Typically when someone hears the name F. Scott Fitzgerald, his most famous piece of work comes to mind, The Great Gatsby. This piece of work was published in 1925 and is his best-known and most successful writing. Fitzgerald was well-known as an author and a celebrity in the 1920’s and the 1930’s. Imitating the lifestyle of one of the main characters in The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby, Fitzgerald’s life reflected extensive drinking, late parties, and following the pursuit of pleasure (Fitzgerald, 2012, p. 658). The next century of his life was spent sulking in the gloomy aftermath of the stock market crash like most of the nation. Fitzgerald wrote Babylon Revisited immediately after the crash. Many critics agree that Babylon Revisited and The …show more content…
One of the first things the strong descriptions makes stick out is the way he contrasts the outdoors with the indoors. “Outside, the fire-red, gas-blue, ghost-green signs shone smokily through the tranquil rain.” (Fitzgerald, 2012, p. 676) the colors that he uses to describe the neon signs that are glowing in the night paint a picture of a foggy, chilly night with lonely streets. A few paragraphs ahead Charlie meets with Lincoln and Marion to pick up his daughter, Honoria. The speaker goes on to describe the setting of the room, “The room was warm and comfortably American. The three children moved intimately about, playing through the yellow oblongs that led to other rooms; the cheer of six o’ clock spoke in the eager smacks of the fire and the sounds of French activity in the kitchen.” (Fitzgerald, 2012, p. 677). In the room there is a small gather of people, children playing, and people preparing a meal in the kitchen. The color yellow is used to describe the walls which immediately gives it a warm, welcoming feeling. This assumption is continued when the sounds of the fire are described. The audience will soon notice that Fitzgerald is using the outdoors as symbolism for sadness, despair, loneliness, and danger. We are led to believe that the reason for this is because Charlie locked his wife, Helen, out in a snow storm after an escalated fight. The indoors is thought to be more of a safe haven for …show more content…
They have a family love that is evident but is interrupted with fights and disagreements. Charlie still considers them family and Fitzgerald uses context clues in the writing to represent that they are home to Charlie. “It was warm here, it was a home, people together by a fire. The children felt very safe and important; the mother and father were serious, watchful.” (Fitzgerald, 2012, p. 687). When describing the family gatherings Fitzgerald consistently uses words like safe and warm. This sets up a feeling of comfort and contentment among the family, despite the quarrels they face. Lincoln and Marion have a love that is very different from the love that Charlie and Helen shared. Their love is also evident but it is effected by financial, family, and health issues, rather than abuse and jealousy. We continually see Lincoln coming to Marion’s defense throughout the writing. Brushing off her comments and accusations with her illness and financial issues. There is an obvious care in his tone and the reader can suspect that Marion is grateful for someone who recognizes her mindset. It is also evident that Lincoln has the best intentions for all involved, including Charlie and Honoria. This assumption strengthens the love between Marion and
Throughout the novel, Fitzgerald uses many scenes to display imagery. “I spent my Saturday nights in New York because those gleaming, dazzling parties of his were with me so vividly that I could still hear the music and the laughter faint and incessant from his garden and the cars going up and down his drive.” This quote displays how the narrator is still visualizing these images when he is not present at his house. The words “gleaming” and “dazzling” portray the parties as bright and remarkable. From the extract, the reader learns that the narrator is avoiding his neighbor’s house. “… when I left—the grass on his lawn had grown as long as mine.”
