With Time, All Things Change

At first glance, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby appears to be a tragic love story about Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan. But upon closer examination, readers will see that their love wasn’t love at all; rather, it was an obsession on Gatsby’s part. He had built up Daisy as he’d remembered her, negligent of the fact that they had both grown and she had changed. Gatsby hadn’t been in love with Daisy, but the idea of Daisy. However, Gatsby isn’t the only one guilty of romanticism. The book’s seemingly reliable narrator, Nick Carraway, is just as culpable as the title character when it comes to idealizing someone beyond their true nature. In his case, the target of his idealism is none other than Jay Gatsby. Nick’s romanticism of the

“Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men, and men are great only if they are determined to be so,” once said Charles de Gaulle. This valiant quote by a former president of France accentuates my opinion of the Great Jay Gatsby. From humble beginnings rises our main focus of F. Scott Fitzgeralds’ The Great Gatsby. Young Jimmy Gatz is brought to West Egg from his heavily impoverished North Dakota family. His desire to be something greater than a farmer drove him to fortune and love through any means necessary; his life long obsession, Daisy Fay, infatuates Jay in his own insatiable thirst for her affection. James follows Daisy in the years after he is deployed to World War 1, and when he sees she has married Tom Buchanan he becomes hell-bent on replicating the success Tom has inherited in order to win over Daisy. Through moderately deceitful ways, Jay Gatsby builds his wealth and reputation to rival and even supersede many already lavish family names. Astonishingly, the great Mr. Gatsby, overrun with newfound affluence, stays true to his friends, lover, and his own ideals to his blissfully ignorant end.

Lying has deadly effects on both the individual who lies and those around them this concept is demonstrated in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book The Great Gatsby. The Great Gatsby is one of many great American Novels. It has a perfect mixture and combination of mystery, romance, and heartbreak needed to capture a reader’s attention and pays close attention to the small details to keep them there. The essence of this book is based on the American Dream, moreover the decline of the American Dream of the 1920s. At the onset of this book, the reader is introduced to the narrator, Nick Carraway, who relates the past happenings that construct the story of Jay Gatsby. In the novel, Gatsby, a wealthy socialite pursues his dream, Daisy Buchanan. Daisy is Gatsby’s long lost love, essentially she will fulfill his “American Dream.” In the process of pursing Daisy, Gatsby betrays his morals and destroys himself.

In the first chapter of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, we are introduced to five characters. Fitzgerald begins with Nick Carraway who seems to be narrating the story. Nick describes himself as highly moral and highly tolerant. Later, Carraway mentions Jay Gatsby, the man who represents everything he scorns. Nick states, “I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction…”(p. 19-20) explaining how he sees good in Gatsby, even though he may be from “new money”, he has the proper decencies that other high society members lack. “If personality is an unbroken series of successful

“‘Gatsby?’ demanded Daisy. ‘What Gatsby?’”(11). F. Scott Fitzgerald created “The Great Gatsby” with great craft. The reader understands the story through Nick’s eyes. Nick encounters many parties, family gatherings, and a funeral. The scenes are so in depth that the reader feels as if they are reliving the events in Nick’s life. The reader can take out characteristics, thoughts of the society, and themes in each scene that emphasizes the the themes of the book as a whole. Tom’s Character and the way society thinks of Tom leads to the theme of once a cheater, always a cheater. Gatsby’s characteristics and the way society portrays him demonstrates the theme of gossip altering Gatsby’s true qualities.

The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, tells us a variety of themes- justice, power, greed, the American Dream, and so on. The Great Gatsby is widely regarded as a brilliant piece of social commentary. The novel concerns the wasteful lives of four wealthy characters as observed by their acquaintance, narrator Nick Carraway. Like Fitzgerald himself, Nick is from Minnesota, attended an Ivy League university, served in the U.S. Army during World War I, and moved to New York after the war. Nick confides in the reader throughout the first pages of the novel. He believes he needs to tell the story of a man called Gatsby. It is as if Nick has to overcome disappointment and frustration with a man who has left him with painful memories. This thesis is valid for three main reasons. First, it is evident that dreams and memories are central to the overall plot and meaning. Secondly, the American Dream is a “green light” of desire that Gatsby never stops yearning for and something he will not forget over time, even as he is dying. This is due to the fact that no one cares about Gatsby or his dreams even after he dies, except Nick. Finally, the fact that Fitzgerald uses flashback; that Nick is telling us about a main character after he has already died and before the story begins, is ultimate proof.The Great Gatsby is structured by Nick’s memory. Fitzgerald’s clever use of flashback throughout and within the novel is the greatest evidence that he intended his novel to be centered on memory and going back in time.

“’Can’t repeat the past? Why of course you can!’” (110). Within Jay Gatsby’s desperate cry, the era of dreaming is over. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s iconic novel The Great Gatsby shows a poor man, Jay Gatsby, struggles to get into the upper class in order to get his love Daisy Buchanan back. Through the narrator, Nick Carraway, a Yale graduate and World War I veteran from the Midwest who does bond business in New York, we see that Jay Gatsby works hard persistently and always has hope for his dream. However, Gatsby ends a tragedy because of both the unjust society and his unrealistic dream. Illustrating, Fitzgerald argues that Jay Gatsby’s over-determination eventually leads to his downfall.

