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The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

Decent Essays

Everybody has dreams, and everybody must deal with reality – that is the nature of life.

A dream can be defined as something imagined, an ambition or an ideal, and reality is the term assigned to all things real. Humans, by our very nature, are ambitious, ever pursuing our dreams, our deepest desires. It is the very purpose of life to make our goals our aspirations, real. Therefore it is the nature of life to live through reality and to dream. It is fitting, then, that many texts have been composed based on ‘Dreams and Reality’. ‘The Great Gatsby’, ‘Great
Expectations’, ‘the talented Mr. Ripley’, and ‘Cat’s in the Cradle’ are some such texts.

We all need to have dreams and goals, they give us purpose. This is evident in the …show more content…

Fitzgerald also presents the rich as being immoral and wicked, and many of the rich in the novel did not work for their money. The poor, on the other hand, are portrayed as being rundown and beaten, and simply unable to get ahead despite their sincerest efforts; “One thing 's sure and nothing 's surer, the rich get richer and the poor get - children.”

Fitzgerald stresses that unless you are born into wealth, it is virtually impossible to achieve it.

Social Class, therefore, is depicted as being unavoidable, and in the novel the characters are separated by it. There are the rich, snobby members of the upper class; Tom, Daisy, Jordan, and there are the hardworking ‘chums’ of the lower class; George and Myrtle.

Characterization plays an important role in the novel. Fitzgerald creates his characters to suit the very themes that he is trying to communicate. Tom, for example represents the callous, immoral nature of the very rich; “-even in college his freedom with money was a matter for reproach,”

Tom is having an affair with a married woman and he carelessly flaunts this fact; “We’re getting off,” he insisted. “I want you to meet my girl.” He is also quite the liar, he has Myrtle, his mistress, convinced that he will not be able to marry her because his wife is a
Catholic and will not

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