastby) Tom counts as an example of the American dream...
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...chapter 6 of The Great Gatsby, a reporter comes to Gatsby’s door to interview him about his personal life. Jay Gatsby’s original name was James Gatz and he was born on a North Dakota farm but went to college in St. Olaf, Minnesota. He dropped out of college and later met the wealthy Dan Cody who hired him as a personal assistant. When Dan Cody died he left Gatsby $25,000, but his mistress prevented Gatsby from claiming it. After that, Gatsby was determined to become rich and successful. Later on, Nick visits Gatsby and is shocked to find Tom Buchanan there, and the next Saturday Tom and Daisy attend one of Gatsby’s parties. After the party Gatsby is worried that Daisy did not enjoy it and Nick tells him to give up on Daisy, however, Gatsby refuses and instead tells Nick about he and Daisy’s past. The quote that best describes Jay Gatsby is, “He talked a lot about the past, and I gathered that he wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy” (110). The good qualities of Jay Gatsby are he is a loyal person and he has a good heart. The bad qualities of Gatsby are he is amoral, dishonest, and throws his money away. Fitzgerald developed this character to show how people use their wealth to get love only to discover the love is not real. Additionally, he is developed throughout the novel to be an example of how living extravagantly can be an empty life. A meaningful quote in the chapter is, “The truth was that Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long...
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...his or her name, and the clothes on their back, can become successful and wealthy through hard work and determination, over the course of time. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby is a classic example of a rags to riches man, but learns the hard way that money and materialistic things cannot fill one’s need for happiness. Not only that, but F. Scott Fitzgerald also portrays the corruption of an individual's American Dream through their foolish pursuit of wealth and physical...
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... Females and minorities in heterogeneous societies will face discrimination for the simple fact they are females or minorities which hinders them from obtaining an education, job, or reaching their goals. In Michelle Obama’s biography it says, “African American students recall newspapers slipped under their door with op-eds arguing that their presence on campus brought down university intellectual standards” (Mundy 66). At Princeton, Michelle and many African Americans experience racial discrimination that makes them feel unwelcome and unworthy of attending the university. Although they feel unwelcome, this feeling only pushes Michelle and others to work harder to prove their worth so they can make it. Ghada, a female student, gives an example of the sexism and discrimination, when she states, “Despite the fact that I was rated first in my class, when we had an open day in the school the boy after me gave the students' speech” (Makkawi). The superintendent would not allow Ghada to deliver the students’ speech because she is a female, fearing it would be a disgrace for her to stand in front of the village and give the speech. The superintendent’s actions acknowledge the sexism and discrimination of females in the community and lessens the value of the hard work Ghada put in to be first in her class. When Walter’s family is disappointed in his decision to call Mr. Lindner to accept the money instead of moving into an all white neighborhood, Walter responds, “I tell you I am a man—and...
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