The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald is a novel that focuses on Jay Gatsby, and his attempt to regain a relationship that was left in the past with Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby is an ambiguous character. Gatsby had many great qualities, such as being a dreamer, determined, devoted and wealthy. On the other hand, Gatsby possesses many flaws, a few being dishonest, possessive, naive, and living off an idea from the past. His inability to let go of the past and move on ultimately leads to chaos and reveals that Gatsby can not process the passage of time.
During the 1920’s, many people were power-hungry. They all wanted to be at the top and be the richest of the rich and be able to buy whatever they want. The 1920’s was a time where people were able to go from rags to riches, industries were growing and making money, and it was also the era of the Prohibition, a law that banned alcohol. “The Great Gatsby” was able to reflect on noticeable and non-noticeable aspects of the 1920’s. It reflects on the postwar disillusionment, the rise of the nouveau riche, and how business became the new religion for the United States.
Attaching oneself to a memory or dream can completely dictate the life one lives. In the novel, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jay Gatsby represents a character who contends with a personal aspect of the past. In continuation, Jay Gatsby has an obsession with the past and focuses his life around the time he has lost. Moreover, Gatsby has the solid belief that he will marry a girl named Daisy Buchanan and they will live in his mansion together. To ensure this dream, Gatsby found ways to acquire copious amounts of wealth, purchased a mansion across from Daisy’s home, and hosted expensive and lavish parties in hopes she’d attend.
Jay Gatsby is from a small town and poor town in North Dakota (Fitzgerald 173). As a child, he was “... bound to get ahead (Fitzgerald 173).” Mr. Gatsby observed a strict regimen driven by a rigorous schedule that pushed him each and every day (Fitzgerald 173). Gatsby never reaches his “Dream”, which is Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby’s ultimate goal, his most desirable object is exactly that, Daisy (Donaldson 197).
Tom Buchanan, the Great American Scoundrel In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tom Buchanan is the classic representation of an American scoundrel in the 1920 's. Tom 's role is of the wealthy, powerful, controlling, and unfaithful husband to Daisy Buchanan. Tom is of the privileged class, and he is proud of his old money, of where he lives, and his white race. Fitzgerald characterizes Tom as a manipulator, this being the worst of his qualities. Tom is a scoundrel, and no sliver of empathy can be given to Tom, due to his reckless behavior.
Gatsby’s “Greatness” Greatness is showed by the choices we make in life. From how we see the circumstances and how we react to them. Gatsby is not as great of a man as Nick claims that he is. Gatsby makes foolish, childish and delusional decisions and not at all great.
Gatsby’s dreams and aspirations in life are rather interesting and amazing as he goes about his life in the book. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald helps highlight the social, moral, and political issue that were very present during the 1920’s and today. Gatsby is the focus of the book as before the book began, he was an ex-soldier who came to wealth by some rather illegal ways. Daisy a married woman is his person of interest, who was his ex-lover 5 years before the book started. Gatsby’s actions, and words demonstrate a clear obsession with Daisy that seems to have no end.
Gatsby is extremely eager to start a life with Daisy and does several things to try to speed up the process – he works hard to be able to own a huge mansion and throw big parties, he gets Nick to re-introduce Daisy to him , he gives Daisy a tour of his house in hopes of her loving it enough to imagine living with him,
Gatsby has spent his whole life trying to prove to Daisy and everyone around him that he is worthy of her. The only way to be on the same social level as her is to turn himself into new money. Since this is not possible, he has to try to convince to others that he truly is old money. To do this, he becomes rich, and lies about his past, but the only way for him to complete this idea is if he is with Daisy. She is the final piece in his American dream.
In the last passage of The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the reader gains insight into Gatsby’s life through the reflections of Nick Carraway. These reflections provide a summary of Gatsby’s life and also parallel the main themes in the novel. Through Fitzgerald’s use of diction and descriptions, he criticizes the American dream for transformation of new world America from an untainted frontier to a corrupted industrialized society. In the novel, Fitzgerald never mentions the phase “American Dream,” however the idea is significant to the story.
The Great Gatsby Literary Analysis “They were careless people…” says Nick Carraway, the narrator of The Great Gatsby. In a story depicting the 1920s during a time of prosperity, growth, and the emergence of the America as a major global power, this statement may seem to be contrary. But in reality, Nick Carraway’s description of his friends and the people he knew, was not only true, but is an indication of those who were striving for the American dream. F. Scott Fitzgerald suggests that the American Dream is foolish, the people who pursue it are immoral and reckless, and this pursuit is futile. First, F. Scott Fitzgerald proposes that the American dream is foolish.
The eponymous character was born the day he met Dan Cody and invented himself a new life. Ultimately, Gatsby created and fabricated his own ideal ‘identity’ to meet his expectations: “The truth was that Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his platonic conception of himself […] so he 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.” Two identities therefore arise: Jay Gatsby and James Gatz. Yet one can almost see the threads of James Gatz behind the Gatsby facade. With Daisy, Gatsby loses the carefully constructed identity: he reverts to the young soul seeking for his place in the world, with “a touch of panic” in his voice when he realises that Daisy has “slipped away [and become something] no longer tangible”.
The book, “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, explains the crucial story of Jay Gatsby through untitled chapters. The story remains in the chapters themselves. Although, there are many titles that can portray the overall theme in each chapter of the book. The title, ‘Unanswered Questions’, fits in with the plot and scene of chapter four by being the key to the answers of Nick Carraway and the readers.
In Search of Human Morality Although the past is generally portrayed as a recollection of mistakes, regrets and unfond memories, it does not define one’s self identity. This plot is explained in vivid detail in both novels The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini is a coming of age novel of an uncommon bond between two unlikely friends who separate due to the increasing religious and political tension in Afghanistan 's years of corruption. After several years, Amir, the protagonist, receives a call and a familiar voice reminds his that there is a way to be good again. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald bases in Long Island, New York in the Nineteenth Twenties where
His disregard for reality is how he formulates his dream to rewrite the past and reunite with Daisy, according to his belief that sufficient wealth can allow him to control his fate. He establishes an immense fortune to impress Daisy, who can only be won over with evidence of material success. As Gatsby attempts to make his ideal a reality, things do not run as smoothly as he plans because Daisy can never live up to his dream. When Nick is reflecting on Gatsby's idea of Daisy he notes, "He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say: 'I never loved you'" (105). Gatsby’s ideal life is not a realistic expectation because Daisy is already married and has a family to take care of.
