...Analysis of “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby is a comment on society in what was supposed to be the greatest period of American history, the 1920's. Its comment is on our perceptions on wealth, and how people go about gaining and receiving said wealth. It is a critique on the class system and the oppression and misrepresentation of the working class. It is a demonstration of the full spectrum of human relationships and the best and worst parts of America. It’s not just about the love story between the novels central characters, Daisy and Gatsby, but more about the social decay of their society. In the Great Gatsby the story is told from a character voice. The novel is read from Nick Carraway perspective. He is a young man we meet at the beginning in the Great Gatsby novel. Nick moves to New York in 1922 to learn about the bond business, he acquires a house on West Egg early in the novel. This is also where he meets his neighbour Jay Gatsby. Jay Gatsby is a mysterious man who is also filthy rich, the method by he acquired his wealth is questionable. Gatsby is represented in the novel as a symbol for new money and the pursuit of the American dream in the roaring twenties. The roaring twenties was a period of great economic prosperity in the US, there where a lot of individuals who gained their massive wealth during this economic period. Jay Gatsby’s primary goal in the novel is to “own” Daisy Buchanan. She is the only thing Gatsby needs to complete...
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...Money, love, social relationships, and high income can be objects of our desire. It comes in many different ways depending on our needs and our social positions. When we are finally achieving our desires, it will make us search for more. In F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, a friend of the main character, Gatsby, who seek to be with the one he loves so much that he let his desire take over him and lead him to the wrong path. Fitzgerald uses the green light to represent Gatsby's desire to be with Daisy. The symbol teaches us that our desire can motivate us to accomplish our goal but it can also harm us if we are not careful with it. In the middle of the novel The Great Gatsby, Nick described the green light as Gatsby’s desire to be with Daisy. At the beginning of Chapter 5, Nick set up a surprise meeting between Gatsby and Daisy but Daisy wasn’t aware of that. Even though Gatsby knew that Daisy is coming, he still feel very nervous about it and almost run away but his desire to be with her motivate him, it gives him the strength to come back to see her. When he is with Daisy, he express that “the green light” at the end of her dock “had diminished by...
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...English 12 Great Gatsby Assignment ASSIGNMENT The questions below are all very open-ended, allowing you a permissive opportunity to reflect on and draw personalized meaning from the text. The key will not be right answers but how you position and support your reply to each question. As a result, responses should not appear as a question answered, but as an insight revealed. There will need to be an investigative quality to how you use the question to interpret the novel and its possible applications to your own personal and cultural realities. Responses will normally require a paragraph or two (200-300 words; more or less is fine so long as responses are complete). Question #1 Identify three scenarios (specific events or experiences) from The Great Gatsby which portray how some imagine and live out the Dream. Then, comment on what the experience suggests about the character’s underlying belief and motivation about “getting ahead” or having “a better life,” in connection with the greater insight of the novel. Finally, depict three expressions/experiences in cultural life today that bear striking similarity to the novel and comment freely on any relationships they have with its larger theme(s). In The Great Gatsby novel Daisy imagined the Dream as a life of popularity, status, and class. She married Tom who she does not love to achieve her idea of the Dream. Gatsby imagined the Dream when he started working for the rich man who took him under his...
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...“The best work of literature to represent the American Dream is The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It shows us how dreaming can be tainted by reality, and that if you don't compromise, you may suffer.” Azar Nafisi (BrainyQuote). The Great Gatsby is a famous american novel that tells a story about a man, Gatsby, constantly trying to pursue his version of the American Dream. As much as he strives for his dream, the American Dream is an unrealistic expectation that cannot be achieved In The Great Gatsby, Gatsby’s dream is for things to be like how they were in the past, and get back together with his lover, Daisy. We are first introduced to Gatsby at the end of chapter one when he is standing on his lawn with his arms stretched out towards...
