The Grass Is Always Greener In The Other Fellow's Yard Meaning

In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald displays society’s role in transforming one’s identity by creating complex and realistic characters. Jay Gatsby is a prime example of how one will change themselves to accommodate society. Once a poor son from a farming family, Gatsby puts up an extravagant facade to hopefully win a woman over, however in the process, puts aside morals and values. Fitzgerald demonstrates the importance of social expectations, wealth and the perception of the American Dream are in determining one’s identity.

or raised his own family. His pride turned into bitterness, hopeless and anger. He was still

grown up being obligated to stay quiet about her father being physically abusive. She relied

Fitzgerald displays Gatsby as man who came from nothing, with an unrelenting passion to obtain material success, or the 1920’s American Dream. Radical transformation was one of Mr. Gatsby’s most outstanding characteristics, taking his desire to change from the once impoverished man to the point of changing his name. Certainly Gatsby possesses admirable traits, as his will power is once again displayed through the longing for his lost love, Daisy. The misconceptions of the time period are illustrated as Fitzgerald displays that Gatsby’s underlying desire for money is to win over Daisy through impressing her with his wealth. Within Adam Cohen’s piece “Jay Gatsby Is a Man for Our Times”, Cohen discusses the worthiness of Gatsby’s goal: “The callow Daisy, whose voice is ‘full of money,’ may not be a worthy goal. But Gatsby’s longing for her, and his willingness to sell his soul to pursue her, are the purest thing in this sordid tale.” Essentially, Fitzgerald demonstrates that Gatsby, nor his relentless will to succeed, are not the issue. It is the time period, along with the misconceptions of a dream, which corrupt the character. Gatsby’s wealth is obtained through unethical ways, like many others who followed the path of easy money. The corruption of bonds does bring Gatsby the wealth he had always longed for, along with extravagant and lavish parties at his mansion. Consequently, we learn that reaching the goal of obtaining wealth ultimately does not lead to

Transforming his name and developing new life values are only parts of the lifecycle in which Jay Gatsby participates in order to follow his dreams. Although not always successful in creating new individualities, Gatsby’s attempts are fully genuine.

Jay Gatsby, the title character of The Great Gatsby, is really not all that the title might suggest. First of all, his real name is James Gatz. He changed it in an effort to leave behind his old life as a poor boy and create an entirely new identity. He is also a liar and a criminal, having accumulated his wealth and position by dishonest means. But he is still called ‘great,’ and in a sense he is. Gatsby is made great by his unfaltering hope, and his determination to live in a perfect world with Daisy and their perfect love. Gatsby has many visible flaws—his obvious lies, his mysterious way of avoiding straight answers. But they are shadowed over by his gentle smile and his visible hunger for an ideal future. The coarse and playful Jay

   The beauty and splendor of Gatsby's parties masks the decay and corruption that lay at the heart of the Roaring Twenties. The society of the Jazz Age, as observed by Fitzgerald, is morally bankrupt, and thus continually plagued by a crisis of character. Jay Gatsby, though he struggles to be a part of this world, remains unalterably an outsider. His life is a grand irony, in that it is a caricature of Twenties-style ostentation: his closet overflows with custom-made shirts; his lawn teems with "the right people," all engaged in the serious work of absolute triviality; his mannerisms (his false British accent, his old-boy friendliness) are laughably affected. Despite all this,

Jay Gatsby, the protagonist in The Great Gatsby, is faced with the struggle of achieving his dream against the reality of the world (Sanders 109). He acquired his wealth through bootlegging and relations with corrupt individuals. However, he tries to preserve his innocence by recreating his past with Daisy (“Fitzgerald F Scott”). The reality of the world leaves Gatsby with the feeling of emptiness and desperation because his life was consumed with overwhelming wealth and a passionate devotion to a relationship with Daisy, only to have it disappear (Dubose 75). Similar to the Lost Generation, at the end of the novel Gatsby realizes the world is full of deception and cruelty, even after earning great wealth (“Lost Generation”). A Lost Generation is defined as having “developed the idiosyncratic and personal manners” and feeling emotionally and spiritually alienated from the previous generations (Stegner 184). Jay Gatsby symbolizes the Lost Generation which F. Scott Fitzgerald connects to the changing social attitudes such as wealth, love, and the corruption of innocence in The Great Gatsby.

By depicting Gatsby and Jean’s lower class origins, Fitzgerald and Strindberg set the scene for their aspirations and inevitable failure. Jay Gatsby was originally James Gatz a young man from a poor, uneducated family. However, from a young age, he possessed a focused ambition, as shown by his time-table and list of goals for personal improvement. Even after James Gatz becomes Jay Gatsby on the water, ambition remains Gatsby’s main attribute, and he

Gatsby, on the other hand, develops into the person he is by recognizing the kind of person he does not want to be- a bourgeois, like his parents. He rejects them as “shiftless and unsuccessful farm people” (The Great Gatsby 104) and yearns to move up from the middle class he is born into. After seeing millionaire Dan Cody’s yacht, Gatsby strive to achieve “all the beauty and glamour in the world” (106) that the yacht represents to him. Gatsby’s desire to attain the wealth and glamour of the upper class leads him to create the personage Jay Gatsby, his Platonic conception of himself. He goes about transforming himself methodically, practicing things such as “elocution, poise, and how to attain it” (GG 181) and learning from Dan Cody until “the vague contour of Jay Gatsby had filled out to the substantiality of a man” (107). As an outsider, Gatsby’s perception of the upper class is romanticized and

“Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men, and men are great only if they are determined to be so,” once said Charles de Gaulle. This valiant quote by a former president of France accentuates my opinion of the Great Jay Gatsby. From humble beginnings rises our main focus of F. Scott Fitzgeralds’ The Great Gatsby. Young Jimmy Gatz is brought to West Egg from his heavily impoverished North Dakota family. His desire to be something greater than a farmer drove him to fortune and love through any means necessary; his life long obsession, Daisy Fay, infatuates Jay in his own insatiable thirst for her affection. James follows Daisy in the years after he is deployed to World War 1, and when he sees she has married Tom Buchanan he becomes hell-bent on replicating the success Tom has inherited in order to win over Daisy. Through moderately deceitful ways, Jay Gatsby builds his wealth and reputation to rival and even supersede many already lavish family names. Astonishingly, the great Mr. Gatsby, overrun with newfound affluence, stays true to his friends, lover, and his own ideals to his blissfully ignorant end.

In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby provides the reader with a unique outlook on the life of the newly rich. Gatsby is an enigma and a subject of great curiosity, furthermore, he is content with a lot in life until he strives too hard. His obsession with wealth, his lonely life and his delusion allow the reader to sympathize with him.

parents at an early age and working as a merchant most of his life . He retreated to a cave in a near

grew up. His academic success angered his father, therefore he was trapped in the past, unable to

Within the first two verses of the song, this young woman presents an issue that is all too common for many people. She has big dreams and wants to make a name for herself, but to succumb to making that dream a reality, she would have to desert the loved ones that have made