The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald Essay

F. Scott Fitzgerald is one of the popular novelists of twentieth century America. He is the representative novelist of the age because his novels deal with the American life in 20th century.

1. We see all the action of The Great Gatsby from the perspective of one character whose

The 1920s is the decade in American history known as the “roaring twenties.” Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby is a reflection of life in the 1920s. Booming parties, prominence, fresh fashion trends, and the excess of alcohol are all aspects of life in the “roaring twenties.”

In the novel, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, many of the characters live in an illusory world and only some can see past this. In the novel, West Egg and its residents represent the newly rich, while East Egg represents the old aristocracy. Gatsby seeking the past, Daisy is obsessed with material things, Myrtle wanting Tom to escape her poverty, George believing that T.J. Eckleburg is God, and Tom believing he is untouchable because of his power and wealth are all examples of the illusion v. reality struggle in the novel and Nick, the only character aware of reality, witnesses the fall of all the characters around him to their delusions.

In the novel, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, about half of the main characters present themselves as something they are not. Throughout the novel, the theme of passing is apparent in Nick, Jay Gatsby, Daisy, and Myrtle Wilson, although they are all passing, each does it for a very different reason. Many scholars have touched on the idea that these characters are not who they appear to be and that their passing is associated with social class issues of the 1920s. Fitzgerald’s characters are built around the idea of passing and social class restrictions.

When Cody died, he left the boy, now Jay Gatsby, a legacy of $25,000. Unfortunately

Both Nick and Gatsby were loners as well and neither cared for the party scene. Nick sat back and watched everyone, without in fact, participating. This is first apparent when Nick went against his will with Tom and Myrtle to the apartment in New York City, where he stayed by himself as much as possible. From the front porch of his house he enjoyed just watching the goings on at Gatsby’s parties. Even when he begins to attend the parties, he did not interact on a social level. Nick was just as content to view things from the sidelines, noticing everything that transpired, even what the servants were doing. Gatsby orchestrated parties with the intention of attracting Daisy, which is illustrated by the fact that he did not actually attend his own parties and that Gatsby only knew a few of his guests. The people that attended his parties were not invited they just showed up. The only reason he started a relationship with Nick was because he found out through Jordan that Nick was Daisy’s cousin. Other than that, the only people with whom Gatsby interacted with were the ones he did business with.

The 1920s, often deemed the “Roaring 20s,” took place in the middle of the Prohibition Movement. Prohibition was a constitutional ban on the sale, production, and consumption of alcoholic beverages resulting in a large supply of cheap alcohol and a high demand for it. Society was becoming corrupt and inhibited. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s work, The Great Gatsby, is set in this very time period. The main character, Jay Gatsby, who at first appears to be a wealthy businessman is symbolic of the 1920 society. In the beginning of the novel, Fitzgerald reminds the reader not to judge too harshly, “Whenever you feel like criticizing any one…just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had” (Fitzgerald 1). Through Jay Gatsby’s characteristics of deceitful charisma, persuasion, and his fateful death, Fitzgerald portrays the 1920s society as the decline of the American dream.

America has been labeled "The land of opportunity," a place where it is possible to accomplish anything and everything. This state of mind is known as "The American Dream." The American Dream provides a sense of hope and faith that looks forward to the fulfillment of human wishes and desires. This dream, however, originates from a desire for spiritual and material improvement. Unfortunately, the acquisition of material has been tied together with happiness in America. Although "The American Dream" can be thought of as a positive motivation, it often causes people to strive for material perfection, rather than a spiritual one. This has been a truth since the beginnings of America, such as the setting of F. Scott Fitzgerald s novel, The Great Gatsby, which is an example of this set in the 20 s. The characters in this novel are too fixed on material things, losing sight of what is real. In the book the Great Gatsby, none but a few people had the idealistic “American Dream”. To some characters it seems the “American Dream” has been replaced by materialism and greed. What does the American Dream mean? What does it stand for? If a person has achieved their American Dream how should they go about living? The American Dream is the vision to be successful and to provide from and family the best way you can. Their dream is to also have money.