In The Great Gatsby, the characters become deluded about themselves and others through relationships or wealth. Fitzgerald uses this disillusionment to trace their changes through their interactions with one another and their journey to where they are at the end of the novel: Nick, whose mind has been widened, Daisy, who returns to her carelessness and wealth, and Gatsby, a dead man, but ‘alright in the end’. However, Nick already believed himself to be open-minded and wise, Gatsby never had the romantic success that would make him alright, and Daisy believed herself to be a victim of Tom’s and societies cruelties. Their journeys in the book boil down to one statement, that their self-conceptions are all flawed.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, through the use of Psychoanalytical Criticism and New Historicism exposes the feelings of a post-war America in its main characters and seemingly uncaring society. Psychoanalytical Criticism explains certain human behavior shown in the characters of this novel: especially Nick Carraway, whose time in the war clearly affected him as he is unable to return to his life after. New Historicism takes this idea of the trauma of the war affecting lives in it use of desolate imagery and amoral symbolism to connect the seeming total loss of the world before World War One and the unscrupulous standard of living the 1920s brought into effect. In using these two theories to analyze The Great Gatsby further, it is clear how the effects of World War I affected the lives of all Americans after—whether one served or not. The trauma endured by Americans after the war caused a restless, senseless society that Fitzgerald shows through the events of The Great Gatsby that if this was not remedied this would lead to one’s downfall.

In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald describes essential traits of human life: romantic love, genuine friendship, the importance of money, the significance of trustworthiness, and the worth of social classes through Nick Carraway’s views. As he portrays them, each main character’s goals are illustrated, and they each carry out different amounts of significance and a symbolism throughout the novel. This novel is mainly about Gatsby's attempt at an unattainable goal, winning Daisy's love back through power and money. In contrast to every main character, Gatsby has clear and well thought out dreams. Gatsby’s American dream, his desire to be wealthy and win Daisy back, is desperately ruined by Daisy. Gatsby’s goal that he tries to obtain by

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, is an interesting literary tale filled with action, drama, and romance with many twists and turns throughout. The book is centered on Jay Gatsby, an apparent man of mystery who hides a deep secret on who he really is. Behind the man that throws these wild, heavily crowded parties on a weekly basis is a man who hides his love crazed obsession for a woman he’s been chasing since his past, Daisy Buchanan. His crazed love for her is going to turn out to be negative for him, as it leads to his life before the money being exposed, his true identity getting exposed in plain sight in the East Egg and West Egg, and eventually, his tragic death. The psychoanalytical theory of RD Laing’s “The Divided Self” is accurately portrayed in The Great Gatsby as

The Great Gatsby is a tale of of the rich and their fantastical fancies. This novel has become representative of America’s roaring twenties and Fitzgerald praised posthumously for his work. However, Sven Birkets states that The Great Gatsby is a story of disillusionment and hope and I must say that I agree with this assertion. By reading carefully and looking into the hidden messages of The Great Gatsby, readers will begin to have a glimpse into the heads of the rich, seeing and feeling their outlandish problems and pastimes. Jay Gatsby is a prime example of these fevered dreams and the Buchanans represent how deceiving these illusions can be at their point of culmination.

Gatsby does not belong to his own class and he is not accepted by the upper class, therefore he becomes an exception. Because of disappointment of being looked down upon and impossibility of accept by the upper class, he has nothing left except his love, which is also his “love dream”. Gatsby’s love for Daisy has been the sole drive and motive of his living. Gatsby’s great love is also the root of his great tragedy, because he is desperately in love with a woman who is not worthy of his deep love. Fitzgerald offers Gatsby with the spirit of sincerity, generosity, nobility, perseverance, and loyalty. All his good natures can be seen

Affair, scandal, and drama come across the novel of The Great Gatsby. Written by a man who has had his fair of dramatics in his life, Scott Fitzgerald. The Main Character, Jay Gatsby his living his life as a falsification of this so-called “ American Dream”. He has the money and the charm to have all of the lives glorifications, other than one little bump in the road. The American dream is all about living fancy, shiny objects and success through hard work. Jay Gatsby had surpassed his poor lifestyle and try to fit in with the “old money” folks. All due to one significant lady, Daisy Fay. Daisy, an old lover from Chicago stole the heart of a young Jay Gatsby. To him, it was love, for her not so much. Jay has always wanted to live a luxurious

Through Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby which examines the protagonist, a man looking for a new identity, Gatsby’s friend Nick Carraway observes that the protagonist “ invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year old boy would be likely to invent and to this conception he was faithful to the end”(131). Gatsby who in his youth was unsatisfied with his life inherits pursues a wealthy lifestyle after meeting a wealthy miner , Dan Cody. This meeting spurs Gatsby to desire a higher quality of living not only for himself but also aspires to provide a sufficient life for him and Daisy before she marries Tom Buchanan when Gatsby is fighting at war. Daisy and Gatsby’s relationship serves as a catalyst in propelling Gatsby’s pursuit of love