The Great Gatsby analysis In this essay I will first write about the writer, the plot and compare some scenes. Secondly I will write about the setting, and short about Fitzgerald’s delay of information. Then I will discuss the characters, the point of view and compare the book to the two movies. Finally I will point out a few literary devices and what I think the theme is. Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald is an American author, and his biggest work is The Great Gatsby, which was published in 1925. Fitzgerald studied at Princeton University, and he participated in the First World War after he dropped out of school. He has written a few novels and some collections of short stories, but he is not as known for these as he is for The Great Gatsby. He was married to Zelda Sayre who probably was a huge inspiration for his work. One might see traces of Fitzgerald’s life in his books, and it is especially readable in The Great Gatsby. Gatsby dropped out of school, he joined the military, and went to the War just like Fitzgerald. Nick who finished school before going to war might be the character Fitzgerald would like to be. One might also say that Zelda has inspired Daisy’s character. Fitzgerald died of a heart attack in 1940, only 44 years old. The plot in the second movie is a little different from the plot in the first movie and in the book. The newest movie tells Nicks story, and the oldest movie and the book tells Daisy’s and Gatsby’s love story. The second movie begins at the doctor’s office where Nick gets a flashback to the day he is going over for dinner at the Buchannan’s. The book begins when Nick Carraway moves to New York to learn about the bond business. He rent a small house in the West Egg, next door to the mysterious m... ... middle of paper ... ...haracters do different things to get what they want. Some cheat to get the pleasure or wealth they are longing for, other becomes criminal to get the one thing they desire and some are willing to kill so they can get even. The valley of ashes might be a symbol of this, because it may imply that the author means that materialism overshadow your own ideas and values. If this is true the society in general has to wake up and realize what’s important, is it the things that surround you, or is it the people in it? In this essay I have first written about the writer, the plot and compared some scenes. Secondly I have written about the setting, and short about Fitzgerald’s delay of information. Then I have discussed the characters, the point of view and compared the book to the two movies. Finally I have pointed out a few literary devices and what I think the theme is.
In the third sentence, note the metaphor and explain Fitzgerald’s choice of this particular metaphor.
The way that Nick Carraway, as an interactive narrator, relates to different characters (and what they stand for) in the novel conveys the extent to which Fitzgerald endorses or challenges that character?s ideologies. Nick tarnishes all characters with a cynical, stratifying brush in order to smuggle in the main ideologies of the text by creating a pastiche of these themes. Nick?s black-and-white thought of the ?pursuing, the pursued, the busy and the tired? serves to reinforce the contrast of what is endorsed and challenged through the book, via the medium of the narrator?s interaction with different creations of the author.
Mizener, Arthur, ed. F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963.
In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nick’s unreliability as a narrator is blatantly evident, as his view of Gatsby’s actions seems to arbitrarily shift between disapproval and approval. Nick is an unreliable and hypocritical narrator who disputes his own background information and subjectively depicts Gatsby as a benevolent and charismatic host while ignoring his flaws and immorality from illegal activities. He refuses to seriously contemplate Gatsby’s negative attributes because of their strong mutual friendship and he is blinded by an unrealized faith in Gatsby. Furthermore, his multitude of discrepancies damage his ethos appeal and contribute to his lack of dependability.
Chambers, John B. The Novels of F. Scott Fitzgerald. London: Macmillan/New York: St Martin's P, 1989.
The second character Fitzgerald analyzes is Daisy Buchanan. Daisy is married to Tom Buchanan. Daisy is the definition of a dream girl, she is smart, gorgeous, and just an ideal woman to be around, and the relationship between her and Tom is quite odd (Baker). Daisy and Tom move to the fashionable East Egg from Chigaco (11). Daisy has everything a woman could wish for, a wealthy husband and an immaculate house. Daisy does not know that Tom is having an affair with Myrtle Wilson. Nick Carraway plays a major role in Daisy’s love life in The Great Gatsby. Nick is Daisy’s second cousin and he knew Tom from college (11). Daisy invites Nick over for dinner one evening and that is how she relearns about Jay Gatsby (11-17). Daisy met Gatsby at a dance in Louisville. They used to be madly in love with one another when he was in the army (). They had plans of always being together and being married in Louisville at Daisy’s home (118). Later in the story, Daisy was invited to go have tea at Nick’s house, but what she did not know is that it was all Gatsby’s idea to get them to rekindle their rel...
Dubbed the ‘roaring 20s’, because of the massive rise in America’s economy, this social and historical context is widely remembered for its impressive parties and sensationalist attitude. However, Fitzgerald also conveys a more sinister side to this culture through numerous affairs, poverty and a rampage of organised crime. By exposing this moral downfall, Fitzgerald reveals to the responder his value of the American dream and his belief of its decline. As a writer, Fitzgerald was always very much concerned with the present times, consequently, his writing style and plot reflects his own experiences of this era. So similar were the lives of Fitzgerald’s characters to his own that he once commented, “sometimes I don't know whether Zelda (his wife) and I are real or whether we are characters in one of my novels”. In 1924, Fitzgerald was affected by Zelda’s brief affair with a young French pilot, provoking him to lock her in their house. A construction of this experience can be seen in the way Fitzgerald depicts the 1290s context. For example in ‘The Great Gatsby’, there are numerous affairs and at one point, Mr Wilson locks up his wife to pre...
Thesis: In this passage, Fitzgerald's stylistic choices illustrate his concern with America's path of loneliness and isolation if they continue to pursue a corrupted American dream.
Magill, Frank N. "F. Scott Fitzgerald." Critical Survey of Long Fiction. Vol. 3. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Salem, 1983. 953-67. Print.
During the book, Fitzgerald is able to create a superior storyline by tying all the events in the story, directly or indirectly, together. Ernest Lockridge notes in his criticisms about the book:
Hooper, Osman C. "Fitzgerald's ‘The Great Gatsby'," The Critical Reputation of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Article A353. Ed. Jackson Bryer. Archon Books, Maryland: 1967.
Trilling, Lionel. "F. Scott Fitzgerald." Critical Essays on Scott Fitzgerald's "Great Gatsby." Ed. Scott Donaldson. Boston: Hall, 1984. 13-20.
Fitzgerald’s life is quite proportional to the story he creates. He shows the obstacles in his life that deal with love affairs, while trying to climb the social ladder to enhance his image. The overall moral in this story shows that materialistic possessions can not buy someone’s love in a deep and affectionate way. After all, Daisy is just a dainty, exquisite flower, lacking depth of human character, and is a trophy for Gatsby and Tom’s conquest.
The success of the novel depended on Fitzgerald’s ability to transfer the vision he had himself to the reader. This idea dealt with the ability to believe in the possibilities of several opposite ideas at different levels of abstract...
In writing this book, commonly refered to as the “Great American Novel”, F. Scott Fitzgerald achieved in showing future generations what the early twenties were like, and the kinds of people that lived then. He did this in a beautifully written novel with in-depth characters, a captivating plot, and a wonderful sense of the time period.