Fitzgerald has an in-depth writing style. He uses symbols through out the text, which highlight key ideas, some are more obvious than others although all are effective. He has added detail to the smallest of things and every component of this text has a meaning. Fitzgerald has used many symbols thought this text some which include a green light, representing what Gatsby dreams of having and what he can’t reach, the Valley of Ashes, where people like George and Myrtle Wilson live - people who are not very wealthy - . the eyes of T.J Eckleburg, who is represented very alike to God who is known to see everything that happens, the clock, which is knocked over by Gatsby symbolising that Gatsby and Daisy have caught up in time and the weather which symbolises the atmosphere between
Fitzgerald never relates the history of Charlie's circumstances out right. It is inferred through his present situation and through his interaction with those around him. The reader enters the story seemingly in the middle of a conversation between Charlie and a Parisian bartender. From his thoughts and conversation one is able to infer that he is returning to Paris after a long period of absence. He states, "He was not really disappointed to find Paris was so empty. But the stillness in the Ritz bar was strange and portentous. It was not an American bar anymore he felt polite in it, and not as if he owned it." We then see that he is returning to a Paris very different from the one he had known. We also see that he himself has changed. He is no longer the same hedonistic individual that he apparently once was even refusing a second drink when it was offered.
Certain authors, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, wanted to reflect the horrors that the world had experienced not a decade ago. In 1914, one of the most destructive and pointless wars in history plagued the world: World War I. This war destroyed a whole generation of young men, something one would refer to as the “Lost Generation”. Modernism was a time that allowed the barbarity of the war to simmer down and eventually, disappear altogether. One such author that thrived in this period was F. Scott Fitzgerald, a young poet and author who considered himself the best of his time. One could say that this self-absorption was what fueled his drive to be the most famous modernist the world had seen. As The New Yorker staff writer Susan Orlean mentions in her literary summary of Fitzgerald’s works, “I didn’t know till fifteen that there was anyone in the world except me, and it cost me plenty” (Orlean xi). One of the key factors that influenced and shaped Fitzgerald’s writing was World War I, with one of his most famous novels, This Side Of Paradise, being published directly after the war in 1920. Yet his most famous writing was the book, The Great Gatsby, a novel about striving to achieve the American dream, except finding out when succeeding that this dream was not a desire at all. Fitzgerald himself lived a life full of partying and traveling the world. According to the Norton Anthology of American Literature, “In the 1920’s and 1930’s F. Scott Fitzgerald was equally equally famous as a writer and as a celebrity author whose lifestyle seemed to symbolize the two decades; in the 1920’s he stood for all-night partying, drinking, and the pursuit of pleasure while in the 1930’s he stood for the gloomy aftermath of excess” (Baym 2124). A fur...
F. Scott Fitzgerald was born Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald. He was the author of The Great Gatsby and was born on September 24, 1896 in St. Paul, Minnesota, and died on December 21, 1940 in Hollywood, California. Fitzgerald published the book The Great Gatsby on April 10, 1925, among other books like The Other Side of Paradise, another of Fitzgerald’s successes when living which permitted him to marry the woman he loved. Although The Great Gatsby was not much of a success during his time it became a very popular novel that appropriately portrayed the Jazz Age also known as the Roaring Twenties later in time. The author’s purpose for the book was to inform and at the same time entertain the audience of what the Jazz Age was mainly about and peoples
Fitzgerald's book at first overwhelms the reader with poetic descriptions of human feelings, of landscapes, buildings and colors. Everything seems to have a symbolic meaning, but it seems to be so strong that no one really tries to look what's happening behind those beautiful words. If you dig deeper you will discover that hidden beneath those near-lyrics are blatancies, at best.
Charlie returns to find a very different city than the one he left such a short time ago. As Charlie travels the city visiting old haunts and meeting old friends, he finds just how much things have changed. Fitzgerald wrote, “All the catering to vice and waste was on an utterly childish scale, and he suddenly realized the meaning of the word dissipate.” (Baym, 2013, p. 2167) Fitzgerald is capturing the disappointment Charlie felt at the realization that the old Paris was no more.
The author of The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald, meant for the setting and geography of the novel to relate to its themes, characters, and thoughts so readers would connect a place, person, and idea. There are many important geographical locations in The Great Gatsby. Each of these is specifically selected to correspond to an explicit person or central idea in the novel. The setting is also tremendously significant to The Great Gatsby, as it emphasizes the themes and character traits that drive the novel’s critical events. Without this important correspondence, the novel may not have had the effect on its readers that the author intended it to. If the reader is attentive to the details of the location and setting, the story will begin to unfold a series of comparisons providing more information about how a character really feels, or foreshadowing to what is to come.
