F. Scott Fitzgerald 's The Great Gatsby

Since American literature’s emergence, the American dream has become a conceptual ideal for many people throughout history. Although the dream has its own distinct aspects throughout different time periods, it predominantly focuses on the foundations of wealth, success and a desire for something greater. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s fiction novel, The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby, the protagonist, is primarily known for the numerous lavish parties he throws each weekend at his ostentatious mansion in West Egg in an attempt to reunite with Daisy Buchanan, a woman he falls in love with prior to entering the war before the Roaring Twenties. However, he is seized with an impotent realization on the fact that his wealth cannot afford him the same privileges as others that are born into the upper echelon. Gatsby is completely blinded from his opulent possessions until he becomes oblivious of the fact that money cannot buy love or happiness. Throughout the story, the predilection for materialistic features causes many characters to lose sight of their aspirations, demonstrating how a dream can become easily corrupt by one’s focus on acquiring wealth and power.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald tells the tragic story of two star-crossed lovers. Fitzgerald uses the Roaring Twenties as the setting of this novel. The twenties were a time of promiscuity, new money, and a significant amount of illegal alcohol. Fitzgerald was a master of his craft and there was often more to the story than just the basic plot. He could intertwine political messages and a gripping story flawlessly. In the case of The Great Gatsby, he not only chronicles a love story, but also uses the opportunity to express his opinion on topics such as moral decay, crass materialism, individual ethics, and the American dream.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is the compelling story of the lengths one man goes to in order to try and win back the love of his youth. In order to do so, the titular figure of the novel, Jay Gatsby, reinvents himself from the hardscrabble soldier of his younger years into an enigma of a millionaire; during his time living at West Egg, Gatsby is revered by all, but known by none. Despite the lavish lifestyle which has made him ever so well known, Gatsby is never able to win back Daisy, the girl who has for so long represented the culmination of all of his desires. To convey the complex themes of the novel, Fitzgerald makes use of the literary techniques discussed in How To Read Literature Like A Professor by Thomas C. Foster, especially in his portrayal of the geography of the Eggs and in Gatsby’s quest to win Daisy’s affection. In his novel The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald uses Gatsby’s desperate struggle to ingratiate himself into Daisy’s life to illustrate how one can never overcome the socio-economic barriers placed upon them at birth.

The American dream is a tacit promise given to all citizens in this country, which states that regardless of social class, any individual can aspire to new heights based upon the ideology of meritocracy. The American dream is a “recurring theme in American literature”(Pearson) and in American society. However, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s critically acclaimed novel, presents the American dream as an illusion which can never be achieved, and according to recent events in America, Fitzgerald is evidently correct. The personification of Daisy as the American Dream, the issue of meritocracy, Myrtle’s death, the image of the green light, as well as the manner in which Gatsby is denied entry into the

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel The Great Gatsby chronicles Jay Gatsby’s ill-fated attempt to recreate a lost love from his past. Through single-minded focus, he transforms himself from penniless James Gatz of Minnesota to the wealthy and mysterious Jay Gatsby of West Egg, New York. Despite the fact that Daisy Buchanan, Gatsby’s lost lover, has come to terms with their separation, Gatsby maintains his firm belief in the notion of rebirth, convinced he can recreate the past. Furthermore, the novel serves as Fitzgerald’s personal introspection, voicing his own desire for renewal in the search for his identity. Therefore, a central theme in the novel is rebirth, exemplified by the actions and motivations of Gatsby and Fitzgerald’s examination of his own life.

Money, commonly associated with happiness and success, is deceiving because it doesn 't necessarily breed enjoyment at all. Lorraine Hansberry 's A Raisin in the Sun and F. Scott Fitzgerald 's The Great Gatsby examine the difference between wealth and appreciation of life. Lorraine Hansberry explains this with Walter, a negro father in a poor family who seeks more money than is realistic to bring happiness into the family. Fitzgerald uses the character Jay Gatsby to show that wealth doesn 't imply success or happiness. Both characters occupy strikingly different roles in their stories, yet decently portray money 's impact on life. In The Great Gatsby and Raisin in the Sun, wealth is made to seem as the key to happiness, but, in essence,

It only takes a spark to start a fire. That spark could be a dream or a passion that has the possibility of growing into something larger than life. To transform that dream into a reality, goals must be set and plans must be made. The goal that many people were pursuing during the Roaring Twenties was the American Dream. It enticed people with the promise of prosperity and success all with a little hard work and elbow grease. Yet somewhere along the way, the goal was lost in the midst of affluence and illegal alcohol. F. Scott Fitzgerald used The Great Gatsby to portray how fulfilling the American Dream became impossible due to the growing desire of wealth and pleasure and the disappearance of social and moral values.

