The Film Adaptation Of Jay Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

One in twenty-five people suffer from borderline personality disorder, a condition where a pervasive pattern of instability in interpersonal relations and self-image form at the beginning of early adulthood and continue on. Jay Gatsby pathologically has an excessive and erotic interest in himself and his physical attributes and appearance, which makes him classify as a narcissist. Narcissism and borderline personality disorder can combine together to make a unique set of symptoms, such as a need for admiration, a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, a grandiose sense of self-importance, being interpersonally exploitative, preoccupation with excessive fantasies of success and ideal love, and frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. In cases that exhibit a grandiose sense of self-importance, a person may exaggerate personal achievements and expect to be superior and be recognized for said achievements. Gatsby has a myriad of these symptoms and behaviors; and, like in most cases, his condition led to a death because of his unfathomable obsession with Daisy, trying to earn her love and compassion, and attempts at altering the past. In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gatsby exemplifies symptoms and mental attributes associated with narcissistic borderline personality disorder.

The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is told from the perspective of one of the main characters, Nick Carraway. Nick tells the story of a man named Jay Gatsby, who is his neighbor in the West Egg. Fitzgerald portrays Gatsby as a man who everyone wants to know and copy but deep down are very envious of him. Gatsby trusts few people and those whom he trusts know his life story. To everyone else, he is a mystery. Everyone seems obsessed with Jay Gatsby. For this reason the novel revolves about rumors of Gatsby rather than the truth.

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.

Houses in The Great Gatsby are another on of the very important symbols, depicting conspicuous consumption, and the hopeless wish of the American dream. "the one on my right was a colossal affair by any standard—it was a factual imitation of some Hotel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, ing new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool, and more than forty acres of lawn and garden. it was Gatsby's mansion (9)." Gatsby's house, and his elaborate parties, signify a certain emptiness in Gatsby. His only reason for setting up these gigantic parties in his large house is to, though futile, attract the attention of Daisy. His enormous house goes to show that he has this money to spend, but spends it on something that will not help him to be happy, or to catch the attention of Daisy; This is probably the most conspicuous consumption of all. Tom Buchanan also has a large house, but for entirely different reasons. "Their house was even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful red-and-white Georgian Colonial mansion, overlooking the bay. The lawn started at the beach and ran toward the front door for a quarter of a mile,

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.

Following the destruction caused by World War I, it became obvious that the United States needed to rebuild itself. Jay Gatsby, even though fictionalized character, represented many of the hardships of the time, he “was promoted to be a major, and every Allied government gave me a decoration” (Fitzgerald 71), but yet when he came back from the war he had a very hard time finding a job or work.This lead to many long-held pre-war values and customs being rejected by a new rising youth culture, which made them seem irrelevant. Because of this, the American youth began rebelling against many of the social norms of their parents ' generation as they strove to create something uniquely their own. Even adults played a part with this new youth culture, as some attempted to imitate the new trends while others found themselves repulsed by them. But whatever adults of the time felt, they could not deny that the new world created by their country 's youth was having a drastic effect on the American population as a whole, as they synthesized new ideas from embattled traditions creating a complex movement that was reckless and moved without regard to others. In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Fitzgerald highlights how the rising youth culture was personified by "flamboyant, reckless spirits" (Drowne and Huber 29). It was this spirit which lead to the moral depravity so often seen and exemplified by the youth culture, both the youth culture of the 1920s and the contemporary one.

The main theme of the novel “The Great Gatsby” focuses on the American Dream and it is portrayed through the life of Jay Gatsby. Through Gatsby’s life we see the withering of the American Dream, a tragedy that struck Jay’s near finished dream. The American Dream is what many have hoped of achieving, it has existed in the past and is in the present. The American Dream gives people a goal that they can work towards, it also gives them a purpose in life. The American Dream represents luxury and wealth it believes the goodness of the quality of life. For Jay Gatsby, he was so close to achieving the American Dream. He had the wealth and the class, all he needed was his long lost love, Daisy. Gatsby truly believed that he

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

|  Jordan finds herself living a fast-paced and lurid lifestyle, with no prospects for finding a deeper meaning to life.

