The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby is a novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1925. It is recognized as the “Great American Novel” as it shows great wealth, partying, jazz music and many other aspects of the “American Dream”. In his novel, he displays a lot of symbols, and themes including wealth, greed, and the most vivid, betrayal. Betrayal can upset many people and ruin many people. Betrayal was demonstrated throughout the entire novel with a lot of connections. Three situations will be examined, and they will be: Gatsby betrayed by Daisy, Tom cheats on Daisy with Myrtle and no one attends Gatsby’s funeral.

The Great Gatsby takes place in the heat of the nineteen-twenties where countries, especially the United States, were economically booming after having recovered from World War One. This novel tells the tales of the fabulously rich while acknowledging, in part, the poor, working class who live during this time. In his work, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the characters and their actions in an unexpected fashion. He does not illustrate the triumphs of the twenties in a positive light, but, instead, mocks societal views by portraying them as full of: greed, falseness, and carelessness.

Some could say that there is a love so strong that it can blind one of the harsh realities of life and can make a fool out of anyone. This same blind love makes a fool of Jay Gatsby in the book The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Jay Gatsby is a young, wealthy man, seeking to be reunited with his long lost love Daisy Buchanan. After Nick Carraway moves next to Gatsby, he is invited over to one of Gatsby’s parties. Once Gatsby and Nick start to become friends, Gatsby asks Nick if he would invite his cousin Daisy for tea. Gatsby had fantasized, for five years, the moment that he would finally get to see Daisy; however, she couldn’t live up to his embellished imagination. During the rest of the summer, the affair arises between the two until one catastrophic night leads Daisy to slink back into her money and her husband for a sense of security. Gatsby is a fool for wasting his time trying to repeat the past and rekindle his love with Daisy.

To be Nick Carraway is to be an unreliable narrator. An unreliable narrator is a narrator, who, has little to no credibility and simply cannot be trusted. These narrators are often in first-person and “seem to have limited knowledge, to be mistaken in his or her understanding of people and events, or even to be deliberately misleading the reader.” (Margree par. 1). The well-known novel The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald, introduces readers to a story where everything may not be necessarily true. The beauty of this novel is that the readers actually get to decide what they want or do not want to believe. This is all due to Nick Carraway, the narrator of The Great Gatsby. Nick is prejudice and has various faults like dishonesty and being oblivious to himself. A character/narrator like this during the 1920s in New York City seems to fit in just fine, after all it was an age of “vitality, sapping out genuine emotion in favor of the artificial,” (Wolok 1). However, Nick’s faults have a major effect on the background stories and events taking place in The Great Gatsby. He picks and chooses his narrations forcing readers to not get only half the story. Along with this, Nick Carraway from The Great Gatsby is an unreliable narrator because he constantly contradicts himself, is biased towards Gatsby, and attempts to use other characters as primary sources.

Society has an obsession with money. In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, wealth is portrayed in two different classes called the new money and the old money. New money refers to those who have recently made their own fortune within their own generation. Old money refers to those who have inherited money from their wealthy families in the past generations. The new money people are more extravagant with their money in order to flaunt their wealth, while the old money people are more conservative with their money because they have been around for longer and people already understand their wealth. The difference between new and old money is not

In The Great Gatsby, the major male figures could be defined as both guys and men as their characters at certain times go beyond just guys trying to fulfill their need for “neat stuff” or accomplishing “pointless challenges”, and develop into men with real emotional qualities, expressing their wants and desires for the woman they both love, or in Nicks case: the respect and admiration he feels for Gatsby towards the end of the story. Throughout Barry’s essay, are stereotypes he attributes solely to guys in order to draw a distinction between what makes a guy, and how they differ from men. In the subsequent paragraphs, I will attempt to analyze each of the major male characters with Barry’s definitions of “guyness”, and demonstrate what makes these characters both guys and men.

The Great Gatsby, a story told by Nick Carraway, centers around the mysterious Jay Gatsby, Nick 's extremely wealthy neighbor. Gatsby throws gigantic parties every week for the other rich inhabitants of New York’s East and West eggs. Nick eventually becomes friends with Gatsby and learns he throws the parties to attract the attention of his lost love Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby pursues Daisy which eventually leads to his downfall. In the book The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald Jay Gatsby goes through the hero quest by leaving his normal world, experiencing an event sending him on his quest, and proving himself worthy in order to achieve his reward, the beautiful Daisy Buchanan.

