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Essay about Themes in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

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When reading a book you should be transported into a world that you can both relate to but also learn from. In the Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald you are effectively transported into the early twentieth century. You see many things that people living in 1922 would have to go through as well as things that are still relatable to today. Throughout the novel, Fitzgerald shows you many images to effectively convey and highlight his themes of the innocence and lose of innocence, differences in social classes, and the american dream. One of the main idea’s that Fitzgerald showed was the innocence of a character and their lose of innocence. We start to see the innocence in the character’s at the begin of the book and as the book goes on…show more content…
Gatsby believes that in order to achieve the past love with Daisy he first must show her that similar to Tom her husband he also has that important social standing. To show this high social class or imitation of the high social class Fitzgerald uses props such as books and clothing. For example in chapter three at the party that Nick attends the owl-eyed man said "See!" he cried triumphantly. "It's a bona-fide piece of printed matter. It fooled me. This fella's a regular Belasco. It's a triumph. What thoroughness! What realism! Knew when to stop, too - didn't cut the pages. But what do you want? What do you expect?" (p.30). The fact that Gatsby has spend money on all of these books that he has not even cut open to read shows that he desires this idea of social power and believes that to come about the American Dream he must first fit in with the upper class or old money. He shows daisy how wealthy he is by throwing his shirts all around the room. He does this in chapter four. This shows how much he longs for her approval. After Gatsby shows Daisy the shirts she starts to weep at their beauty, this shows how much social statues can effect someone. Fitzgerald highlights the idea of the ‘American Dream” by having one of his main charters, the great Gatsby himself being obsessed with the concept of achieving the american dream. Many times in the book when we see that Fitzgerald uses the colour green he is trying to convey the wanting that Gatsby has.
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