Gatsby is known for his extravagant parties but people did not really know who Gatsby was. His parties symbolize his desperate need for attention though he through these drunken parties for the hope that Daisy will eventually show up to one of them. It may seem as if Gatsby has already achieved the American dream by the outside of his home. He demands esteem by showing off his wealth through purchases like when he says to Nick, “My house looks well doesn’t it? See how the whole front of it catches the light” (Fitzgerald 89).

The notion of the ‘American Dream’ is one of the repeated aspects portrayed in this book, since Gatsby’s entire life is dedicated to achieving this. The ‘American Dream’ comprises of grand opulence, social equality, wealth; more specifically, a big house with a big garden, the newest model cars, the most fashionable attire, and a traditional four-peopled ‘happy’ family. To Fitzgerald, the ‘American Dream’ itself is a positive, admirable pursuit. We can see this when Fitzgerald uses personification, “flowers”, to background positive connotations behind the idea of the ‘American Dream’. In regard to Gatsby, he achieves the wealth aspect of this ‘dream’, “he had come a long way to this blue lawn”; however, he was yet to be satisfied because he did not have Daisy. Ever since the very beginning of the story, Gatsby always associated Daisy with magnificent affluence, the white house, and the grand quality of being rich. Gatsby wanted everything ever since he was first introduced to the higher status. But Gatsby felt incomplete and unfulfilled even after getting everything he dreamt of, so he sourced this emptiness as not having Daisy, where in reality, “he neither understood or desired” the motives he thought he once had.

Sybil Isabel Dorsett, a shy, twenty-two-year-old substitute teacher, became an interesting case, when the Sybil came into a mental health facility complaining of severe memory loss that resulted in unknown store bought items, “waking up,” in strange place, and severe social anxiety that again resulted in a loss of time, and memory, blackouts, and emotional breakdowns, in public places. What was first thought to be hysteria, turned into another problem, after experiencing some of the patients, “hysteria.” Born, and raised in the suburbs of Dodge Center, Minnesota, to a very successful and well respected carpenter, and architect, Walter Mason, and an often described as, “bizarre,” stay-at-home mother, Martha “Mattie” Atkinson. Sybil seemed to have the all-American family, but reports sexual abuse at the hands of her well-respected mother, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia years before Sybil was born. A much respected art teacher at Columbia university, Sybil often teaches art classes to university students.

The main characters in both F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and William Shakespeare's Macbeth appear stable and successful on the outside, but inside they are engaged in a constant struggle with their dreams. Gatsby tries to win back the girl of his dreams by becoming something he's not, a member of high society; while Macbeth believes the prediction of the witches that he will be king and spends his life trying to make it come true. Both characters are willing to risk everything in pursuit of their respective dreams, including committing crimes. Both are motivated to take these risks by a woman. And both inevitably suffer premature demises.

Frances Scott Key Fitzgerald, born September 24, 1896 in St. Paul, Minnesota, is seen today as one of the true great American novelists. Although he lived a life filled with alcoholism, despair, and lost-love, he managed to create the ultimate love story and seemed to pinpoint the ¡§American Dream¡¨ in his classic novel, The Great Gatsby. In the novel, Jay Gatsby is the epitome of the ¡§self-made man,¡¨ in which he dictates his entire life to climbing the social ladder in order to gain wealth, to ultimately win the love of a woman: something that proves to be unattainable. As it turns out, Gatsby¡¦s excessive extravagance and love of money, mixed with his obsession for a woman¡¦s love, is actually the autobiographical portrayal of

The American Dream coincides with wealth and status rather than happiness or family. In the novel, Gatsby is an example of “New Money.” Although he makes a lot of money in a brief period of time, he is still unaccepted by the upper class, which helps to prove that The American Dream is unachievable for him even though he has wealth and is successful (Fitzgerald 65). In contrast, Daisy is an example of “Old Money” since her safety and privileges are guaranteed by her wealth. This is shown as she marries Tom, regardless of her affection towards Gatsby, and ultimately chooses to stay with him at the end of the novel (75). This proves that upper class women in the 1920’s did not have much freedom to make their own choices as divorce was a controversial topic at the time. Similarly, Gatsby’s description of Daisy as being born wealthy demonstrates how he believes her voice is “full of money” (120). Such a metaphor enhances the