“The great Gatsby” is an inspiring novel written by the famous American author Scott Fitzgerald. The novel was published in 1925. It is regarded as Scott’s supreme achievement and also as a masterwork in American literature, and it’s entirely justified.
Symbolism in The Great Gatsby Symbolism is what makes a story complete. In "The Great Gatsby" Fitzgerald cleverly uses symbolism. Virtually anything in the novel can be taken as a symbol, from the weather, to the colors of clothing. characters wear. There are three main symbols used in The Great Gatsby, they are The East and West Egg, the green light at the end of Daisy's dock, and the eyes of Dr.T.J. Eckleburg.
For most people, a certain colour may represent something meaningful to them. While in the Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, many of the colours used in the novel are meant to represent something. The novel’s setting is in East and West Egg, two places in New York. Our narrator, Nick Carraway, lives in the West Egg. Along with living in West Egg is a friend of Nick’s, Jay Gatsby; a character that is in love with Daisy Buchanan. Unfortunately, Daisy is married to Tom. As the plot unravels, the reader notices the connection between certain colours and their importance to the novel. The use of colours within The Great Gatsby symbolizes actual themes, as grey symbolizes corruption, blue symbolizes reality, and green symbolizes jealousy and envy.
The word visually stunning could be used to describe the 2013 Baz Luhrman directed adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s timeless novel The Great Gatsby. Speaking of the director, I enjoyed his portrayal of the lavish lifestyle and carefree party like attitude in such a beautiful visual experience. The way in which the party scenes were filmed in the movie made perfect sense compared to the source material and were something I have never seen done by any other directors in a live action film. Another positive for me about this film was the soundtrack. When I first started watching the film I expected to hear old time music prevalent in the 20s. I however was pleasantly surprised when I learned the soundtrack was compiled by Jay-Z and featured many tracks I enjoyed featuring him either alone or accompanied by another musical guest. While Jay-Z is not exactly an accurate representation of the music of the 20s, the soundtrack adds a modern flavour over the previously mentioned beautiful backgrounds and architecture. The story however is where the movie at times falls flat. When stripped down to basics it is nothing more than a generic love story with a few twists added in for extra kick. The characters in the same vain can be very bland and not make you care much for them due to their backstories not being deeply explored. The only character that I found to be interesting was Jay Gatsby because of the mystical aura that surrounds his character at the beginning of the movie that leads you to want to uncover more of this ever mysterious man. All in all the visuals clearly outpace
In considering Charlie Wales plight in Fitzgerald's "Babylon Revisited," I believe Charlie is a victim of his own success. As a successful businessman two times over he has burned many bridges behind him and for his well intentions he is blind to that continued fallacy. He does not seem to realize that the success he enjoys now is the envy that brought about Marion and Lincoln's contempt prior to Helen's death.
Scott Fitzgerald was a writer who desired his readers to be able to hear, feel, and see his work. He made it his goal to be able to make readers think and keep asking questions using imagery and symbolism. The Great Gatsby was not just about the changes that occurred during the Jazz Age, but it was also about America’s corrupted society which was full of betrayal and money-hungry citizens. It was the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg that overlooked all the corruption that occurred throughout the Valley of Ashes. It was the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg that serves as a symbol of higher power who witnesses everything from betrayal to chaos in Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.
The 1920’s were a time of social and technological change. After World War II, the Victorian values were disregarded, there was an increase in alcohol consumption, and the Modernist Era was brought about. The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a perfect presentation of the decaying morals of the Roaring Twenties. Fitzgerald uses the characters in the novel--specifically the Buchanans, Jordan Baker, and Gatsby’s partygoers--to represent the theme of the moral decay of society.