...The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a 1925 novel about complex characters and their intricate relationships. Both the characters and their relationships are central focuses in the purpose of the book; however, those focuses can be understood differently in terms of the unique values of Eastern and Western cultures. An understanding of the text can change drastically based on those interpretations. Jay Gatsby is a prime example of a character that is subject to diverging interpretations. Gatsby’s significance in the text makes a reader’s analysis of him incredibly important to understanding the text. A central theme is observed in his character: “Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone...remember that all the people in this world haven’t...
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...A popular saying in today’s society is “Money can’t buy happiness.” Yes, that statement is extremely true but maybe people should be saying “Money can’t buy love.” In the novel, The Great Gatsby, love is bought in many ways. One clear example is, the relationship between Tom and Daisy. Tom and Daisy’s marriage was organized by Daisy’s parents strictly because Tom had money. “It was hard to realize that a man in my own generation was wealthy enough to do that.” (6). Of course, Daisy may have felt feelings for Tom at the beginning but it was not pure love and I believe Daisy knew that. Every day Daisy and Tom’s relationship grew worse. Not only did Tom continuously cheat on Daisy but Tom would physically abuse Daisy. Why would Daisy stay with Tom even though he hurts her? Money. Another example of love being bought is between Daisy and Gatsby. When Gatsby and Daisy first dated, Gatsby did not have any money. When Gatsby enlisted in the army, Daisy soon left him for Tom. Daisy left Gatsby for Tom not because she liked him more but because Tom had money. Gatsby realizes this and as soon as he comes back from the war, he is a new person, with money. Gatsby believes he can use his money as a weapon to win back Daisy. Gatsby buys a enormous house right across from Tom’s to...
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...for, they lie to build relationships that will get them what they desire. For example, President Nixon in the Watergate Scandal of 1972 lied about his association with the burglars who were trying to get government information to help him win reelection. Here, he lies about his involvement in the case in order to save his chances to remain president. He tried to maintain his high status through lying; however, this dishonesty backfired and forced him to resign and lose his title as president. This is similar to characters in The Great Gatsby who lie to gain or keep a high social status. Social dishonesty in The Great Gatsby, by F....
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...can turn toxic. The Great Gatsby not only includes all of those kinds of love, but many more. In The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald not only writes those loves, but shows how easily they can crumble down. Nick Carraway and Jay Gatsby have one of the most confusing relationships in The Great Gatsby. They meet at one of Jay Gatsby's extravagant parties and Nick seems to admire him. ‘"They're a rotten crowd,’ I shouted across the lawn. ‘You're worth the whole damn bunch put together”(45). Nick held Gatsby on a higher pedestal that all the attendants at Gatsby's rager, which starts a his admiration for Gatsby. When Gatsby realizes that Nick has relations with Daisy, Nick's cousin, he seems to really want a friendship from Nick, yet Nick is still wary of Gatsby, not even friends with him until Gatsby proves that he is the man he says he is. Their friendship was rocky for the most part, Nick didn't actually trust Gatsby the whole book. Even less so when it is revealed that Gatsby was not who he said he was. When Gatsby dies, Nick states that he never really thought of him as a friend in the first place, even though he was one of the few who attended his funeral. Their friendship was tainted by lies and trickery, yet it wasn't all much like Jordan and Daisy’s friendship. Jordan and Daisy were friends when they...
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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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...The Great Gatsby Summary: The Great Gatsby is a story told by Nick Carraway, who once was the neighbor of the well-known and wealthy man, Jay Gatsby. The movie follows the mysterious Mr. Gatsby, which order only request one thing: to be reunited with his old flame, Daisy Buchanan. Mr. Gatsby uses Nick to become closer to Nick’s cousin Daisy, and to develop a new relationship with her, but Daisy already has a husband, Tom. Meantime, Myrtle Wilson is running over by a car drove by Daisy. Tom has suspects about the secret meetings between Gatsby and Daisy and talks to Myrtle Wilson’s husband, which shoots Gatsby as revenge, as he thinks, Mr. Gatsby was the driver of the car which hit his wife. The American Dream: The movie “The Great Gatsby” is about the American Dream and its influence at the people back in the 1920’s. The purpose about the American Dream is based on that everyone may participate equally no matter of the racy, history or society. American Dream’s plays a big role in the movie The Great Gatsby. Ideals in which freedom includes the opportunity for success, and the success, which comes from one’s own efforts. Mr. Gatsby is a living example, when he has saved his money to become even richer than his past generations. In that way, Mr. Gatsby deals with the human aspiration, to start a new life without thinking back at his past. “I wish we could just run away”, he is saying to Daisy. Jay Gatsby is constantly holding big parties at his place...
