The Great Gatsby and The Wasteland Essay

Fitzgerald 's Great Gatsby and Elliot 's The Wasteland are two stories that similarly express the modernist post-war disillusionment. Both stories comment pessimistically on the direction that our world is moving in from the post-war modernist perspective. Both men looked past the roaring twenties, and realized that this time period was actually a moral wasteland. The final paragraphs of The Great Gatsby sum up their mutual lack of faith in American culture to improve. Fitzgerald uses a number

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

The Great Gatsby and the Valley of Ashes   Many times we hear of society's affect on people; society influencing the way people think and act.  Hardly mentioned is the reverse: peoples' actions and lifestyles affecting society as a whole and how it is characterized.  Thus, society is a reflection of its inhabitants and in The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, it is a wasteland described as the "valley of ashes."  Since the characters of this novel make up this wasteland, aren't they the

and the narrators through which they speak, become prophets, bringing messages of rebuke to the wastelands of the societies in which they write. Both writers admonish the present state of the world similarly to the prophets of the Arthurian and Christian myths. They describe physical wastelands of “stony rubbish” where death and destruction prevail over life and creation (Eliot 20). The wastelands that are described in each work are due to the immorality of the people. World War I revealed the

The Great Gatsby and the Destruction of a Romantic Ideal      In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald tells the story of a romantic ideal and its ultimate destruction by the inexorable rot and decay of modern life. The story is related by Nick Carraway, who has taken a modest rental house next door to Jay Gatsby's mansion. Jay Gatsby is a young millionaire who achieves fabulous wealth for the sole purpose of recapturing the love of his former sweetheart, Daisy Fay Buchanan. Five years prior

A Discussion of the Three Major Setting in The Great Gatsby Setting is an integral part of a novelist's or playwright’s ability to communicate characters’ ideals and attitudes. One of the greatest American authors, Francis Scott Fitzgerald also employs these essential strategies when describing the three main setting of The Great Gatsby: West Egg, East Egg, and the Valley of the Ashes. Fitzgerald relates West Egg with the “less fashionable” side of Long Island and “new money”, relates East Egg to

Set in the early 1920’s, The Great Gatsby (1925) written by F. Scott Fitzgerald is narrated by Nick Carraway, a young man returning to Long Island, New York to seek his fortune as a bond salesman. The glamorous tale follows Jay Gatsby and his burning desire to be reunited with striking Daisy Buchanan, the love of his life. The various settings in The Great Gatsby (1925) primarily serve to provide the reader with an understanding of the characters’ ideals and novel context. The profound contrast between

from Gatsby, Fitzgerald also alludes to cracks in the American dream with a rich use of symbolism throughout the book. Nowhere is it more prevalent than in the desolate Valley of Ashes--a dusty wasteland located in between Manhattan and the two Eggs. Overlooking the valley is the iconic billboard of Doctor T.J. Eckleberg. According to Professor Bryant Mangum of the Virginia Commonwealth University, “The eyes of T.J. Eckleburg ‘brood on over the solemn dumping ground,’ which is the wasteland that

In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald criticizes American society in the 1920?s for its tendencies to waste, advertise, form superficial relationships, and obsess over appearances. The work has been praised for both its brutal realism and its keen depiction of the age that The New York Times referred to as the era when, 'gin was the national drink and sex was the national obsession'(Fitzgerald vii).  ' . . . indifference is presented as a moral failure - a failure of society, particularly the

on the surface. Despite the highs experienced by much of the country, it wasn't without its problems. Crime violence was benevolently running the streets and the Speakeasies beyond the reach of full Prohibition, the world was being set-up for The Great Depression, and America was brimming with members of the "Lost