Reality and Illusion in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby

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Reality and Illusion in The Great Gatsby

The disparity between illusion and reality plays a very large part in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, and one scene in particular, that in which narrator Nick Carraway leaves a soiree held by two acquaintances, Tom Buchanan and Myrtle Wilson (Fitzgerald 41-42), functions mainly to explore this issue. Offering a striking view of this disparity, the scene epitomizes Fitzgerald’s constant struggle to discern between the showy, glittery image of American society in the 1920’s and the reality of the hollowness and insincerity which this image struggles to mask.

Perhaps one of America’s best know illusionists, alcohol plays a large part in this scene, blurring the lines between illusion and reality for both the reader and the characters involved. Carraway in particular has clearly indulged past the point of sobriety, admitting only a few pages earlier to having "been drunk just twice in [his] life and [that] the second time was that afternoon"(33). The fact that this is presumably the first time during his narration that Carraw...

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