The Great Gatsby Analysis

Both the texts ‘The Great Gatsby’ by F.Scott Fitzgerald and ‘Sonnets from the Portuguese’ by Elizabeth Barrett Browning explore the ideas of aspirations and identity developing a deeper understanding of the texts. Both texts share these ideas through the characters and the values of idealism and hope, and personal voice and identity. Although the two texts are separated in time and context, they both reflect the world of the text and composer.

After reading The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, I was able to gather a small playlist of songs that can relate to the book. The lyrics in these songs relate to scenes, symbols, and different characters in the book.

Although it is the repercussions of their deceptive fantasies that Gatsby and Lester fall victim to, it was their continued search for love that leads them to these. Love is the principal value in The Great Gatsby and is illustrated best by the contrast of Gatsby’s idealized romantic love for Daisy with Daisy’s “love” for wealth and status, a love which is common to the majority of their irresponsible society. F Scott Fitzgerald emphasizes Gatsby’s “romantic readiness” through this contrast as well as Gatsby’s fall from grace that results in him becoming lost in “the colossal vitality of his illusions” (pg. 92). Daisy characterizes the power of a love of money in the Great Gatsby and is used by Fitzgerald in condemning Gatsby’s hedonistic society as well as his own. However it is the absence of love –rather than the presence- that is most prominent in American

In “The Great Gatsby,” written by Scott Fitzgerald, Tom Buchanan and Jay Gatsby are two characters that struggle with the idea of losing their shared love interest, Daisy. Tom and Gatsby’s attachment to Daisy is differently justified due to their contrasting views, personalities, attitudes, actions, backgrounds, and other factors, some of which they do share and concur in. Fitzgerald did a great thing here. He created two purposefully different characters- one that is easily despised, the other that although not perfect, is likable- and united them in their love for money, the power that comes with it , and their haunt for the ultimate prize – Daisy. In this essay,

However, Browning’s aspirations to push through social barriers and separate herself from the conforming way of Victorian society, is an ongoing progression throughout her Sonnets. The lust to subvert from strict 19th century female values is eminent in the progression of Browning’s female poetic voice in Sonnet XLIII. She metaphorises the expansion of her love through a spatial metaphor “Depth and Breadth and Height” combined with polysyndeton to emphasis the scope of her affection, which is a stark contrast from the delayed Volta in Sonnet I “who by turns had flung a shadow across me”. This progressive journey of love illustrates Bowring’s aspirations to overcome the highly regimented social order that Victorian England provided to the love of young couples, denying them freedom make their own decisions, “the melancholy years… those of my own life”. In both texts, the desire to push away from the present conveys a deeper understanding of the hope within their characterisation. Towards the end of chapter six, we begin to understand Gatsby’s true aspirations during the conversation between him and Nick, “you can’t repeat the past”, “why of course you can … I’m going to fix everything just the way it was”. Gatsby believes in the mutability of reality and having faith in the realness of his dreams even though his desire is truly unattainable. The past exerts a

The Universal values depicted through the texts ‘Sonnets from the Portuguese’ (1845) by Elizabeth Barrett Browning and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel ‘The Great Gatsby’ (1926). Both explore their relevant contexts of the Victorian Era and 1920’s Jazz age value systems explore the intertextual perspectives and universal values of idealistic love, limitations of time and restoration of hope. Though both texts share similar thematic concerns their interpretation differs substantially as a result of diverse historical context, personal experiences and human values.

It is often said that certain literary works and characters within such works represent real-world issues. In the work The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the character of Gatsby is shrouded in ambiguity to the reader, providing them with a possibility for personal interpretation. In the work, Gatsby’s character develops from a character representing materialism and a fixation on status to one filled with humility and selflessness for his romantic devotion towards the character of Daisy. Through this shift, the reader is provided with insight in order to draw parallels between Gatsby and two distinct periods in American history. The materialistic side of Gatsby, driven by wealth and his status in Long Island, represents the moral corruption and materialistic desires of America in the 1920s, whereas the romantically devoted Gatsby represents wartime America, devoted to sacrifice and nobility. The contrast within the life of Gatsby allows for a profound insight into the significance of the work as a representation of changing American values.

