A Marxist Critical Approach to Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby Essay example

    In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald creates an artificial world where money is the object of everyone's desire.  The characters, the setting, and the plot are very deeply submerged in a Capitalism that ends up destroying many of them.  Fitzgerald's criticism of Capitalism can be seen as a move to subtly promote Socialism, an ideology in which value is placed on the inherent value of an object rather than its market value.  In a late collection of notes, Fitzgerald himself proclaims that he is "essentially Marxist." [i]   Marxism is a specific branch of Socialist theory.  Fitzgerald makes Gatsby a novel that is not inherently Marxist or even Socialist, but one that is

     When looking at “ The Great Gatsby,” with a Marxist point of view, one will find that the carelessness of the novel is prominent through the actions of Daisy and Tom alone. The way they run away after Myrtle’s death and the way they treat others

The Great Gatsby is based upon wealth in the “Roaring 20’s”. The novel itself contains not a single dull moment of the narrators experience in the East, as it reflects people’s aspirations corrupted by greed and money. In addition, the romance between characters can help relate the readers to the novel. The film does a great job capturing almost all the aspects of the novel; through colors and themes. It gives the viewer a clear understanding of how shallow characters get mixed up into complex

Thesis: The pursuit of the American Dream is a dominant theme throughout The Great Gatsby, which is carried out in various ways by F. Scott Fitzgerald, how the author represents this theme through his characters and their actions is one small aspect of it.

Scott Fitzgerald’s famous novel ‘The Great Gatsby’ is set in America of the 1920’s, a predominantly materialistic society revolving around wealth and status above all else. Fitzgerald depicts this obsession with money and luxury through complicated relationships full of trouble, infidelity and sorrow. The relationships Fitzgerald portrays all symbolize the materialism and hedonism of the age; each relationship is doomed to a certain extent based on the social class of each character.

In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby provides the reader with a unique outlook on the life of the newly rich. Gatsby is an enigma and a subject of great curiosity, furthermore, he is content with a lot in life until he strives too hard. His obsession with wealth, his lonely life and his delusion allow the reader to sympathize with him.

Gatsby’s aspirations reflect the time period. The “Roaring Twenties”, as it is called, was a period of prosperity, and the Americans were obsessed with acquiring wealth, and thought that “those who have wealth should be splendid, happy people”

In the novel, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, many of the characters live in an illusory world and only some can see past this. In the novel, West Egg and its residents represent the newly rich, while East Egg represents the old aristocracy. Gatsby seeking the past, Daisy is obsessed with material things, Myrtle wanting Tom to escape her poverty, George believing that T.J. Eckleburg is God, and Tom believing he is untouchable because of his power and wealth are all examples of the illusion v. reality struggle in the novel and Nick, the only character aware of reality, witnesses the fall of all the characters around him to their delusions.

1. We see all the action of The Great Gatsby from the perspective of one character whose

After a time of prosperity, the roaring 1920’s became a decade of social decay and declining moral values. The forces this erosion of ethics can be explained by a variety of theories. However, F. Scott Fitzgerald paints a convincing portrait of waning social virtue in his novel, The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald portrays the nefarious effects of materialism created by the wealth-driven culture of the time. This was an era where societal values made wealth and material possessions a defining element of one’s character. The implications of the wealthy mindset and its effects on humanity are at the source of the conflict in The Great Gatsby, offering a glimpse into the despair of the 20’s. During a time

Thesis: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald depicts the American society in the early twentieth century consumed by lust and avarice. In order to better understand the rational and motives behind the actions of individual characters, the use of literary lenses offer a closer insight behind each character's desires. Through the psychoanalytical perspective and the use of Freudian psychology, the behaviors of these characters can be explained by identifying the id, ego, and superego. Similarly, through the Marxist perspective, economic exploitation by the wealthy can also be incorporated in analyzing the character's actions.

The ideological concept of social hegemony, based on the stratification of class, ensures that the ruling elite, the aristocracy, have absolute power over social institutions, with the ability to control and determine dominant social values. “The Great Gatsby” (1925), by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a contemporary realism novella, which explores the tragic adventures of the titular character, Jay Gatsby, as narrated by his neighbour and friend Nick Carraway. Fitzgerald’s scathing attack upon the selfish and frivolous values of the 1920s Jazz Age is effectively constructed through the author’s use of Carraway’s distinctive voice, to develop the ironic idea of Gatsby as “great” and the representation of the American Dream, the manipulative attitude of the aristocracy towards the bourgeoisie and proletariat classes, and the alternate reading of Nick Carraway as an unreliable narrator. Furthermore, “The Great Gatsby” is a Modernist text, rejecting traditional forms of literature in favour of Fitzgerald’s use of the distinct unreliability of narration within a nonlinear structure. Audiences are encouraged to respond to the ideas and attitudes constructed through Carraway’s distinctive voice, to question the hyperbolic excess of the Jazz Age, supporting the dominant reading of rejecting the extravagant and acquisitive corruption of the period, whilst also exploring the alternate reading of Carraway as an unreliable narrator.

Have you ever thought of how social and economic classes work into a capitalist system? Marxists believe that different social and economic classes should be equal. In the book the “Great Gatsby” written by F. Scott Fitzgerald these classes are very much defined and show the flaws and reality of how social and economic classes are viewed through Marxists. Viewing the classes through vulgar Marxists the characters attempting to climb social and economical ladders in the book are not accepted and rejected from upper class individuals. “The Great Gatsby” shows that people attempting to be something he or she is not does not mean they have achieved these social and economic goals and will be rejected by the very people they are attempting to

In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel of The Great Gatsby, he creates an artificial world where each character’s sole purpose in life is money, and the essence of desire is wealth. It is clear within the text that the characters feel as if they are totally limited by the amount of money they make, therefore, their view of being satisfied and achieving in life is depicted against their financial status. Poverty limits decision and action. The novel is set in the 1920’s when the newly founded ‘American Dream’ was being strived for, the idea that if one worked hard, they would ‘reap’ the rewards, no matter their

Society has evolved to the point where money is the biggest factor in our lives. People spend an incredible amount of time at their workplace for that miniscule pay raise. Money also plays a role in our relationships with the people around us, seen in the fact that people of similar economic status tend to congregate. This desire to gain more money causes conflict, mainly between people who have a great deal of money, and the people who struggle financially. There are many examples of conflict between the different economic classes. Class conflict in Russia led to the Russian Revolution, and class conflict in France led to the French Revolution. Economic status is also the cause behind many ordinary crimes. This conflict, both between and within classes, is exemplified in The Great Gatsby, which shows that conflict occurs because of the differences among the classes and the strive to rise to a new class, known as the American dream. In order to effectively reduce conflict in any form, something must be done to eliminate the distinction between the different economic classes.