I. People from the past until people currently living now want one thing; the American Dream. The American Dream remains ideal for every family or person who wants to achieve maximum potential in life. Each American Dream can stand different to each family whether or not they want to achieve certain things. A study of this novel will show that in the 20’s, the American Dream had changed from an all-American need to mainly greed, materialism and indulgence as evidenced by the main characters: Gatsby, Daisy, and Tom.
A. The Great Gatsby, written in 1925, remains as F. Scott Fitzgerald’s greatest novel. The novel emphases a young man, Jay Gatsby, who falls in love with a woman from the social upper class and makes an ideal amount of money in an determination to seize her attention. She marries a different man from her own social class and that man dies discouraged with the idea of a self-made man. Fitzgerald claims that the idea of social movement in America remains as an illusion.
1. Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald existed as a Jazz Age novelist and writer who stood as one of the greatest writers of his time. He became present on September 24, 1896, he resisted as the only son of a working class family. As a result of a contrast from generations before, he stood extremely unsure about the idea of the American dream: for him, the idea became at once ill-mannered and trustworthy.
II. Characters
A. Nick Carraway - The novels narrator, a non-judgmental, straightforward, and tolerant young man who came from Minnesota, moves to New York to learn the business of bonds. Nick’s moral sense helps to set him apart from the other characters. He exceeds with a sense of personal integrity, a sense of right and wrong. He lives in West Egg,
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... the less wealthy in town. Acquiring such a car as a Rolls Royce, as Gatsby has means that through hard work he has achieved his goals.
E. The Use of Color
.Fitzgerald uses colors to show emotion or irony in Gatsby. The use of color in the Great Gatsby stands as one of the most important techniques used in this book to show different themes. Fitzgerald uses five main colors: white, yellow, blue, green and grey. These colors represent wealth, innocence, struggle in life and dreams.
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V. Conclusion
In my opinion, the novel should remain as one of America’s greatest. Part of what makes Fitzgerald's novel a desired piece stands as the way he can examine the society of which he remained also a part. Through his characters, he not only captures a look into middle- and upper-class American life in the 1920s, but also shows a series of criticisms as well.
Throughout the novel, Fitzgerald criticizes the American dream very elaborately and shows the idea of the American dream to be connected with the goal of achieving wealth. Fitzgerald does not praise wealth in the Great Gatsby but condemns it by drawing attention to the dreadful fall made by Gatsby. Fitzgerald finds the desire of wealth to be a corrupting impact on people. Throughout the novel, the characters with money contradict the idea of the American dream. They are portrayed to be very snobbish and unhappy people. The American dream in the novel is shown to be unachievable. For some time, the American dream has been focused upon material things that will gain people success.
Throughout The Great Gatsby one of the most prominent techniques Fitzgerald used was symbolism. This symbolism was as prevalent in his characters as it was in his use of color, especially in the narrator, Nick. It’s established in the first chapters of the novel that Carraway has high standards for not only
F. Scott Fitzgerald was one of the most influential writers of modern day society. He holds this title because he wrote about things that drive people's everyday life. He wrote in two different periods that were very significant in the social development of America. These two periods of time symbolized not only the generation that he was writing about, but it also speaks to the present day generation.
The American standard of success has always been defined by the effort put into receiving this success. Some are lucky and have success come with ease, others have to put in a great deal of work and even then they still fall short of their desired position. Throughout, “The Great Gatsby”, F. Scott Fitzgerald scrutinizes the collapse of the American dream through Jay Gatsby. Through the eyes of Nick Carraway, the readers experience the rise and fall of Jay Gatsby’s successes. From the initial sequences of the novel it is apparent that wealthiness is the point of which you are judged in the time period the book takes place.
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is the unbelievable story of a man who was forsaken by his one true love, and his ongoing struggle to reclaim her heart. Fitzgerald does a outstanding job of capturing the idea of the true American dream. The novel highlights the concept of the affluent spending without consequence; this thematic structure of the text parallels the concept of the American dream in current popular culture and for this reason this story is a classic novel shared all over the world.
Bloom, Harold, ed. Modern Critical Views: F. Scott Fitzgerald. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1985.
