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The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

Decent Essays

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is the compelling story of the lengths one man goes to in order to try and win back the love of his youth. In order to do so, the titular figure of the novel, Jay Gatsby, reinvents himself from the hardscrabble soldier of his younger years into an enigma of a millionaire; during his time living at West Egg, Gatsby is revered by all, but known by none. Despite the lavish lifestyle which has made him ever so well known for, Gatsby is never able to win back Daisy, the girl who has for so long represented the culmination of all of his desires. In his novel The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald uses Gatsby’s desperate struggle to ingratiate himself into Daisy’s life to illustrate how one can never overcome the socio-economic barriers placed upon them at birth.
“Literary geography is typically about humans inhabiting spaces, and at the same time spaces inhabiting humans” (Foster 173). Throughout The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald uses the two Eggs to demonstrate the large impact location has on the lives of his characters. Because of the complicated social structure of America during the 1920s, it is both figuratively and literally impossible for Gatsby to truly become a part of Daisy’s life. In the grand world of the upper echelon of New York City, geography is everything. For these elite members of society, the East Egg of Long Island is the place to be, a place where money seems to grow on trees and life is ever easy for its inhabitants. These old

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