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...The Tragic Flaws of Hamlet and The Great Gatsby In Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby and Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, the main characters both go through tragic flaws. Their love does not end up the way they want but they keep on trying to make it perfect. Hamlet and Gatsby both have a job they want to do but cannot pursue that goal because they have men that are standing in their way. They also have secrets that they keep from their fellow friends and family and no one knows the actual reason for their misbehavior. Hamlet and Gatsby both suffer tragedies as they try to live their perfect, dream life. Hamlet and Jay Gatsby are both in love with the women that means everything to them. Hamlets love for Ophelia is so insane that her father Polonius thinks that he is mad and lovesick. While Polonius and Claudius spy on Hamlet and see what the real problem is, they see Hamlet being violent with Ophelia after she tries to return his gifts. “The origin and commencement of his grief sprung from neglected love” (3.1.179-180). Polonius still believes that the reason behind Hamlets behavior is still crazy and caused by his love for Ophelia. Hamlet never really admits that he is in love with Ophelia until he sees her being buried at her funeral. “I loved Ophelia; forty thousand brothers could not, with all their quantity of love, make up my sum” (5.1.263-265). Hamlet goes into deep sorrow when he sees Ophelia is dead and says that his love for Ophelia is greater than the love of forty...
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...When Nick Carraway came back from the east after the summer of 1922, he was disgusted with what he’d seen. Only one man was exempt from his disgust, that man being Gatsby. In the Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald creates an America society that contradicts everything America prides itself on which is lack of aristocracy and equal opportunity. The United states is a country that was so great due to the idea of the American dream, which the founding fathers of the nation built the country on. Fitzgerald utilizes deep characterization and symbolism to elaborate themes of the American dream to display what the American dream truly stood for and what it has become. Throughout the plot we come to recognize themes of American dream, through deep insight into characters and what they represent in the American society. After Nick...
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...compare Jay Gatsby from Francisco Reteche. When I first saw Gatsby, I already noticed one similarity that I can pair with Reteche wherein they were both mysterious in the starting part of the story and we could not predict what were they thinking. There were still some similarities that I noticed between the two of them like their main problem was about a girl wherein they wanted to be with a certain girl who left them. They were both sad and broken-hearted with the respective girls that they loved hooked up with another men. In the story Zita, Reteche was living alone since his girlfriend left him, as well as in the movie, Jay Gatsby was also living alone since he left his family when he was sixteen years old to earn a living. And lastly, the reason on why Zita from the city and Daisy left Reteche and Gatsby was similar wherein Zita from the city left Reteche because he was just an ordinary man and Zita from the city wanted a rich man, so she left him and clung to a rich guy, while Daisy did not wait for Gatsby anymore because before when there where still a spark between them, Gatsby used to be a nobody, so Daisy married Tom because she felt more secured with Tom because of his wealth and stability in life. I noticed only few differences between Reteche and Gatsby wherein I can say that there were more similarities between them in terms of how the story revolves. The first difference that I noticed was that Reteche was just a poor or average schoolteacher, while Gatsby was rich because...
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...Is Gatsby Really Great? Or is he Another Tom? Jay Gatsby, also known as the Great Gatsby, is a well known, filthy rich man who lives in giant mansion. Jay is so friendly with the other characters, such as his party goers, Nick and Daisy. Gatsby is the mysterious and devilishly handsome protagonist in the story The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. On the contrary, we have Tom Buchanan, the husband of Gatsby’s lover, Daisy. Tom is very different that Gatsby looking from the outside in. What makes Gatsby. so mysterious? You might ask. Well, no one knows about Gatsby. No one knows Gatsby except Gatsby (Great). If you knew him, you might even say he’s more like Tom Buchanan on the inside it is almost as if, what Gatsby is hiding inside, is...
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...The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald Marxist literary critics tend to look for tensions and contradictions within literary works. This is appropriate because Marxism was originally formulated to analyze just such tensions and contradictions within society. Marxist literary critics also see literature as intimately linked to social power, and thus their analysis of literature is linked to larger social questions. Since Marxism is a belief system which can be used to analyze society at the grandest or most detailed level, Marxist literary criticism is ultimately part of a much larger effort to uncover the inner workings of society 1. Title of the Book – The Great Gatsby: Gatsby became rich because, most probably Cody – the owner of the yatch, left him money but at the same time he is was committed to earning money at an early stage in his life. And the adjective Great added to the word noun, accounts for Fitzgerald reason why a man could be called a great that is he struggled hard to achieve the love of his life by trying to raise his stature. The word “Great” is added to emphasize the fact that he rose from rags to riches, and this fact should be respected and valued. Nick: “I suppose he'd had the name ready for a long time, even then. His parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people--his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents at all. The truth was that Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself. He was a son...
