Use of Contrast in the Great Gatsby

Gatsby is a “poor boy trying to remake himself” (McClurg). Gatsby comes from an impoverished family, so he leaves his family and starts looking for success. His first chance at being rich is when Dan Cody leaves him some wealth. Unfortunately, Cody’s wife refuses to give it him, so Gatsby makes it his goal to get rich without Cody’s help. Gatsby serves in the Great War then he joins the bootlegging business. The bootlegging business turns Gatsby to a really wealthy man. He becomes “mister nobody… who rise up out of the crowd” (McClurg). Gatsby tries to fit in with rich people by throwing extravagant parties, buying a personalized car, and lying about his background. Despite of all his generosity at his parties, people usually “came and went without having met Gatsby” (Fitzgerald 41). Additionally, his desire to be an upper class comes from his love for Daisy. For instance, Jordan Baker tells Nick that “Gatsby bought [his] house so that Daisy would be just across the bay” (Fitzgerald 78). Gatsby wants to show his wealth to Daisy and prove to her that “he has been cured of poverty” (Pidgeon 180). Nevertheless, Daisy leaves Gatsby “standing… in the moonlight – watching over nothing” (Fitzgerald 145). Gatsby’s hard work is all for nothing. Readers can infer that Daisy picks Tom over Gatsby due the fact that he does “not belong to the right club [class]” (Pidgeon 178).

Fitzgerald’s use of symbolism and colors in The Great Gatsby is prominent in every chapter of his novel.  To fully understand the meaning of his color use, a reader must recognize the situations in which these colors are used.  Throughout the novel Fitzgerald uses the color green.  Green has many possible interpretations, and its’ use to reveal insight into Gatsby’s character is probably the most meaningful.

F. Scott Fitzgerald constructed his novel, The Great Gatsby, by sculpting numerous situation and character contrasts together through out the novel to create and deliver a magnificent work of art. Although Fitzgerald contrasted numerous characters and situations through out the novel, there are three that are very pungent; the characters Tom Buchanan and George Wilson and Daisy Buchanan and Myrtle Wilson. Not only were there Character contrasts, there were also situations that Fitzgerald contrasted against each other. One of them was the contrasting of the concept of the Old Money life style and the New Money life style. Tom and George not only have physical

I’ve only known Gatsby for a few months, and so I’ll start with my first impression. It was summer, and many people came to enjoy his premises. He held huge parties at his mansion every Saturday.1 They were the most opulent and ostentatious parties, typical of the West Egg. All sorts of people came, from the city or just across the lake, looking to mingle and join the wealthy. They basked in Gatsby’s display of wealth, enjoying the alcohol, the music, and the atmosphere. They enjoyed so much of his parties, yet they never got to meet

In the beginning of this novel everyone seems to know, or at least have heard, about Gatsby. He is talked about a lot and it is manly in a good way. Gatsby appears to be a very powerful person who also has a lot of respect from people. He has a very strange and kind of mysterious personality. For example when he has his party’s, usually on

In everyday life and works of literature, color symbolizes a wide variety from emotions to political status. When someone is feeling upset one often says “I’m feeling blue” or when someone is mad their face turns red giving that color the association with anger. Political status even uses color to represent each party, one is usually either a blue democrat or red republican. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, “The Great Gatsby” color plays a significant role throughout the story symbolizing emotions and social rankings. Colors such as green representing hope and money, grey portraying hopelessness and low class along with discontent, and yellow exemplifies low class and desire.

Gatsby realizes that life of the high-class demands wealth to become priority; wealth becomes his superficial goal overshadowing his quest for love. He establishes his necessity to acquire wealth, which allows him to be with Daisy. The social elite of Gatsby?s time sacrifice morality in order to attain wealth. Tom Buchanan, a man from an enormously wealthy family, ?seems to Nick to have lost all sense of being kind.?(Lehan, pg.60) Nick describes Tom?s physical attributes as a metaphor for his true character when remarking that Tom had a ?hard mouth and a supercilious manner?arrogant eyes has established dominance over his face?always leaning aggressively forward?a cruel body?his speaking voice?added to the impression of fractiousness he conveyed? (Lehan, p.61)

The characters of Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby have secrets and desires they endeavor to mask from the public. These masks that the characters hold eventually disappear, as Fitzgerald reveals the secret interests that each of the keep. Fitzgerald utilizes connotative diction and indirect characterization to allow readers to discover the true nature and ambitions of the story’s characters. In The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald utilizes connotative diction developed from the false identities Daisy, Tom, and Gatsby induce to assert that all people have secret insecurities that would instinctively cause them to disguise their genuine personalities in order to maintain the public conception of themselves.

