The Great Gatsby and The Wasteland Essay

The Great Gatsby – Study Guide Chapter 1 1. Why is Nick Carraway made the narrator? The device of giving Nick the function of narrator lends psychic distance from the story. Nick is part of the action, yet he is not one of the principals. He shares some of the emotions and is in a position to interpret those of the others. However, the happens are not center on him. 2. What kind of relationship exists between Nick and the Buchanans? It is completely superficial. He speaks of them…

November 2007 Myrtle and Fitzgerald's Wasteland Myrtle Wilson is Fitzgerald's vessel for illustrating the modern wasteland. His conception of the wasteland as an unavoidable, vulgar part of the 1920s society is parallel to his characterization of Myrtle as an unavoidable, vulgar character that refuses to be ignored. He uses her to point out what he sees as the faults of modern society. Myrtle is materialistic, superficial, and stuck living in the physical wasteland referred to as "the valley of ashes…

Introduction “The Great Gatsby” is a novel by the American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. First published in 1925, it is set on Long Island's North Shore and in New York City from spring to autumn of 1922. The novel takes place following the First World War. American society enjoyed prosperity during the “roaring” as the economy soared. At the same…

In the novel, The Great Gatsby, there is lots of reflection on symbolism, and especially colored symbolism. In this novel symbolism is a very important factor, it shows the difference between the different characters and scenes in the novel. The color green influences the story a lot. Green shows many thoughts, ideas, attitudes, and choices that Gatsby has throughout the story. White too plays an even more important role in the novel as it is used to represent some of the characters, it also talks…

Fitzgerald captured this era in his book, The Great Gatsby. Through his many symbols he illustrates the hopes, the forgotten God, and the oppressed Americans of the Twenties. The symbols in The Great Gatsby help convey several different themes, from wealth to loss of morals, to poverty. The green light in The Great Gatsby is an ambiguous symbol. The green light is deceiving at first, tricking the reader into thinking it is merely a symbol of hope. “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic…

In the book The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Daisy Buchanan is a perplexing character. She is charming and pretty, yet her personality is almost robotic. Daisy has no sincere emotions; she only knows social graces and self-preservation. A materialistic society makes Daisy a jaded person who lacks any real depth. Gatsby remembers Daisy as the pretty girl from North Dakota he fell in love with when he was in the military. He soon sees that she is different, although he denies it, even to…

The settings and backdrops in The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, are essential elements to the formation of the characters, symbolic imagery and the overall plot development. Fitzgerald uses East and West Egg communities to portray two separate worlds and two classes of people that are technically the same their status, but fundamentally different in their ideals. The physical geography of the settings is representative of the distance between classes of the East and West Eggers. Every setting…

by the name of Jay Gatsby. Nick is the narrator who is sees a different side of Gatsby that sees him “great” aside from his wealth and corruption. Nick grew up in the Jazz age and it was replaced with the vitality, and favor of the artificial American dream. Gatsby’s life was full of winnings along with failures that followed him into death throughout the novel; never the less he achieves a form of “greatness” because of his morality in Nick’s perspective. In The Great Gatsby, Nick’s perspective…

deep desire for Fitzgerald’s wealth, fame, money and material luxury. Both Gatsby and Fitzgerald idolize wealth and luxury and at last fell in love with a beautiful woman when they stopped at a military camp in the South. After, author fell in love with Zelda; he tried to convince her by attending reckless Saturday parties and wanted to win Zelda’s love by writing to earn money. In the novel, same thing happened with Gatsby, he devoted himself to acquire both name and fame and did his best to win…

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald deals on one level with Jay Gatsby’s hopes and dreams, but on a deeper level also deals with the Great American Dream. The novel starts and ends with a reference to the green light at the end of the dock, indicating an important symbolism. The first time Nick catches sight of Jay Gatsby, Gatsby “stretched his arms towards the dark water […] [Nick] distinguished nothing except a single green light […] that might have been at the end of a dock.” (Fitzgerald 2000:25)…