The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

In Gatsby’s mission to attain wealth, power, and status he loses sight of his morals through his “dealings” with various shady people that are rumored to be lucrative and illegal. The extent of Gatsby’s criminal activities is confirmed by Tom Buchanan one hot summer night when Tom shares that Gatsby and “Wolfsheim bought up a lot of side-street drug-stores…and sold grain alcohol over the counter,” (133) an illegal venture during prohibition. In addition to Gatsby’s business investments, his obsession with winning Daisy clouds his mind with thoughts of inspiring her to leave her husband and abandoned her child. Nick believes Gatsby would “want nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say: ‘I never loved you,’” (109) and prove her marriage was a sham.

In, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the characters in the story are shown to have enormous wealth and live in the areas of East and West Egg. Jay Gatsby lives in West Egg, while the Buchanan 's live in East Egg. Although both are rich beyond belief, (the Buchanan 's from old money. Gatsby from new money), both Gatsby and Tom Buchanan reach for more and more from life. This appetite to gain and gain could and did have tremendous repercussions. Not only repercussions to their reputations, but also repercussions to their life with loved ones. By examining Gatsby and Tom in, "The Great Gatsby," and their inability to be content with what they have, one can determine how being unappreciative can lead to consequences such as death, love lost and soiling of reputation

His lack of wealth led Daisy into the arms of another more prosperous man, Tom. Gatsby believed that he could win Daisy back with money, and that he could get the life she wanted if he is willing to pay for it.. He wanted to do away with time in order to obliterate the years Tom and Daisy had together. Gatsby wanted to repeat the past, "I'm going to fix everything just the way it was before. She'll see . . ."(p.110) Gatsby's romantic disregard for reality changes the American Dream with his dream that love can be recaptured if one can make enough money. The corruption of Gatsby's dream by adopting materialism as its means and love, beauty and youth as its goal is due to the corruption of the American Dream.

Fitzgerald viewed corruptness in three ways. The first was loving someone just for their money. He showed this through the character, Myrtle, she lived in the valley of ashes. She always wanted to become rich and live in The East egg. She believes that Tom will leave Daisy for her even though that would never happen. Her name means a flowering shrub, she was very good to look at but inside she was evil on the inside. In the book Nick described her when he first meet her he said “Her face, above a spotted dress of dark blue crépe-de-chine, contained no facet or gleam of beauty, but there was an immediately perceptible vitality about her as if the nerves of her body were continually smouldering. She smiled slowly and, walking through her husband as if he were a ghost, shook hands with Tom, looking him flush in the eye” ( Fitzgerald 25). Fitzgerald created Myrtel to show corruptness in women and money. She only wanted to marry tom because of his money and social class, she didn 't care about anything else. The next thing that brought corruptness was love he showed this through the character Gatsby and his desire with being with daisy. Gatsby became rich by bootlegging which was illegal to sell alcohol he took advantage of this moment to make millions.He also showed through Gatsby 's that lying also makes you a corrupt man. Fitzgerald chooses his name Jay because it means a person that talks a lot his character of the Great Gatsby was created by him talking

[OPENING STATEMENT] The Great Gatsby does not clearly yield to either poem or prose causing it to be considered as a lyrical novel rather than the more common narrative. Poetic devices and techniques used by author F. Scott Fitzgerald are more commonly seen with poetry. Yet it is these techniques that give meaning to his work of fiction; how Fitzgerald states his ideas becomes more important than the ideas themselves. Poetic devices he uses are called litotes, which express a positive statement by using its opposite negatives. To say “the ice cream was not bad” would be an intentional understatement, when instead one could say the ice cream was “good.” Litotes are used for irony, which is “using words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning.”1 Also commonly found throughout the novel, litotes are used for emphatic effect to benefit setting, plot, and character development.

According to the newspaper company The Telegraph, daisies can become “serious weeds” and have the ability “thrive in generally inhospitable conditions.” This informative description of a common daisy mirrors F. Scott Fitzgerald’s character, Daisy Buchanan. In his novel, The Great Gatsby, Daisy tries to preserve the stability of her wealthy lifestyle through her marriage with Tom Buchanan instead of pursuing true love with Gatsby. Daisy becomes monotonous and dependent on wealth to act as an equilibrator of her life. Her dependency becomes uncontrollable, and that like that beautiful, innocent flower, she becomes a vile weed rooted in corruption. Fitzgerald implements Daisy as a way to convey the innate destructive property of wealth; it

Fitzgerald's dominant theme in The Great Gatsby focuses on the corruption of the American Dream. By analyzing high society during the 1920s through the eyes of narrator Nick Carraway, the author reveals that the American Dream has transformed from a pure ideal of security into a convoluted scheme of materialistic power. In support of this message, Fitzgerald highlights the original aspects as well as the new aspects of the American Dream in

"Never has symbolism played such a crucial part in the very foundation of a novel as it does in Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece, The Great Gatsby." Harold Bloom has written about this book. The author used several types of symbolism in The Great Gatsby. The colours are probably the easiest to be recognized and guessed what they symbolized. According to the definition “symbolism” is "the practice of representing things by means of symbols or of attributing symbolic meanings or significance to objects, events, or relationships."