F. Scott Fitzgerald was a romantic character in both his fiction life and his real life and “…was perhaps the last notable writer to affirm the Romantic fantasy, descended from the Renaissance, of personal ambition and heroism, of life committed to, or thrown away for, some ideal of self"(Voegeli). The inspiration for The Great Gatsby came from the experience Fitzgerald had with a Jewish bootlegger and his symbolism for the book is “never more ingenious than in his depiction of the bankruptcy of the old agrarian myth” (Trask). The realization that America had been changed and transformed into a new world arose. America has become a new world with a new set of traditional beliefs. The beliefs were onset by the growing fields of industrialization and urbanization. America is now a place in which “a revolution in manners and morals was inevitable” (Trask). The trend of this new life style and tradition was reinforced by World War 1 and the writers critiqued the traditional faiths. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald paints a story about love and intrigue. He shows the possibility of movement between the different social classes during the Roaring Twenties in the United States. The American dream was the thought that people who had talent in the 'land of opportunity' could gain success if they followed a set of well-defined behavioral rules. During this time period, Americans believed that satisfaction would automatically follow success. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald raises many important political questions: "What does it mean to live well, and on what terms people can live together?” and it shows America's thoughts and answers to these essential questions (Voegeli). These questions are referring to the different social classes and be...
The American Dream is defined as the improvement of one’s self while obtaining such things as love, wealth, status, and power as one reaches the top. The dream has had different distinctions throughout the years but keeps the bases of a desire of something greater. In the past century, the ideology has transformed into the idea of owning a big house with multiple cars and a bank full of money as the indication that you have “made it.” In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the author navigates his readers into a life filled with gregarious parties and extravagant cars when a man named Nick meets the untouchable Gatsby. Unable to move away from past, Gatsby devotes his life to acquire wealth and status in order to reconcile with the love of his life. The characters in the novel attempt to define their happiness with materialistic objects but the author demonstrate the truth by illustrating the illusions of the American Dream.
The Great Gatsby should be considered as one of America’s greatest novels because it provides a wealth of information while following an interesting story line. Most novels which contain information about America’s past tell of stories which are boring and hard to read. The Great Gatsby, set in a time period with interesting laws and interesting political happenings, appeals to most readers who did not live through that time period as millionaires. The novel allows the reader to look at the twenties through a different perspective and learn about the economy and prohibitions which affected individuals.
Even though FItzgeralds’ massive recognition came after his death, his four novels became his legacy and the influential tools for many. In 1920, his first novel This Side of Paradise made him famous almost overnight, it was his lift off to become a widely known writer. One year later in 1921, his second novel The Beautiful and the Damned was published. Three years laters Fitzgerald completed his best known work The Great Gatsby. His masterpiece, at the time of publication received critical appraise, but the sales were disappointing. Despite its inappreciable recognition at the time, The Great Gatsby, influenced many people like Don Birnam in the 1940s who believed that, “Theres no such thing … as a flawless novel. But if there is, this is it.” referring to The Great Gatsby. His fourth novel Tender is the Night didn't received such admiration. Critics claimed it to be Scotts downfall, the novel did not meet Fitzgeralds’ true potential and certainly did not live up to critics expectations. Regardless of all of his novels’ beginnings, they will rise in reputation significantly and will be vastly known by most american writers and readers...
“Immigrants are ruining this country”, is a statement made by almost every conservative in the United States. Yes, with their cheap labor, cultural traditions, and food contributions immigrants are making America a colorful and tasteful disaster. The American dream is so high in thought, yet so low in actuality. This well known dream-or nightmare- of rags to riches shines clear from sea to shining sea. However, the end goal of the American Dream varies from person to person. For some the dream plainly translates to happiness. Although for others, the end goal is an obsession of materials; beachside mansions, exotic cars, pets from the deepest parts of Africa and more things without any real meaning. The dream is only a goal if one is either
F. Scott Fitzgerald was one of the most compelling twentieth century writers, (Curnutt, 2004). The year 1925 marks the year of the publication of Fitzgerald’s most credited novel, The Great Gatsby (Bruccoli, 1985). With its critiques of materialism, love and the American Dream (Berman, 1996), this dramatic idyllic novel, (Harvey, 1957), although poorly received at first, is now highly regarded as Fitzgerald’s finest work (Rohrkemper, 1985) and is his publisher, Scribner 's most popular title, (Donahue, 2013). The novel achieved it’s status as one of the most influential novels in American history around the nineteen fifties and sixties, over ten years after Fitzgerald 's passing, (Ibid, 1985)
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, “The Great Gatsby”, is one of the few novels he wrote in 1925. The novel takes place during the 1920’s following the 1st World War. It is written about a young man named Nick, from the east he moved to the west to learn about the bond business. He ends up moving next to a mysterious man named Gatsby who ends up giving him the lesion of his life.
F. Scott Fitzgerald is seen as one of the greatest American writers, admired by his contemparies and by modern audiences of today. Fitzgerald was very much in tune with the early twentieth century American culture. He is credited with capturing the ‘Jazz Age’, which he described as “a generation grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken”. Fitzgerald observed the culture around him with a critical eye. Despite being able to depict America like few others could, many see Fitzgerald’s writing as an indictment on its values.
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 distant family at East Egg next to West Egg.