Theme Of Control In The Great Gatsby

Themes of hope, success, and wealth overpower The Great Gatsby, leaving the reader with a new way to look at the roaring twenties, showing that not everything was good in this era. F. Scott Fitzgerald creates the characters in this book to live and recreate past memories and relationships. This was evident with Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship, Tom and Daisy’s struggling marriage, and Gatsby expecting so much of Daisy and wanting her to be the person she once was. The theme of this novel is to acknowledge the past, but do not recreate and live in the past because then you will not be living in the present, taking advantage of new opportunities.

F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “Everybody’s youth is a dream, a form of chemical madness.” In The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby seems to be followed by an imminent force that only allows him to think of life in terms of how to recapture the past. Is this madness or extreme devotion? When Emily Dickinson wrote, “Much madness is divinest Sense-To a discerning eye,” she was saying that madness is almost always seen through a perspective. Think of Thomas Edison or William Shakespeare, whose ideas may have exhibited madness, but truly reflected dedication and commitment, showing that madness is usually justified. Whether it be love, ambition or passion that drove Gatsby, he was determined to follow his vision for the future to the very end no matter the

Dreams are a compelling force in people’s lives. They are what propel them forward each and every day in an effort to reach something better. The American Dream has been sought after by millions all over the world for hundreds of years. This country was founded on the belief that anyone could achieve their dreams. However, in the 1920s these hopes and aspirations began to splinter until they ultimately shattered. In the novel, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses symbolism, setting, and theme to depict the unattainability of the American Dream.

Ambitions are an integral aspect of human culture. They motivate us in a ceaseless pursuit of constant success. However, humans are truly not contempt with their successes, and perpetually dream for more success in a never-ending spiral of greed. Jay Gatsby’s character throughout F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece, The Great Gatsby, is an ideal epitome of human greed, or as we can refer to it, the American dream. Fitzgerald is able to foster a culture within the novel where dreams seem unreachable, despite the amount of hunger, or greed, one may possess in aim of fulfilling their desires. A sense of elitism is also present within the novel as Fitzgerald ably crafts astounding discrepancies within the social structure of the era fondly

A narrator, by definition, is how an author chooses to portray information to readers in their work. An author’s choice, in how to tell a story is ideal to the effect it has on readers. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s timeless classic The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway tells the entire story as a first-person, peripheral narrator. Fitzgerald purposefully chooses Nick as a partially removed character, with very few emotions and personal opinions. By doing so, readers experience the same ambiguity of other character’s thoughts, are carried smoothly throughout the plot, and Nick’s nonjudgmental character lets readers form opinions of their own.

True love is seen through a relationship of two people. Love exists when two people give all their trust, loyalty, and support to one another. Now imagine finding out all of the love and loyalty was false? Betraying a loved one can make someone capable of things they didn’t even know they were capable of. Betrayal is the breaking of a trust that produces moral and psychological conflict within a relationship amongst individuals. In The Great Gatsby, characters pursue in the action of having an affair and the result of betraying their loved ones. In the book, The Great Gatsby, the concept of true love is portrayed in a way that negatively affects the characters.

Motifs are repeated images or symbols that reoccur in stories to suggest a theme. In literary works, motifs are often used produce other literary aspects such as mood, theme, and foreshadowing. They are a crucial literary technique that writers use to create and convey themes. In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the narrator, Nick Carraway, relives the story of his stay in the luxurious yet corrupt East, specifically New York. Various motifs and symbols can be found in the story and illustrate key themes to the reader. In the novel The Great Gatsby, the motif of being on the outside and inside works to create the theme of wealth and class throughout the novel.

In the texts Huck Finn, The Great Gatsby, and The Things They Carried, a major theme is the transformation of self, which happens through choice, through experience, or a combination of both. In The Great Gatsby, Jay makes the conscious choice to transform himself from the poor farmer boy, which he was born as, into an Oxford-educated rich millionaire, all so that he could win the heart of a girl. In Huck Finn, Huck ends up on a raft with a slave named Jim, and through the course of the whole story Huck experiences events that ultimately transform him from a young southern boy into a young adult knowing right from wrong by how he reacts to these experiences with Jim. Finally, in The Things They Carried, Jimmy Cross makes the conscious decision not necessarily to transform himself, but to take on responsibilities after the death of one of his men which in turn force change upon him. These responsibilities transform him.

For starters, in Tom Buchanan’s desire for dominance, he uses his status to gain control of hearsay about him. When Nick was eating at Tom's house, for starters, at the mention Gatsby, Tom forcibly moved Nick “from the room

Tom’s recurring gesture of grabbing and controlling Nick’s arm exposes his desire for social and physical superiority over Nick; however, Nick never feels intimidated or controlled by Tom, ultimately exposing that one cannot influence the other’s thoughts of them. Nick’s contemptuous thoughts about Tom arise when Tom says, “‘I’ve got a nice place here’...turning me around by one arm” (Fitzgerald 7). Tom, at the beginning of the novel, is pressuring Nick to be more aware of the beautiful house that Tom owns by turning Nick around by one arm. Although Tom is trying to force Nick to see that Tom is wealthier than him, Tom is expending lots of energy trying to

The novel, “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald is set in the 1920s America, New York - a class society of money -, depicts a society which exists in a state of moral confusion and chaos, through the eyes of the narrator; Nick Carraway. Fitzgerald condemns the character’s tendencies in the novel to become greedy and materialistic in order to be successful, displayed throughout the chaos that arises as a result of the repercussion of these actions. This chaos continues to grow through the unfaithful marriages and illegal practices that exists extensively throughout the novel. Furthermore, Fitzgerald explores the prejudice discrimination between the newly rich and those with “old money”. Through all of this we come to see that during the “roaring 20s” was one of moral disorder and mayhem.

The Great Gatsby is a well written novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald where a midwesterner named Nick Carraway gets lured into the lavish and elegant lifestyle of his enigmatic neighbor, Jay Gatsby. As the story unravels, Nick Carraway begins to see through Gatsby's suave facade, only to find a desperate, heartbroken and lonely man who just wanted to relive the past with his one and only desire. This sensational love story takes place during the well known“Roaring Twenties” in New York City. The genre of this thrilling and exciting novel is historical fiction.

Before Nick arrives at the Buchannan estate, with his limited knowledge of Tom, he describes him as a man who has reached “such an acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterward savors of anticlimax.” Tom is established early on as restless and bored, with the threat of aggression spurred by the fact that “Tom would drift on forever seeking.” Tom exhibits this manner when he started to show Nick his estate by “turning me [him] around by one arm, he [Tom] moved a broad flat hand along the front vista.” Tom’s aggressive actions explicate his arrogance and narcissist

Thesis: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald depicts the American society in the early twentieth century consumed by lust and avarice. In order to better understand the rational and motives behind the actions of individual characters, the use of literary lenses offer a closer insight behind each character's desires. Through the psychoanalytical perspective and the use of Freudian psychology, the behaviors of these characters can be explained by identifying the id, ego, and superego. Similarly, through the Marxist perspective, economic exploitation by the wealthy can also be incorporated in analyzing the character's actions.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is a story that has many different themes. Fitzgerald shows the themes that he uses through his character’s desires and actions. This novel has themes in it that we deal with in our everyday life. It has themes that deal with our personal lives and themes that deal with what’s right and what’s wrong. There are also themes that have to do with materialistic items that we deal desire on a daily basis. Fitzgerald focuses on the themes of corrupted love, immorality, and the American Dream in order to tell a story that is entertaining to his readers.