This represents the pinnacle point in the novel, where Gatsby ties all his ambitions for wealth and class, his pursuit of the American Dream, to Daisy Buchanan. However, Daisy, a married mother, crumbles under the weight of the ideals and dreams Gatsby has instilled in her and as a result retreats to her husband Tom, despite her affection for Gatsby. It is his inability to accept defeat and his insatiable pursuit of wealth and class that ultimately leads to his demise. Subsequently, Fitzgerald suggests that Gatsby’s inevitable failure to win over Daisy, in turn represents his unattainable and materialistic pursuit of The American Dream.

The texts ‘Sonnets from the Portuguese’ (1845) by Elizabeth Barrett Browning and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel ‘The Great Gatsby’ (1926). Both explore the universal values of limitation of time, restoration of hope and idealised love. As such inherently reflected through their relevant contexts of the Victorian Era and 1920’s Jazz age value systems. Even though the text share similar themes their interpretation completely differ influenced by diverse historical context, personal experiences and human values.

Robert Browning’s poems “Porphyria’s Lover” and “My Last Duchess” depict a mastery of the dramatic monologue style. Said style contains a narrative told by a character’s point of view that differs from that of the poet.The character’s monologue consists of them discussing their particular situation that they find themselves within, this is meant to convey their internal information to the reader or audience. This in turn allows the reader a glimpse into the personality of the narrating character. Within “Porphyria’s Lover” and My Last Duchess” these monologues are used along with poetic devices to develop unique male personas. Between these two personas there are evident differences in class and within each class social issues arise within each work.

All literary genres are dealing with the particular context and construction to reflect on values, attitudes in human societies of various eras. The comparative study of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “Sonnets of the Portuguese” and Scott Fitzgerald’s Pros fiction “The Great Gatsby” allow for a thorough evaluation of the relationship between the texts contexts and values. Both composers craft arguments on the nature of and value of life itself within the framework of love and spirituality. Browning, however writes from the perspective of a woman challenging values of the conventions of the Victorian era. Whilst, Fitzgerald construct’s his text as an accusation on the emerging hedonistic and capitalist creed of 1920’s America – the Jazz Age. Each writer’s context will influence our understanding of the discourse and will see the meaning and significance of each text, at the same time showing the connections that are achieved.

After World War II and the implementation of alcohol becoming legal, the roaring 20’s was a time for rejection and change amongst the American people. The idea to live a luxurious life to party and to be free. In The Great Gatsby this is what happens in New York. The characters come alive to bring a sense of what the 20’s looked like for the people of the riches. Gatsby the grand party thrower seeking for a renewed love confides in his neighbor and friend Nick Carraway on his journey to pursue his love, Daisy. Daisy is Nick Carraway's cousin who lives in East Egg or ‘old money’. She is a whirlwind and she loves the fast paced life of living in New York. The characters in this novel are all apart of this fast paced life, but they may not all feel the same way.

Being an “American” can mean a wide variety of things to different people. Nick, the narrator of the book The Great Gatsby, describes Gatsby's resourcefulness of movement as, “...so peculiarly American- that comes, I suppose, with the absence of lifting work or rigid sitting in your and, even more wit the formless grace of our nervous, sporadic games” (64). Nick thinks that Gatsby did not do any hard work and compares him to America, therefore Nick’s perception of Americans is that they don’t work hard. While the narrator, Nick has a preconceived notion of what it means to be an American, the whole book that he narrates is about F. Scott Fitzgerald's views on what it means to be an American in the changing time periods. F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the theme of the East and West as representations of a “New” American and an “Old” America. The characters Daisy and Tom, Jay Gatsby and Nick are all used to represent a different negative aspect of the “New” America, such as being corrupted from money, lustful, greedy and deceiving, revealing Fitzgerald’s views about how America is changing for the worse.

In the book The Great Gatsby, the past is greatly spoken of and is by far what has been troubling

Wealthy people do not savor the little things that they have in their lives, when wealthy people do not appreciate what they have they express less joy, pride and gratitude. The only way for wealthy people to be grateful is to appreciate the wealth they have earned or inherited, because some people do not experience the same as them. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, the upper-class characters are never pleased with what they own. Characters like Gatsby does not appreciate Daisy because she is not the rich, beautiful women he thought she once was, or Tom who even though has a lovely wife conducts affairs with other women. Daisy and her materialistic personality is never pleased with her possessions. Because of their excessive wealth, they fail to appreciate what they have leaving them unhappy.