The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

The story of The Great Gatsby is a novel that consists of a historical American context during the Harlem Renaissance. This was an excellent novel published in the 1920’s and was considered one of the best novels of its time. The author F. Scott Fitzgerald was an incredibly talented poetic author. Fitzgerald was able to emphasize and create the mood of the generation in a political time. The novel The Great Gatsby is a remarkable novel but also a very sad one. The novel took place during an age or era known as the “Roaring Twenties” which was a time of American wealth. Politics and corruption at the time is possibly what made Gatsby to be the business man he was.

The novel Great Gatsby and the short poem America go great together both describing their views on America during this crazy time period of change. Great Gatsby was written by a man named F Scott Fitzgerald he wrote this book in 1925 during Great gatsby was written by a man named F Scott Fitzgerald he wrote this book in 1925 during the times when the American dream was the same for everyone.The 1920’s were the age of miracles Fitzgerald had said: "it was an age of art, it was an age of excess, and it was an age of satire." Fitzgerald loved to write books about love and greed like his book The Beautiful and Damned and This side of Paradise. Claude Mckay grew up loving writing and making poems. He was known for his during the Harlem

Class structure of the 1920s was based on popularity and how well off people were compared to those around them. F. Scott Fitzgerald illustrates class structure in the book The Great Gatsby through the different characters in different social classes. Fitzgerald gives settings that correspond with the social classes of the characters to better illustrate what environment he placed each character in. The Buchanan’s, Gatsby, and the Wilsons are examples of the different conflicting social classes Fitzgerald lays out for his readers.

Whenever Daisy is introduced into the narrative, she is primarily described by her voice. These descriptions are often contradictory, reflecting Daisy’s multifaceted nature. Thus, her voice contains, “fluctuating, feverish warmth”, (?) “aching, grieving beauty” (?), and “a husky, rhythmic whisper, bringing out a meaning in each word that it had never had before and would never have again” (?). Nevertheless, the overarching commonality is that Daisy’s voice features a seductive, alluring quality to which Gatsby is unavoidably attracted. However, most significantly, Daisy’s voice is “full of money”, signifying her innate attraction to wealth, and her privileged, elite lifestyle, in which she has never experienced deprivation.

The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, provides a dark and pessimistic outlook into the American life style in 1922. Jay Gatsby, an American wealthy social identity, appears to have it all. But wealth, stature and an extravagant lifestyle seems not to be enough for Gatsby; he still yearns for his old idealistic love Daisy. In an ideal world this has the making of a great love story with a happy ending, but Fitzgerald chose to carry the story as a reflection of the American era the book is set in. An era consumed by appearances and excess and overall pursuit of the American dream.

Depending on where a person is in life, that person’s idea of what the American Dream is could be completely different in meaning than another person’s idea of what it is. In the book, The Great Gatsby, by, F. Scott Fitzgerald, the American Dream is represented by three different places, East Egg, West Egg, and The Valley of Ashes. All three of these places in the novel represent different views of what the American Dream is by the people living in these places, the looks of the people and the cities, and the types of jobs or things people do with their time in these places. There are many colors used to show the ambiance of the towns. The people described living in the town in the book are not similar in morals or appearance and the American Dream is shown in the people and appearance of these three places. The East Egg and West Egg represent the American Dream; West Egg portrays the American Dream while East Egg is the perfect example of what the dream actually is and the Valley of Ashes represents fading dreams and showing what the reality of trying to achieve the American Dream is.

People handle the two matters of love and avarice interchangeably; however, there is a significant difference between them. In his 1925 novel of The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald describes Jay Gatsby’s pursuance of Daisy Fay and the immorality of her husband, Tom Buchanan, delving into distinctions between love and avarice. Love carries along a sense of care, worry, and responsibility, whereas avarice is an expression of greed for opportunity and privilege. A person with economic stability and longevity has a secure life, not having to worry about making enough money to survive, find shelter, and pay for food. These people live grand luxurious lifestyles. The author portrays the main characters’ pursuit of economic stability and longevity through his play on words and interpretations of a person’s class, wealth, and reputation, ultimately suggesting that one of a lower status will use another’s social standing to achieve material gains.

The Great Gatsby illustrates the possible poor ways to achieve something so sought after such as being, in a general sense, successful. The American Dream in this sense is overwhelming, unobtainable to some and futile in some senses. The second decade of the 1900’s was a period of peak interest in pursuing the American Dream. “Fitzgerald, who named and chronicled that brash, schizophrenic decade, was now stranger to the dissipation of values and the pursuit of sensation in the Jazz Age of the 1920’s.” (Callahan P. 376). The essential evidence of one having achieved the “dream” was having the nuclear family, some sort of financial wealth, a large home and an automobile. It was widely understood that the financial aspect of this was the most important. This was a goal that drove the protestant work ethic of lower, middle and newly immigrated Americans. This dream also promoted the idea of delayed gratification found in a large capitalist country like in the United States. Protagonist, Jay Gatsby, does achieve the American Dream but the course changes his character and he ultimately encompasses what one would imagine a person with this ambition to be, truly unfulfilled. “Fitzgerald embodied in his tissues and nervous system the fluid polarities of American experience: success and failure, illusion and disillusion, dream and nightmare.” (Callahan P.374).