In chapter two of The Great Gatsby, Nick chats with Tom, Myrtle, Catherine, and the McKees while drinking excessively. Matters begin to escalate quickly when Myrtle begins talking about Daisy in a snobbish manner, triggering Tom’s emotions. The actions of Tom reveal his appalling treatment of women through pure violence, portrayed through the kinesthetic imagery of the fight. Furthermore, the jab makes Tom seem immature and abusive towards people. He instills faux traits to others, making him appear decent, but carries immorality instead. The traits become exemplified by the intense image produced of him pounding Myrtle for something miniscule. The excessive arrogance he possesses flaunts his outlook on power: an abhorrence towards those beneath

This is when Tom and Gatsby start talking. Whenever Tom would speak to Gatsby, it was always rude and insulting. It was this distastefulness that leads Tom to not care about what happens to Gatsby or his actions.

In the novel, “ The Great Gatsby,” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, colors such as blue, green, and yellow are used to suggest a deeper meaning behind actions and events, by utilizing colors to represent how the character feels, explain the character’s motives, and display their goals or aspirations.

People view other people by status in The Great Gatsby, instead of their character. In the book Tom says “I’ve got my man working on it.”, then George says “Works pretty slow, don’t he?” “No, he doesn’t, And if you feel that way about it, maybe I’d better sell it somewhere else after all.” Tom said “I don’t mean that, I just meant---” said Wilson . This means that people were viewing or treating Tom by his status and not by his true character. His true character was rude, but that didn’t matter because of his status. Another example is Nick says “but neither a wire nor Mr. Wolfshiem arrived: no one arrived except more police and photographers and newspaper men.” This supports that people viewed other people by status in The Great Gatsby because nobody showed up to his funeral, but everybody showed up to his parties. Gatsby's status wasn’t very good because everybody would whisper about what he did and nobody really knew his character, so nobody showed up to his funeral.

The essay focuses on the way the novel presents various social groups throughout the novel by the narrator, Nick. The novel does not only focus on the devision between the poor and the rich, but between the different types of rich. The narrator is silencing the upper class and specifically those who were born into wealth, emphasizing his difference from the people he is surrounded by and why he is sympathetic towards Gatsby. The task will begin with the introduction of the way the American society seems to be in the 1920s and extent of racism that is present, leading to a point that the African American race is marginalized within the text. The task will introduce various characters of the novel and refer to specific examples, such as Tom

    The success of Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is in part due to his successful characterization of the main characters through the comparison and contrast of Daisy Buchanan and Myrtle Wilson, Tom Buchanan and George B. Wilson, and Nick Carraway and Jay Gatsby. The contrast is achieved through two principle means: contrasting opposite qualities held by the characters and contrasting one character's posititve or negative qualities to another's lack thereof. Conflict is generated when the characters sometimes stand as allegorical opposites. On the other hand, comparison of two characters is rather straightforward. This comparison and contrast is prevalent in Fitzgerald's

Despite the general characterization of the upper class as gentle, well-mannered people, the kind, well-bred characters are more of the West Eggers than the upper class East Eggers. In fact, the upper class displays the worst behaviors. Tom, for example, is arrogant, selfish, hypocritical, and constantly rude to Gatsby. He proudly speaks out racist and sexist views, and shows violence such as when he breaks Myrtle’s nose for merely annoying him. When the Buchanans at the end, simply move away than attend Gatsby’s funeral, they prove to be inconsiderate, careless people who “let other people clean up the mess they had made.”(179) Jordan, who is dishonest and a cheater, is not such a refined character either. Gatsby, on the other hand, is a “perfect gentleman”, what Wolfsheim regards as “a man of fine breeding”(71) He always maintains a polite and kind attitude, even when he’s with Tom and his condescending friends. He is continuously considerate and loyal, and although his manners come off as affectations, Nick nonetheless finds “something gorgeous about him”. When it comes down to personal charm and character, wealth and class mean nothing.