The symbolic imagery, such as goods and color, is often used by authors to suggest and help readers to understand the invisible parts of the characters, which are their personalities and so on, through the specific goods they own, or the story, which help to develop the whole plot. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald uses a lot of symbols in this book. Among all those symbols in it, the symbol of the green light is the strongest, due to the changes of meaning in the book and leading the plot. However, each symbolic imagery is not unique, they interact with each other. This essay will argue that, with the help of other symbols, the symbol of green light becomes the crucial symbol for us to understand The Great Gatsby. Besides, this essay will

Greatness is defined as “wonderful; first-rate; very good; being such in an extreme or notable degree; remarkable; exceptionally outstanding; important; highly significant or consequential” (dictionary.com). So, using that criteria as judgment, is Gatsby actually great? Historical figures that are considered “great” add perspective to the controversy of that question, making a model or guidelines for someone to be thought of as “great”. Jay Gatsby shares the title “great”, as these leaders do, yet may not fit the mold. Why? That is a sticky subject. Formerly known as James Gatz, Gatsby is “great” in that he pursues a dream until his death, something many people can’t do; however his “greatness” truly lies in the fact that he is defeated by his desire for a girl that did not belong to him anymore. He chases a dream that isn’t in reaching distance. This great failure is Gatsby’s legacy that makes him The Great Gatsby, but what makes Gatsby, or any man for that matter, “great”?

Perhaps the most notorious, fictional and desired organism is the money tree. Everybody wants one, but nobody knows the responsibilities and needs for this tree as it flourishes. Similar to this, everybody would love an infinite amount of the fruit, money, but don’t necessarily know the rain cloud that comes along with it. In the works The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, “Money” by William Henry Davies, and “Richard Cory” by Edwin Arlington Robinson, the mutual theme is that greed for money corrupts the general person and tears out all slivers of morality. We see in “Money” and The Great Gatsby the indication that money brings fair-weather friends, and also that poor people are more jubilant than rich people. Complementary, in “Richard Cory” and The Great Gatsby, it is suggested that outsiders view the rich as having no problems and always living lavish. However, throughout all works it can be interpreted that generally money brings a heaping wad of negativity into the lives of all who posses it.

Despite the Roaring Twenties generally characterized as a time of prosperity and success, Fitzgerald casts an ominous atmosphere in The Great Gatsby and reveals the crumbling foundations upon which such prosperity was built. As the moral foundations of American society begin to decay, so do the foundations of the American Dream itself. By having characters from all social classes share a common sentiment of discontent, Fitzgerald suggests that instead of having a common American Dream, society only has a common discontent. Seeking ways to quench such insatiable desires will ultimately lead to moral depravity, suggesting that the roots of the American Dream have also deteriorated to only just a lie.

As Karl Marx once said, “religion is the opiate of the masses”. Marx viewed religion as a drug which gives people the comfort and happiness they need. Just like money, he believed that religion is a destructive force which puts people under a spell to maintain control over them. During the Jazz Age, America had an economic growth which swept americans to become part of a “consumer society”. Throughout this period of time, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote many modernist novels, including The Great Gatsby, in which he critiques the downfall of the 1920’s society through religion and consumerism.

The Great Gatsby is a novel of triumph and tragedy, noted for the remarkable way it pictures the big difference in the American society. In The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald comes across many themes, such as, justice, power, greed, betrayal, the American dream, and so many other themes. Of all the themes, perhaps none is better developed than the one referring to social class structure. The Great Gatsby is without dough one of the most brilliant pieces of social commentary, offering us a vivid peek into American life during the 1920s. By creating distinct social classes, old money, new money, and no money, the author sends strong messages about the elitism running throughout every level of society.

F. Scott Fitzgerald is the author of the remarkable world novel, The Great Gatsby (1925). Born in St. Paul, MN, he grew up on the edge of a fairly extravagant neighborhood although the family had to rely on “old money” to survive. The place in which he lived caused him to romanticize and desire for the luxury’s and rich lifestyles the people around him had obtained. Fitzgerald was a romantic in the way that he marveled over the rich. He recognized their place in society to be one of the happiest places you could be in life; the idea of the “American Dream”, which was the only thing he strived for in his lifetime, was and could be obtained by the poorest of the poor and once obtained, should be boasted and showed in the most extravagant way

The Great Gatsby is a superb exploration of American society, ideals, and values. It serves fresh and biting criticism of the nature of the supposed “American Dream”. Fitzgerald, through the many characters in the novel, investigates many aspects and perspectives of the American Dream. He comes to the conclusion that, although alluring and attractive, the dream has a dark underbelly ripe with corruption. Fitzgerald also reveals how the dream is contradictory, unfulfilling, unattainable, and fueled by reckless idealism.