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Meaning Of The Great Gatsby

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Told in the voice of Nick Carraway, Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby revolves around the tragic character of Jay Gatsby. The title is truly apt in this case; Gatsby is great in both the literal and figurative sense. As the narrator, Nick sees Gatsby as a great man; this leads to the overly romanticized portrayal of Gatsby, who in reality is nothing but a bootlegger stuck in the past. In a more literal sense, Gatsby is larger than life, so much that his reputation precedes him, leading to the circulation of wild rumors. As the sole narrator, what Nick sees of Gatsby becomes what readers see as well. Within the first two pages of the book, Nick has already deemed there to be “something gorgeous about [Gatsby], some heightened sensitivity to the …show more content…

His life is blown out of proportions; enhanced by the wild and extravagant parties he throws, as well as the mysteriousness of his character, acquaintances are forced to make their own guesses at Gatsby’s background. This leads to a lot of speculation about Gatsby, about how he is “a nephew or a cousin of Kaiser Wilhelm” (Fitzgerald 32), how he had “killed a man once” (Fitzgerald 44), or how he “was a German spy during the war” (Fitzgerald 44). These wild rumors are all an attempt to explain Gatsby’s wealth, character, or disposition. He is a strange and mysterious creature in the midst of high society, and that sparks a great amount of curiosity. It is thanks to this that he is able to draw all kinds of people to him; old money, who criticize him for his flashiness, and new money, who flock to his parties in masses. Even before Nick meets Gatsby, he has already heard all sorts of things. This is just an example of how Gatsby’s reputation has been built up into this great, towering thing, so large that it precedes Gatsby’s actual appearance in the book. When Nick finally meets Gatsby in person, he is underwhelmed, having expected “a florid and corpulent person in his middle years” (Fitzgerald 48). Gatsby’s life is merely a façade under which he hides James Gatz’s worldly desires and human flaws; underneath all the glamor, the “great” Gatsby is not truly great at

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