Great Gatsby Research Paper Outline

Everyone wants wealth. Everyone wants money. Everyone wants to get somewhere in life. However, what people don’t think about is how they change as a person when always in the demand for wealth. In the novel “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the demand for acquiring wealth corrupts the morals of people, shown through the indirect characterization of Daisy and her wanting to be with Gatsby, the indirect characterization of Gatsby and how he went from being poor to rich, and the color symbolism of the yellow car, symbolizing wealth and corruption. The main theme explored in The Great Gatsby is wealth, especially involving the newly rich.

“I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”

During the Roaring twenties, social class was an important aspect of society. All different classes were for the most part separated by where people lived. In other words, by no means would anyone from a lower class be caught in an uptown setting. There are a variety of characters in the novel that come from different economic backgrounds. In the novel, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald successfully uses location to differentiate social status amongst his characters while the weather and seasons of those locations help guide them.   Each character helps represent and support the differences of social class and the four main locations, The East Egg, the West Egg, the Valley of Ashes, and New York City.

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 and Nick during the summer of 1922. After fighting in World War I, or the Great War as Nick called it, Nick left his prominent family in the West of America for the North where he intended to learn the bond business. Nick was originally supposed to share a house in West Egg near New York City with an associate of his, but the man backed out and so Nick lived with only a Finnish cook. Right next door, Gatsby lived in a glorious mansion with expansive gardens and a marble swimming pool, among other luxuries. Yet Nick did not even hear about Gatsby until he went to visit his

"I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parceled out unequally at birth" (Fitzgerald 7), as stated by Nick, shows that, in The Great Gatsby, class determines the value of a person’s identity. Even between the rich, those with old money are more respected than those with new money, since there is a history of wealth associated to those with old money. Wealth holds great priority in society, since it provides more opportunities. However, while it provides more opportunities, the characters in The Great Gatsby shows the negative aspects of money. In the book The Great Gatsby, it is seen that rich people are powerful,

As I slowly crossed the flight of steps wondering what was going to happen, the butler led me upstairs inviting me to enter the study. I desperately searched for a look from Nick, who was already searching around for someone to talk with.

Throughout history it becomes apparent that all the great stories: The Odyssey, Great Expectations, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are all founded on a similar theme. The same plot line, a hero, most often the protagonist, faces danger and adversity to the highest extreme but always comes out on top. He is depicted as the pinnacle of human triumph and in essence, demonstrates a fundamental strength that all men should strive to achieve. These stories were, “ full of darkness and danger. And sometimes one did not want to know the end; How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? In the end, it is only a passing thing. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out even clearer. Those

Thesis: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald depicts the American society in the early twentieth century consumed by lust and avarice. In order to better understand the rational and motives behind the actions of individual characters, the use of literary lenses offer a closer insight behind each character's desires. Through the psychoanalytical perspective and the use of Freudian psychology, the behaviors of these characters can be explained by identifying the id, ego, and superego. Similarly, through the Marxist perspective, economic exploitation by the wealthy can also be incorporated in analyzing the character's actions.

First, the community’s attitude toward money and obsession with money was prominent. Throughout the book, “One of the main themes of The Great Gatsby is the attitude of its characters- . . . -toward money” (Gross 149). The book highlighted the amount of money each character had and their social status in the community because of their wealth or lack of wealth. Many characters and the entire community dreamed of becoming rich to make themselves worthy of higher social statuses. Palladino once said, “The idea was that anyone could become a millionaire regardless of one's background” (Palladino 31). The community’s interest in wealth and what was believed about money was depicted many times. For example, “Most of these fellas will cheat you every time. All they think of is money. . . ” (Fitzgerald 31). This quote shows that many people were focused on the amount of money they could

In the beginning of The Great Gatsby, the narrator Nick is critical of the upper class, but hopeful. Toward the end he is disappointed because he realizes how the lifestyle they live is unrealistic. During the novel, the upper class is disrespectful and full of themselves. When he gets to know the characters he notices how the upper class is so unfriendly and snotty. This easy and luxurious lifestyle that they are living is unattainable to everyone because nobody can get there. The American dream is described as making a ton of money and being snotty about it. In the novel, the hopeful and disgusted tones reflect Nick’s points of view on the unrealistic society and his points of view changes when he sees how greedy they all are

“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.

Francis Scott Fitzgerald, otherwise known as F. Scott Fitzgerald came into this world on September 24, 1896. ** Named after his cousin that wrote the Star Spangled Banner, Francis Key Scott, F. Scott Fitzgerald began writing at the young age of 15.** During this time, Fitzgerald left school and joined the US Army. While being stationed outside of Montgomery, Alabama, he met the love of his life, Zelda Sayre. As life proceeded, he became known as a playboy. IN 1924, Fitzgerald moved to France and published the well-known novel, The Great Gatsby. Within the novel, Fitzgerald critiques the American Dream. ** The Great Gatsby also achieved the stature of being a definitive portrait of the “Roaring Twenties”**.

The strong economy also created the right environment for many important changes in the day-to-day social life of Americans. The nineteen twenties are remembered now as an exciting time that historians call the "Roaring Twenties” , but maybe it was only “roaring” because things were so corrupt.

In the book “The Great Gatsby” wealth affects the lives of many characters in the book, examples of these characters are; Daisy,Tom, and Gatsby. All these characters either had a dream to become wealthy, bribed people, or just cared about money, not love.Because of their obsession with wealth this led to many problems with other characters, showing the bad traits of others, and overall showing how wealth can almost always have a negative effect on a person.

The Great Gatsby presents different social groups to embody and transmit the idea that each class has it’s own problems to prevail over and unhappiness transcends over all the social classes. The problems in each group, despite the social stratification, reveal the instability of the world they live in. The three classes are old money, new money, and no money in which all three believe their own rules of survival in society and enforce boundaries between social classes. Fitzgerald uses the similarities between the poor and the rich to reinforce his opinion and his characterization of the upper class.