Dance has shaped the way we look at many different things throughout history. It has shaped how people socialize, what music people listen to, and even whole eras. One such era is the roaring 1920s. How did people socialize in the 1920s? They danced the evening away. What music did people listen to? Jazz music that they could listen to while they danced the evening away. Dance was a huge part of what made up the glorious Jazz Age. So, when a book was written to describe the 1920s scene, no doubt there had to be dance, and lots of it. In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the energy level of the parties, music, and dancing to represent a vast array of emotions within the characters.

When initially thinking of the 1920’s, people envision a time of grandeur and secrecy that developed as a result of the prohibition movement. People were finally alive following a time of great nationwide tribulation, and constantly dancing to the tune of jazz music throughout the big cities of the country. The affluent were living in more excess and luxury than ever before, while the poor were steadily rising towards socio-economic change. The music, the art, and the literature were at the peak of creativity and from the inception of this roaring decade, came the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925), later turned into a movie by Baz Luhrmann (2013). Fitzgerald’s imagination, and Luhrmann’s twenty-first century revamp, takes the reader into the life of a young man named Nick Carraway, newly arrived in New York City to make a life for himself as a bonds salesman, despite his underlying desire to become a writer. Over the course of his first, and last, summer on the east coast Nick reconnects with his wealthy, flirtatious cousin Daisy Buchanan and her husband Tom, learning that even the most elite members of New York society have their secrets and insecurities. Along with these new revelations comes the introduction of Nicks illusive neighbor Jay Gatsby, a man of immense suspicion and new wealth. As the summer draws to its conclusion affairs are revealed, and a final collision changes the fates of all of the key characters for the rest of their lives

Romanticism and modernism are two philosophical thoughts so unlike each other, modernism embracing the cold truth of reality in the industrialized world of 1920s America, romanticism this same world through rose filtered lenses, summed up in the words of Mr. F. Scott Fitzgerald, “we are all just humans… drunk on the idea that love, only love, could heal our broken bones.” Fitzgerald was a romantic living in the modernist 1920s, and his classic work The Great Gatsby was certainly a romantic book, and thusly did not succeed in his time; in fact, it did not succeed until after his death in the 1940s. Fitzgerald saw the green light, but it was just as out of reach to him as it was to Mr. Gatsby. Though The Great Gatsby was unappreciated

The Great Gatsby, perhaps one of the most famous novels during the 1920s, contributed to Fitzgerald’s reputation. Fitzgerald revealed the two sides of the wealthy: reality and perception. Many people of the middle class and the lower class believed the riches had a fancy life. This prospect of the middle classmen perhaps made the stereotypical dream of being wealthy and rich. However, the wealthy people were not as perfect as they were seen as by the lower statured people. The novel focuses on how the higher class can be seen as perfect figures by the readers. This concept of reality versus perception is caused by many of the characters in the novel. The concept or theme of perception versus reality is shown through the different sides of wealthy people. This side of the perception is seen as the “glitter” of the riches. There is a known saying, “All that glitters is not gold” (Aesop). This refers to how all that seen precious, does not turn out to be so. The known saying is adjustable to the book of Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald depicts Gatsby as one of these figures, who is seen as the character who represents the ideal wealth and richness on the outside and is different in the inside. Gatsby’s parties are considered as the “glitter” of the riches. Gatsby always depicts how he holds parties in his huge and luxurious house. This materialistic aspect of Gatsby confuses the readers of reality and their personal perception. This book has a diverse idea of reality and perception

“My idea is always to reach my generation. The wise writer writes for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmasters of ever afterward.” F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of The Great Gatsby, describes his own insight to his writing techniques, which gain his success through the agelessness of his novels. This is clear with The Great Gatsby, a novel narrated by the character Nick Caraway and centered on Jay Gatsby’s short-lived life. This novel is a timeless piece of literature that is still relevant to American society today because of its attitude on materialism and its portrayal of feminism relating to the era and modern day.

The Great Gatsby (1925) is very modern in style due to the assortment of different techniques used by F. Scott Fitzgerald throughout the novel, in order to keep up with the trend of 20th century modern literature. Through the critical analysis of techniques used such as symbols, ideas, narration and characters we can explore in-depth to what extent that The Great Gatsby can be deemed as ‘modern’ in style. During the modernist period in the 1920’s, when The Great Gatsby was written, modernism was at its peak. Fitzgerald was majorly influenced by these new diversions from the mainstream Victorian style of writing. As seen in The Great Gatsby there are a number of new variations that arise as part of the modernist period, such as the 1st person narration being reintroduced as a more common style of writing, compared to the typical Victorian style 3rd person omniscient narration. We can also see unconventional symbols such as the green light and the eyes of Dr T.J. Eckleburg which further reinforce the modernist style used by Fitzgerald. Additionally Fitzgerald uses modernist characters to show the diverse types of people in the “Roaring Twenties”. As well as the comparison between West Egg and East Egg inhabitants, Fitzgerald showcases the condescending attitudes of the old money towards the ‘nouveau rich’ such as Gatsby.

Throughout American history, citizens of the United States often refer classic novels that demonstrate an aspect of American society as the “Great American Novel.” Some apply that title to books that display a moral theme, like To Kill a Mockingbird. Others apply the title to patriotic and classic novels that represent American culture, like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. One classic novel that was once known as the “Great American Novel” is Francis Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. In his novel, Fitzgerald critiqued both America and the concept of the American Dream by highlighting the failure of its main character, Jay Gatsby. Although Gatsby had some success in the beginning, the harsh realities of life destroyed his happiness