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The Great Gatsby Analysis

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Great Gatsby, America, and the Present Mirroring the American we know today, The Great Gatsby still earns its place as a canon of American literature. In it’s simplest form The Great Gatsby represents America. The majority of characters in the Great Gatsby can be described as obsessed with the other’s perceptions, unsophisticated, naïve, and sometimes idiotically optimistic. All of these characterizations are traits that fit both the Great Gatsby and modern day America. Although it can be hard now to see our society within their world, in many ways Americans are still dealing with the same themes. There are still divides between new money and old and tensions between social classes. People are still striving to be better than one another and trying to project the best versions of themselves. We still gossip and obsess over people and celebrities we don’t even know. We know what it feels like to deeply yearn for something so close yet still out of reach, and to subconsciously know that this goal will most likely never be reached. More importantly even if we do reach it will we be completely satisfied once we get there? The Great Gatsby deserves to be a part of the canon of American literature because although the roaring twenties were almost one hundred years ago, the same innate human qualities and fixations continue to persist in America today. People have continually had an inherent need for others to like us. In The Great Gatsby the characters also reflect this

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