What Gatsby means by that thought is that in that moment with Daisy, he felt like he could accomplish anything. With Daisy, he felt that life was wondrous and full of opportunity.

Scott Fitzgerald 's, “The Great Gatsby”, is used to teach us the prime example of the American experience or the American dream. On the other hand, J.D Salinger 's book, “The Catcher in the Rye”, is generally about the story of a young boy, losing innocence and trying to keep children from falling off of this metaphorical cliff, or in reality, losing their innocence. While these two stories may seem drastically different from each other, they both share a deeper meaning. Throughout both of these books, while the plot line and thematic ideas may seem different, both of these characters share the same trait, idealism; they both desire things that they cannot possibly reach or things, or something as simple as fitting in and feeling like

To certain people, Gatsby’s death was a cruel and surprising conclusion to The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. But there is still some mystery around the cause of Gatsby’s death. Upon meeting Gatsby for the first time, one can tell that he has an obsession centered around Daisy Buchanan, his old love, and was dead set on getting her back. Gatsby’s obsession with repeating the past is responsible for his death and Gatsby’s greed put him in a grave. Further into the novel, it is revealed that Gatsby made his abundant fortune on illegal business and trades that were outlawed in the 1920’s. Gatsby’s death could be caused by either his love for Daisy or from his inner need for more. Roger Lewis makes the

F. Scott Fitzgerald is an author known for his best-selling book, The Great Gatsby. The story is about a man, Jay Gatsby, who was in love with Daisy Buchanan. Daisy was married to Tom, but Tom was cheating on her with Myrtle Wilson. There were two islands the story took place in: East Egg and West Egg. East Egg was the “old money,” or money passed down from ancestors, while West Egg represented the “new money,” or self- made money. Fitzgerald used multiple types of symbolism in his book, and his symbolism helped the reader understand the plot. The novel is read throughout schools to teach symbolism. The book can be described as “[…] satisfying as entertainment, thought provoking as a study, and increasingly rewarding the more closely it is examined.” (Koster). A frequently used type of symbolism in The Great Gatsby was color. The colors symbolized in the book were white, green, yellow, blue, gold, and gray.

When people think of the American Dream, they may think of glam and fame and a beach house on the coast. The American Dream is more or less a fantasy in which the dreamer achieves fortune and riches with their work (or lack thereof). People want to get rich quick, and they want to have everything they have ever wanted handed to them on a silver platter. The twenties in America, commonly known as the “Roaring Twenties,” were a prosperous time, and many people realized their own version of the American Dream during this period.

“This is a valley of ashes- a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and raising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air” (Fitzgerald 26). In the novel, “The Great Gatsby,” the author F. Scott Fitzgerald, mainly depicted lives of the rich and their luxuries but also showed the lives of the poor people in the valley of ashes in a small portion of the book. The valley of ashes played an essential part in shaping the lives of the characters in the book as it shows the difference between social classes and the struggle of the poor.

What does the word disillusion really mean? The word illusion can have several different meanings, within the same category. The main definition is to be in a deceived state or to see an optical illusion from a faulty perception (of reality). The prefix “dis” means “opposite of,” “apart,” or something negative. So if one is disillusive, does that mean one will always see reality through a clear leans? According to dictionary.com, the word disillusion means, “to free from or deprive of illusion.” Another definition is that one’s largest dream could be shattered into a million pieces, and is broken beyond repair. Integrating this meaning, one may ask, “is it good to be disillusive? Or is it bad?” F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote the astonishing book called The Great Gatsby in the 1920s, it maybe perhaps one of the greatest American novels ever written today. When reading this wonderful book, in class and on my own, I found that each character had confronted disillusion at some point. Their individual disillusion kept them in a fantasy world until the truth was revealed and they were left with a choice to continue the fantasy in their own mind or face reality. Nick Carraway, Daisy Buchanan, Tom Buchanan, Myrtle Wilson, Jordan Baker, and of course Jay Gatsby, all experience disillusion in different ways through out the book.

In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, the reader sees a common theme of corruption of the American Dream. In the 1920’s, the times are changing in America and morals are becoming looser and the lifestyle of the wealthy is more careless. New fashion, attitude, and music is what nicknamed this era the “Jazz Age,” greatly influencing Fitzgerald’s writing. He created similarities between many things in pop culture and the journey his characters Gatsby, Daisy, Tom, and Myrtle are taking to achieve the American dream. Through the use of the lively, yet scandalous, jazz music from the 1920’s, Fitzgerald reflects the attitudes of the characters in The Great Gatsby at the end of innocence and prevalence of