In one sense, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby’ seems to suggest that Gatsby 's rags-to-riches success story makes him an embodiment of the American Dream. However, upon deeper of his character has yielded that there are aspects of Jay Gatsby that call into question his so called success. As a result, I have concluded that F.Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, although still displays the overarching theme that is the American Dream it, in fact, portrays ‘The disintegration of the American dream’ through the character that is Jay Gatsby.

Greed has been a problem that has plagued society from the moment that society began. Roman statesman, Lucius Annaeus Seneca offers the following words on the nature of greed: “For greed all nature is too little.” This idea that a greedy mind can never rest has been prevalent throughout society for as long as society has existed and one of the strongest examples of this mindset is the roaring 20’s. The 1920’s were a time of change, classes changes were beginning and everyone was scrambling for their own share of the new wealth. F. Scott Fitzgerald chronicles this shift from traditional American values to a world where greed and wealth control everything in his famous novel The Great Gatsby. He shows how a greedy mind can never be satisfied, but the greedy will do whatever they can to attempt to reach satisfaction. Fitzgerald demonstrates this through the character of Jay Gatsby. Gatsby is a member of the class of new money who started life as a poor American from North Dakota who gained his wealth through organized crime. Fitzgerald uses Gatsby’s transition from Gatz to Gatsby to show his drift from typical American values, he uses Gatsby’s mafia ties to show how greed corrupts morality, and he uses Gatsby’s attraction to Daisy to show how Gatsby will do anything to feel like part of the upper class. All of this culminates in Fitzgerald showing how the struggle for wealth has lead to the collapse of the American concept of morality in Gatsby’s life.

An Austrian physician by the name of Sigmund Freud, a well renowned psychologist, aside from his studies, was once rumored do have done enough cocaine to kill a baby horse. Other than his cocaine addiction he also developed the theory of Psychoanalysis, which in short means that he studied the longstanding difficulties in the ways that people think and feel about themselves, the world, and their relationships with others. Sigmund Freud’s ideals of psychoanalysis was translated to in a way where we are able to analyze media in all it’s shapes and forms. Psychoanalytic media analysis argues that literary texts, like dreams, express the secret unconscious desires and anxieties of the characters within a movie, and the literary work is a manifestation of the Id, Super-Ego, and Ego. The text that I will analyze using the psychoanalytic media theory will be the film The Great Gatsby, originally a novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I will be using Freud’s primary psychoanalytic theory of the ID, Ego, and Super-Ego to analyze the movie The Great Gatsby, and also analyze the potential cultural and societal impacts of an authors use of psychoanalytic theory.

How came people did not respect Fitzgerald’s writing in the twentieth century, but why people are respecting and valuing Fitzgerald work in the twenty-first century? Fitzgerald had a hard time to profiting from his writing, but he was not successful after his first novel. There are three major point of this essay are: the background history of Fitzgerald life, the comparisons between Fitzgerald and the Gatsby from his number one book in America The Great Gatsby, and the Fitzgerald got influences of behind the writing and being a writer. From childhood to adulthood, Fitzgerald faced many good and bad experiences that inspired him to achieve his own American dream in a short amount of time.

Thesis: The pursuit of the American Dream is a dominant theme throughout The Great Gatsby, which is carried out in various ways by F. Scott Fitzgerald, how the author represents this theme through his characters and their actions is one small aspect of it.

Any American is taught a dream that is purged of all truth. The American Dream is shown to the world as a belief that anyone can do anything; when in reality, life is filled with impossible boundaries. In the novel, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald gives us a glimpse into the life of the upper class during the roaring twenties through the eyes of a moralistic young man named Nick Carraway. It is through the narrator's dealings with the upper class that the reader is shown how modern values have transformed the American Dream's pure ideals into a scheme for materialistic power, and how the world of the upper class lacks any sense of morals or consequence. In order to support Fitzgerald's message