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What Are The Major Ideas In The Great Gatsby

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An excerpt from The Norton Anthology of Literature describes the “Changing Times”, “Science and Technology”, and “American Versions of Modernism” in the 1920s. This is around the same time The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald was written, and many of the same ideas can be found in both texts. The Great Gatsby tells the story of Gatsby’s fantastic dream from his neighbour Nick’s point of view. This essay will explore how certain ideas in The Norton Anthology of Literature influence the themes, ideas, and writing of The Great Gatsby. Social class and automobiles are important themes in both works, and The Great Gatsby itself can easily be classified as a high modernist work, as described in The Norton Anthology of Literature. From the plot …show more content…

In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald puts a lot of emphasis on social class, comparing the lives of those in East Egg and West Egg and even comparing the social classes of individual characters. The first group, people adhering to “small-town values”, like Tom and Daisy, seem to be more successful in Fitzgerald’s eyes. From the very beginning of the book, distinctions are made between East Egg, where Tom and Daisy live, and West Egg, where Gatsby and Nick live. East Egg is the fancier area, inhabited by old wealthy families who have never known hardship and live by strict social rules. West Egg, “the less fashionable of the two” (Fitzgerald 5), was home to younger millionaires, new money folk who did not grow up as rich as they had come to be. Throughout the book these two neighbourhoods are pitted against each other as they are continually mentioned. Tom and Gatsby are also pitted against each other in a similar, if more direct fashion, competing for Daisy’s love. Tom is the practical choice, a man from a wealthy family, who is financially secure and only involved in legal businesses. He believes strongly in his small-town values saying, “I suppose you’ve got to make your …show more content…

Based on this description, and others from the same text mentioning discontinuity and discordance, The Great Gatsby seems to be a piece of modernist literature. In terms of perspective and tone, the story is mostly told by Nick, and we hear all events from his point of view. That said, Nick also likes to tell us about stories he has heard from other people and through this we can hear the points of view of other characters including Jordan as she talks about Gatsby and Daisy meeting, and Gatsby on his own history. There is also a scene with Michaelis and Mr. Wilson after Myrtle’s death that Nick tells us about despite that fact that he was not present. In addition to these changes in perspective he also changes his own tone, most notably when he gets drunk at Tom and Myrtle’s drinking party and the writing becomes littered with ellipses (Fitzgerald 40). Furthermore, the order of events does not match the way they actually happened, or even the way Nick experiences them. For example, Nick cuts into his own storytelling to tell us about Gatsby’s real history even though, at the time in his story, he did not know this information yet. In fact, Gatsby’s entire history is presented in out-of-order bits and pieces. Moreover, Fitzgerald

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