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... 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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...incredibly convenient character conjured by Fitzgerald to give the audience a first person experience of his take on America in the 1920’s, whilst still maintaining a comparatively neutral standpoint on the events that occurred throughout the novel. Nick Carraway, the narrator of The Great Gatsby, can be considered and appreciated by the audience as quite atypical to the status seeking and self-rewarding concept that was prevalent throughout 1920’s America. As though Fitzgerald himself needed readers to know that he antagonised this mentality by making Nick (humble and quite accepting) the main character of the novel. The author also devotes very little to giving the readers a background of Nick, and often deviates from information about him to focus on the plot revolving around Gatsby’s shady past and Daisy’s relationship conflict within herself. This works suitably well for Fitzgerald as it “kills two birds with one stone” in the sense that whilst the readers are being won over by Nick, they are also growing more curious in the growing relationships between the other main characters of the book, opening the door for Fitzgerald to manipulate the character of Nick in any way he deems necessary. A prime example of how Fitzgerald used Nick as a completely neutral observer of events that transpired was how he always tended to stay out of other characters’ affairs as though he had long since taken up the mentality that he either had no right to interfere in people’s private matters or he...
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...you get what you want? In the novel, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nick, the main character, lives next door to a rich yet shy figure named Gatsby. Gatsby throws parties all the time, but nobody seems to know who he is. As the story goes on, we find out that Gatsby is in love with Daisy, Nick’s cousin. Behind all of this, Fitzgerald uses light imagery to convey Gatsby’s love for Daisy to show the hope involved in this relationship. A green light across a lake doesn’t seem like anything, right? In the novel, Gatsby is caught by Nick staring across the lake at a green light with his hands in the air. Nick later realizes that the green light across the lake is Daisy’s house. Furthermore, Jordan, Nicks friend, reveals that Gatsby bought the house on that particular spot so Daisy can see it lit up. The green light in the novel represents hope, which later we find out, is part of Daisy and Gatsby’s relationship. “He stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and far as I was from him I could...
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...The Colourful World of The Great Gatsby In the novel The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald utilizes colour symbolism to enhance each character’s personality flaws and convey a symbolic meaning behind everything the characters do. Throughout the novel, the colours that highlight these flaws are Green, Yellow, White, and Silver. Each colour conveys important symbolic meanings, which ultimately highlight each character’s tainted personalities. Fitzgerald magnifies these clearly identifiable flaws in Gatsby, Daisy, and Myrtle through the use of colour symbolism throughout his novel. The first colour, which F. Scott Fitzgerald introduces to the reader, is the colour green. Green embodies the hope in which Gatsby clings on to and the limitless dream...
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...purple to symbolize the truth and principles within and about the American dream. The colors mentioned the most and used to enforce a greater meaning in the Great Gatsby are: green, yellow, red, blue, grey and white. Each color is a crucial detail in the book relating to intentions and foreboding. Throughout the history of literature colors have been used as motif. *add quote about color motifs in literature* Red commonly means power, danger, passion and love. Yellow is associated...
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...that some people might think he was great, but others might’ve not, but there are three people whose judgement is positive in all ways; those people are Nick Carroway (thinking that he is a very lavish, luxurious man), Daisy Buchanan (seeing him as her escape to happiness from Tom Buchanan), and F. Scott Fitzgerald himself (portraying himself as the protagonist of the story). The first example would have to be Nick’s perspective. Since the beginning of the book, Nick believed that Gatsby was a very lavish and materialistic man because of all the things that he had, especially his giant mansion. Nick goes on describing Gatsby’s luxury and his formality when he states, in chapter three, that a man formerly came and invited Nick to one of...
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...Analysis of “Materialistic Perception” in F. Scot Fitzgerald Using Marxist Literary Criticism Chapter I 1.1 Introduction The Great Gatsby is a 1925 novel written by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald that follows a cast of characters living in the fictional town of West Egg on prosperous Long Island in the summer of 1922. The story primarily concerns the young and mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and his quixotic passion for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan. Considered to be Fitzgerald's magnum opus, The Great Gatsby explores themes of decadence, idealism, resistance to change, social upheaval, and excess, creating a portrait of the Jazz Age that has been described as a cautionary tale regarding the American Dream. 1.2 State of Problem The Great Gatsby provides a critical social history of America during the Roaring Twenties within its narrative. That era, known for unprecedented economic prosperity, the evolution of jazz music, flapper culture, and bootlegging and other economy struggle that was the result of the materialism and capitalism damaging on social behavior, led to the widespread social distress. 1.3 Theoretical Framework Using literary criticism to interpret what is the ideal life of America in 19th century and what is the dream of American people after World War I. as a Marxist interpretation of the novel makes especially clear, reveals its dark underbelly instead. Through its unflattering characterization of those at the top of the...
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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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...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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