Mental Health In The Great Gatsby, And The Yellow Wallpaper

The opening lines of Logic's most successful song to date are, quite literally, a cry for help. The title of the track, "1-800-273-8255," is the phone number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

‘Gatsby who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away. This responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby impressionability which is dignified under the name of the “creative temperament”—it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again. ’(Fitzgerald 2).

Illness is one of the few experiences that all humans have in common and generally is met with empathy. However, people who suffer from mental illness are not privy to this treatment. For centuries, mental disorders have been demonized and stigmatized even in the modern era where humans have a much better understand of the mechanisms of the mind. Before the advent of psychiatry in the eighteenth-century people believed that mental illness was actually demonic possession resulting in the ostracization and murder of the mentally ill in the name of God. The Victorian era was met with a different view of mental illness, in that it was understood that it was a malady of the mind and people needed constant medical treatment, thus federally mandated asylums were created. Since mental illness was not understood there was a lot of misconceptions and fear surrounding the field. It is no surprise that the master of macabre and the creator of Horror, Edgar Allen Poe, decided to explore themes of mental illness in his stories. Poe’s most famous story about mental illness was The Fall of the House of Usher, where the main characters are plagued with an undisclosed mental malady. Through Poe’s use of point of view, style, tone, and tropes, he painted a perfect picture of the Victorian view of the mentally ill and the mind of the artist which was believed to be different faces of the same coin.

F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “Everybody’s youth is a dream, a form of chemical madness.” In The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby seems to be followed by an imminent force that only allows him to think of life in terms of how to recapture the past. Is this madness or extreme devotion? When Emily Dickinson wrote, “Much madness is divinest Sense-To a discerning eye,” she was saying that madness is almost always seen through a perspective. Think of Thomas Edison or William Shakespeare, whose ideas may have exhibited madness, but truly reflected dedication and commitment, showing that madness is usually justified. Whether it be love, ambition or passion that drove Gatsby, he was determined to follow his vision for the future to the very end no matter the

The Human Condition is a big part of our understanding of literature, it can mean death, acceptance, judgment, and several other diverse things. It is about the positive or negative aspects of humans that everyone all universally deals with at least one time in one’s life. In the novel “The Great Gatsby”, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the short stories Raymond Carver’s “Everything Stuck to Him”, and Katherine Anne Porter’s “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall”, all have the most prominent human condition: love. Love is portrayed as society’s primary concern in literature, and is represented as a main concern in today’s society .

"Stress should be a powerful driving force, not an obstacle” says American author Stanley Johnson. I consider stress in that sense today, but just a little while back, it wasn’t so. A few months ago, I would mull over situations which weren’t even remotely demanding, unnecessarily stressing myself. Through my eBay business, DynamicDeals101, I learned to effectively deal with situations that would otherwise seem impossible to handle.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, through the use of Psychoanalytical Criticism and New Historicism exposes the feelings of a post-war America in its main characters and seemingly uncaring society. Psychoanalytical Criticism explains certain human behavior shown in the characters of this novel: especially Nick Carraway, whose time in the war clearly affected him as he is unable to return to his life after. New Historicism takes this idea of the trauma of the war affecting lives in it use of desolate imagery and amoral symbolism to connect the seeming total loss of the world before World War One and the unscrupulous standard of living the 1920s brought into effect. In using these two theories to analyze The Great Gatsby further, it is clear how the effects of World War I affected the lives of all Americans after—whether one served or not. The trauma endured by Americans after the war caused a restless, senseless society that Fitzgerald shows through the events of The Great Gatsby that if this was not remedied this would lead to one’s downfall.

Mental Illnesses affect more than 42.5 million people in the U.S. Famous author Charlotte Perkins Gilman once said: “Until we see what we are, we can not take steps to become what we should be.” Throughout the short story, The Yellow Wallpaper the main character who is a middle-aged has a mental condition. Throughout the story, we witness her mindset and thoughts. As the main character’s condition worsened, her personality changed. When we first meet the main character we are introduced to a woman with a mental condition.

A reporter with The Wilson Quarterly said that they “didn’t like The Great Gatsby because there were no important women in the stories…it concentrated too much on the wealthy and not enough on the poor”. (Fitzgerald “The Great”). Looking at all of these different works by F. Scott Fitzgerald, it can be seen that he is dealing with a lot emotionally and maybe even mentally. This lead to him abusing the use of alcohol and becoming very anti-social.

portrays him or her in a story. In The Great Gatsby the main character is an

Great Gatsby Analysis Throughout the paper there are many changes in the setting that either foreshadow or give clues to how Fitzgerald feels about the American dream. Fitzgerald uses descriptive details such as grotesque gardens, powdery air, and drawing aquaplanes over cataracts of foam to explicitly show the setting. Obviously Fitzgerald is writing about the top of top wealthy people, but he is writing with a negative mood. Fitzgerald writes about the American dream as a generalized goal of affluence.

F. Scott Fitzgerald punishes Gatsby by being shot by George Wilson in his own pool at the end of Chapter 8. After trying to pursue Daisy’s heart he was never really himself, even if Daisy would have rejected Gatsby, would Gatsby have kept going “not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion.”?(92) Nick also viewed him as someone with “a romantic readiness,”(10) His desires contributed to his character by making it slowly erode from the start. As all he could focus on was getting Daisy as he was deeply in love with her and started using the wealth he had to make that happen. Tom also wanted Gatsby to pay the price after falling in love with his wife by telling George it was Gatsby’s car that killed Myrtle. F Scott Fitzgerald wanted Gatsby to represent the American dream that failed and corrupted as he was wealthy and lived the luxurious life but even after hard work one slip up that could have a serious affect later on in life and in Gatsby’s case his life.

In the novel, The Great Gatsby, a man named Nick Carraway documents his experiences while living in New York of events surrounding his neighbor, Jay Gatsby. Included in his narrative are his cousin, Daisy Buchanan, her husband Tom Buchanan, and their friend Jordan Baker. Revelations of affairs unravel amongst the party and turn some against each other. Lies and infidelity star in Gatsby’s life and lead to his demise, though by faults of others, not just his own. In The Great Gatsby, a book by F. Scott Fitzgerald and a film directed by Baz Luhrmann, mood plays a large role in developing literary elements.

Commentary on how the stylistic choices affect the tone 1. The words Fitzgerald chose to describe the valley of ashes are very negative such as “foul” and “dismal.” This creates a gloomy atmosphere and tone for this part of the novel. However, I think this was done with purpose.

The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald tells us a variety of themes-justice, power and greed, The American dream and so on. The Great Gatsby is regarded as a brilliant piece of social commentary. The Great Gatsby concerns the wasteful lives of four wealthy characters as observed by their acquaintance, narrator Nick Carraway. Like Fitzgerald himself, Nick is from Minnesota, attended an Ivy League university, served in the U.S. Army during World War I, moved to New York after the war. The narrator, Nick, is a very clever and well spoken storyteller. Nick confides with the reader in the first pages of the novel. He says that he needs to tell the story of a man called Gatsby. It is as if Nick has to overcome disappointment and frustration with a man who has left him with painful memories. This thesis is valid for three main reasons. First, it is evident that dreams and memories are central to the overall plot and meaning. Secondly, the American Dream is a “green light” of desire that Gatsby never stops yearning for and something he will not forget over time, even as he is dying. This is so, even though no one cares about Gatsby or his dreams after he died, except maybe Nick. Finally, the fact that Fitzgerald uses flashback; that Nick is telling us about a main character after he has already died and before the story begins, is ultimate proof.The Great Gatsby is structured by Nick’s memory. Fitzgerald’s clever use of flashback throughout and within the