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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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...F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, demonstrates that Jay Gatsby lives a life of the American Dream gone wrong by lowering his morals with the corrupt nature of greed, Jay only focuses on the past to move forward in his own grand dream for himself, and how Fitzgerald’s use of symbolism during the Roaring Twenties exemplifies theme areas in the novel. F. Scott Fitzgerald's, The Great Gatsby, the cars represent a form of status. Nick takes taxis while Gatsby drives his custom made, cream-yellow car. According to Dan Seiters, “It is a rich cream color, a combination of the white of the dream and the yellow of money, of reality in a narrow sense,” (1). After Daisy kills Myrtle a bystander talks about the car and says, “It was a yellow car....
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...A Man Killed by His Own Soul’s Ability to Reach for Corruption The statement, “I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions”, was made by Augusten Burroughs. He might have been talking about himself but this quote applies to the character Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby. Many historians believe that Mr. Gatsby was inspired by F. Scott himself. They both were romantics who fell in love with the heartbreaking wild girl. They were both guys who were willing to break the rules in order to get to the top. And most diffidently they were just two guys trying to make to greener pastor. F. Scott wrote The Great Gatsby threw the eyes of Nick Carraway. Originally in awe of him, Nick uncovers the truth and grows an inner hatred for Gatsby; until he opens his eyes to see his sad life in which he feels nothing put pity and empathy for Mr. Gatsby. After being formally invited to one of Gatsby party, Nick excitedly waits to meet his interesting neighbor. Mr. Gatsby is the man, which everyone gossips about around. Whether he has killed a man or is being a spy for the American government, he is always being talked about. The first time Nick meets the fellow war veteran, he describes him as having “one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it”; that is the first thing which attracts Nick most about Gatsby(53). The smile along with the parties, and the many phone calls causes nick to be intrigued his next-door neighbor. Public Gatsby...
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...The Great Gatsby essay Mrs. Loughran The Green Light Nick Carraway is a man around 30 years old living in West Egg, an island separated from New York City by a small bay, in 1922 in The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald. Nick was born in the Mid-West and has since gone to Yale; he moves to New York in the summer of 1922 to learn and eventually practice the bond business. While living in West Egg, Nick observes that he has a mysterious neighbor who owns a very large mansion: The one on my right was a colossal affair by any standard – it was a factual imitation of some Hotel 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 (11). Massive parties are thrown in this mansion almost every weekend, and all types of people show up. Nick eventually learns that the man living in this mansion is named Gatsby, and they become friends over the course of the summer. There are many rumors about him but nobody actually knows where he comes from or how he becomes so wealthy. As Nick becomes better friends with Gatsby, he learns that Gatsby is deeply in love with Nick’s cousin, Daisy. This love, however, has taken over Gatsby’s life ever since he meets Daisy before he leaves to fight in the Great War. After he comes back from the war, he finds that Daisy has moved on with her life, and is now married to Tom Buchannan and is living in New York. Gatsby moves...
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... and wealth in 1920s America through the protagonists of The Great Gatsby and how those certain ideals inevitably clash. In a time period swelling with the prospect of wealth and aspiration, The Great Gatsby twists the common ideals of the 1920’s by illustrating the iniquity of these prospects. The protagonist, Jay Gatsby, plays the role of the wealthy cultural icon, throwing grand parties while being adored by many. His intentions, however, resonate on a deeper level than simply rising above in social status. All that Gatsby does is based around winning the heart of his deep-rooted love, Daisy Buchanan. While Daisy is beautiful, her beauty is not what mesmerizes...
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...In what ways does Fitzgerald and Williams present the importance of hopes and dreams? Both F. Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby’ and Arthur Miller’s ‘A Death of a Salesman’ focus their main ideas on the importance of hopes and dreams. Death of a Salesman, produced in 1949, has become a classic of modern American theatre. It is a story of an average salesman with a dream of being rich and well-liked. Willy believes whole heartedly in what he considers the promise of the American Dream. In the 1940’s The American Dream was as simple as it gets, to have a perfect, successful life with a common nuclear family, a house in the suburbs, a nice car and a life without conflict or family strife. ‘The Great Gatsby’ is a highly symbolic reflection on 1920’s America as a whole, in particular the disappearance of the American Dream in an era of material excess. On the surface, ‘The Great Gatsby’ is a story of the eternal love between a man and a woman. However, in reality the main theme of the novel involves a much larger, less romantic outlook. The 1920’s was an era of decayed social and moral values, which means that the idea of The American Dream was different to what it is now. When World War 1 ended in 1918, the generation of young Americans who fought the war became intensely disillusioned. The rise of the stock market in the aftermath of the war led to a sudden increase in the national wealth and a new found materialism, leading the younger generation to pursue a life of extravagance...
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