Annotated Bibliography: The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

The life of F. Scott Fitzgerald was deeply divided, in that his early successes in the 1910’s and 1920’s contrast noticeably with the years full of personal happenings and

     The final page offers much of Fitzgerald’s perspective, and it is wonderfully summed up in the final sentence of the book.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, has been heralded as one of the outstanding novels of the Jazz Age. The characters that Fitzgerald created in this novel were laudable and disreputable. Therefore, these characters in the novel will be contrasted and elucidated.

Authors from the 1920’s are among the most exceptional and famous writers of today, one of the greatest well-known being F. Scott Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald wrote multiple extraordinary novels, though he is most accredited for The Great Gatsby. In this book he discloses essential truths about life, which are more relevant in today’s society than ever before. Within the article A Gatsby for Today, Sven Birkerts provides further insight to these truths and imparts the importance of their lessons. F. Scott Fitzgerald reveals important truths about life through the characters Jay Gatsby, who displays disillusionment, and Myrtle Wilson, who demonstrates hope.

The Great Gatsby as Fitzgerald’s explanation of an American Reality which contradicts the American Dream

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.

We look back in history in order to learn from our mistakes and to help society progress in the present and in the future. “The Great Gatsby” was written by F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1925. Fitzgerald wrote this piece during the 1920s after WWI and it perfectly replicates the time period. The narrative captures the essence of the Jazz Age by depicting characters, showing power struggles and by defining the societal conflicts of the time. The novel tells us about different influences on the 20’s such as the Prohibition Act, the success of Wall Street, and aspects of the American Dream. “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald possesses the social constructs and ideas of the Roaring Twenties.

It is evident that Fitzgerald admires the pursuit of the ‘American Dream’, for he uses beautiful imagery, “a fresh, green breast of the new world”, “trees that had made way for Gatsby’s house”, “a transitory enchanted moment man

Fitzgerald predicted the fall of morality in society long before today and reflected on it throughout the novel with his use of

     F. Scott Fitzgerald is seen as one of the greatest American writers, admired by his contemparies and by modern audiences of today. Fitzgerald was very much in tune with the early twentieth century American culture. He is credited with capturing the ‘Jazz Age’, which he described as “a generation grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken”. Fitzgerald observed the culture around him with a critical eye. Despite being able to depict America like few others could, many see Fitzgerald’s writing as an indictment on its values.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s life and work were in a knot from the start; his profession spanned one of the most tumultuous eras of the century, and from the very start he was the creator and the victim of the new culture of celebrity which accompanied the rise of modern technology. Budd Schulberg masterfully created a character that closely and in many ways represents Fitzgerald in his later years; Manley Halliday is that character. “His mind’s eye, incurably bifocal, could never stop searching for the fairy-tale maiden who made his young manhood a time of bewitchment, when springtime was the only season and the days revolved on a lovers’ spectrum of sunlight, twilight, candlelight and dawn.”[Ch.10]. Fitzgerald

Like many other American writers, F. Scott Fitzgerald lived in an era when Americans were experiencing major changes in their land that became known as The New World and the land of dreams. During these days, the Americans began to dream of a better, richer and happier life for all citizens. Writing in the early years of Great depression, Adams described this dream as “not a struggle of revolutionists against the established order, but of ordinary man to hold fast to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness”. With the rise of this American dream, and with increased emphasis on individualism by economists like Adam Smith, it became perfectly normal or rather an obligation to just care about your material wellbeing, fight the traditional

F. Scott Fitzgerald was one of the most influential writers of modern day society. He holds this title because he wrote about things that drive people's everyday life. He wrote in two different periods that were very significant in the social development of America. These two periods of time symbolized not only the generation that he was writing about, but it also speaks to the present day generation.

Burton Rascoe wrote: “it is sincere, it is honest, it is intelligent, it is handled in an individual manner, it bears the impress, it seems to me, of genius.” The Chicago Evening American called the novel “human” and “complicated” and added that Fitzgerald was surely one writer to be watched in the future.