Many consider The Great Gatsby a beautiful love story. A literary review site, for example, says about Fitzgerald’s most famous work: “The Great Gatsby is probably F. Scott Fitzgerald 's greatest novel […] Gatsby is really nothing more than a man desperate for love”(The Great Gatsby Review). Popular opinion paints Gatsby as such: A man desperate for love, devoid of any evil. But a closer look uncovers a new side of Jay Gatsby because Gatsby, underneath his glorious façade, is a sociopath.

Life is not always what it seems, but is constantly fooled by metaphorical masks people wear. The appearance of many of the characters in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby differs greatly from their actual selves. The use of illusion in the novel is used effectively to portray the nature of people in the 1920 's, and the “artificial” life that is lived in this modern age. There are many incidences in which the appearance of characters is far different than what lurks inside them. Several of these incidences are shown in the appearances of Gatsby himself, Daisy Buchanan, and Gatsby’s true love for Daisy. Gatsby goes through a dramatic transformation from his old self to his new self, even changing his name and buying a faux mansion in

“He and this Wolfsheim bought up a lot of side-street drug-stores here and in Chicago and sold grain alcohol over the counter. That’s one of his little stunts. I picked him for a bootlegger the first time I saw him, and I wasn’t far wrong” (Fitzgerald 133). This quote from the book shows Tom, Daisy’s husband, revealing Gatsby for who he truly is, a man who obtained his money by breaking the law. This demonstrates the fact that your past will always catch up with you. The societal values washed Gatsby away right along with it. He believed that the only way he could achieve true happiness was by becoming part of the upper class, and he was willing to break the law to do so, so he could have the chance to win Daisy back. The things he did to try to ultimately get Daisy pushed him farther from her. This illustrates ironically how by America pushing morality down the drain for the purpose of becoming happier and fuller, their sins and choices were causing their lives to just become hollow, numb, and purposeless.

Buzz Aldrin once said, “I think the American Dream used to be achieving one 's goals in your field of choice - and from that, all other things would follow. Now, I think the dream has morphed into the pursuit of money: Accumulate enough of it, and the rest will follow.” The American Dream is a way for people to start over and have opportunities to become successful and achieve their dreams. In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald writes a story of enormous wealth, from old money in East Egg, to new money in West Egg. Gatsby Lives in West Egg, while Tom and Daisy live in East Egg. Fitzgerald writes about three characters in which have trouble finding true happiness with themselves and others without flashing their money

In the book, The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gatsby is exemplified through many symbols and idols. Fitzgerald uses cars to represent wealth, success, status, and glamour. As Friedrich Nietzsche states, “There are more idols in the world than there are realities.” Nietzsche’s quote shows how idols and symbols are used to create impressions. Images are powerful and set a stage for others to judge one’s character, enabling human beings to avoid seeing what realities are. Idols are potent enough to mask the truth. In the novel, despite Gatsby 's own insecurities, he is viewed as an idol in society. Idols impact and influence Gatsby’s life and those living around him. Gatsby’s car represents an idol, illustrating his wealth, capturing attention, creating impressions, and covering misconceptions throughout life in the West Egg.

The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, provides a dark and pessimistic outlook into the American life style in 1922. Jay Gatsby, an American wealthy social identity, appears to have it all. But wealth, stature and an extravagant lifestyle seems not to be enough for Gatsby; he still yearns for his old idealistic love Daisy. In an ideal world this has the making of a great love story with a happy ending, but Fitzgerald chose to carry the story as a reflection of the American era the book is set in. An era consumed by appearances and excess and overall pursuit of the American dream.

Gatsby refuses to not meet his aspirations and will fulfill his dream by any means necessary. Although Gatsby’s intentions and motivation to become successful are pure, the way he obtains his status is extremely foul and criminal. Gatsby participates in organized crime, trades stolen securities, and bootlegs illegal alcohol. Instead of Gatsby using his wit and intelligence in an honest hard working way, he participates in corrupt acts, which will guarantee him his wealth and status. It is this aspect of Gatsby’s life where Fitzgerald expresses the decline of The American Dream. He tries to show his readers the demoralization of our society and how greed and power are a form of empty success that a lot of Americans buy in to.