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Theme Of Romantic Idealism In The Great Gatsby

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Nick Carraway, the narrator of the story, has returned from war and restlessness in the West, and goes East to work and for living. He reveals the story of Jay Gatsby in flashbacks, his neighbor of next door, as he learns throughout the story. The nine chapters of the book develops around seven figures or parties merged with flashbacks.
Immediately after narrator Nick moves to the West Egg, he first visits Daisy Buchanan, his second cousin, and her legally wed husband Tom Buchanan, a fellow Yale graduate as Nick, for a dinner. This is where Nick meets Jordan Baker whom is Daisy’s friend from the Louisville, who reveals to Nick that Tom is having an affair with Myrtle Wilson whom is the wife of George Wilson, owner of a garage in the Valley …show more content…

When Nick suggested that “you can’t repeat the past.” (pg 104). Gatsby maintained, “Why of course you can!” He remained an unchanged man who is innocent within a disillusioned and corrupt world. He failed to forego the past. Thus, in the end, it is these romantic idealism is what that destroyed …show more content…

Gatsby couldn’t obtain Daisy because he didn’t have that kind of money. The Great Gatsby is actually Fitzgerald’s indictment of the so called American Dream. However for Nick, Gatsby’s passing represents the destruction of the dream. The novel also have American mythology based on West and East. Nick became disillusioned by the East and returns to the Midwest, where he termed it to be “the warm, center of the world.”(pg 11).
Fitzgerald clearly showed class difference throughout his settings. The valley of ashes is a place to be driven through on the way by the characters from both West and East Egg. It’s here that Myrtle is “run down like a dog” (pg 167) by Daisy.
Careless drivers became a metaphor for the demoralised world of privilege and wealth lived by the likes of Buchanan’s. Earlier, Nick accused Jordan of being a “rotten driver,” followed by two drunks getting into an accident at Gatsby’s parties, and, finally, Daisy killed Myrtle with a car and ran away.
The Great Gatsby can be interpreted as an advice or warning to Fitzgerald’s generation and also upcoming generations. Beware of chasing that “orgiastic future” with too much passion, where it can destroy you, just as it did

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