In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jay Gatsby is a mysterious man living in the West Egg district of Long Island. Gatsby is extremely wealthy and owns a mansion with a large swimming pool, a fancy car, and dozens of servants. Every Saturday night, he throws extravagant parties which many people, most of whom haven't even been invited, attend. No one really knows anything about Gatsby, except that he is rich and generous. However, many rumors are created about him. Some say that he was a German spy during the war and some say that he killed a man. As the summer progresses, Nick Carraway the narrator who is also Gatsby's neighbor, learns more about who Gatsby really is, or rather who he isn't and reasons why he lives his life as he does. Nick doesn't approve of Gatsby's lifestyle and the way he earns his money, but nevertheless he sees Gatsby as superior to those who surround him. Nick admires the romantic hope that motivates Gatsby to pursue his dreams. Jay Gatsby's greatness is a result of his naive belief that he can make his dreams a reality.
In the beginning of the novel, Nick sums up Gatsby's character and the reasons why he respects him.
"...Gatsby who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him...This responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby impressionability which is dignified under the name if the 'creative temperament'--it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which is not likely I shall ever find again."(6)
Nick makes it very clear that he doesn't agree with the way Gatsby makes and uses his money. Although Nick comes from a very wealthy family himself, he was taught to work hard for his money. Nevertheless, he does find himself admiring Gatsby. He values Gatsby's hope, no matter how false it is, that one day he will have a life with the woman whom he loves. Wealthy people often use their money to get everything they have always wanted for themselves, but Gatsby uses his money to get everything that he thinks Daisy has always wanted in hopes of winning her back.
Even though he had some thought that the meeting would provoke harmful tensions between Tom, Daisy, and Gatsby, he went along with it anyways, further demonstrating his own innate lack of reservation. Ultimately, Nick is an unreliable narrator who overlooks Gatsby’s lies because of his biased judgment of him. Nick portrays Gatsby as a generous and charismatic figure while in reality, he is a duplicative and obsessed man entangled in illegal business who is determined on an unattainable goal. It is highly ironic that Nick judges others for their lack of morality and honesty; his own character is plagued by lies as he abets Gatsby in many of his schemes.
The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a novel based on Gatsby’s dream and hope. In order to enrich the story, symbols are used to emphasize what the author is saying and they create a curiosity in the reader as they are frequently used throughout the story. These three symbols – green light, valley of ashes and the eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg are not connected to each other but each of them represents important things in the story.
Jay Gatsby is a mysterious businessman from the nineteen twenties that is an ideal example of the American Dream. He falls in love with a young and vibrant woman by the name of Daisy Buchannan. Their admiration for each other enforces a luminous spark of determination upon themselves. This subsidizes their relationship under struggling circumstances, and changed their lives for the better. Daisy and Gatsby are the only two that truly prospered from their “American Dream” in this novel.
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...
The Great Gatsby has a main set of characters, each with different relations to one another. The story is narrated through the eyes of Nick Carraway, a bonds salesman who lives in a small cottage on Gatsby’s estate. Nick is an honest man who looks out for people and always tries to do what’s right. The book is titled after Jay Gatsby; a successful businessman who is hopelessly in love with Nick’s married cousin, Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby is a dreamer who will do anything in his power to...
Though the story is told from Nick’s point of view, the reader gets many perspectives of Gatsby from different characters. One can see from characters like Jordan Baker -Nick’s girlfriend through the majority of the novel, or Tom- the husband of Nick’s cousin Daisy; that Gatsby is not as good as everyone where to think. Based on how these characters act and feel about Mr. Gatsby it is evident that they dislike him to some extent, showing a bit more of a flawed human side of him. Tom is quoted saying “I picked him for a bootlegger the first time I saw him, and I wasn't far wrong.” about Gatsby depicting Tom’s harsh feelings towards him and showing the reader Tom’s negative feelings about Gatsby. Because the story is told from Nick’s point of view, Gatsby is still painted as this mysterious man because Nick is a bit curious of him and does not know Gatsby in the beginning. ‘"They're a rotten crowd," I shouted across the lawn. "You're worth the whole damn bunch put together."’ Nick says to Gatsby, showing that he thinks he is worth more than Daisy, Tom, or the other characters. With this quote one can infer that Nick holds Gatsby on a bit of a high platform than the other characters, giving the reader Nick’s indirect characterization of
"The American Dream is that dream of a nation in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with options for everyone to achieve their dream,” . Fitzgerald demonstrates in the “Great Gatsby” how a dream can become destroyed by one’s focus on only wanting wealth, power, and expensive things. Gatsby’s dream “is a naïve dream based on the fallacious assumption that material possessions are synonymous with happiness,harmony, and beauty” (“Fahey”). In the “Great Gatsby” Nick says “Americans, while occasionally willing to be serfs, have always been obstinate about being peasantry”. The race after the American Dream is a primary theme that was seen throughout “The Great Gatsby”, wrote by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and how he represented this theme through his characters and all that they did.
The Great Gatsby is probably F. Scott Fitzgerald's greatest novel. This novel is an American classic and a facsinating evocative work that offers insightful views of the America during the 1920s. Fitzgerald, himself, seems to have had a brilliant understanding of lives that are corrupted by sadness and greed. The events in the novel are filtered through its narrator, Nick Carraway who is a young Yale university graduate, who is and is not part of the world he describes. After moving to New York, he rents a bungalow next door to the glorius mansion of a multi-millionare, Jay Gatsby.
Gatsby encompasses many physiognomies such as ambitious. Ambitious outlines one who is eagerly desirous of achieving or obtaining success, Jay Gatsby. It is evident that Gatsby generates his own fantasy world, a realm where he is not the underprivileged James Gatz, but the fantasized Jay Gatsby. Fitzgerald conceives him as, “… the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end” (98). This quote expresses how he dreams up a new world to escape the blandness of his own existence. But his imagination and turmoil pays off because he ends up making his dreams reality. He personifies a man who goes from “rags to riches” because he strives to better himself as opposed t...
Nick Carraway, Gatsby’s neighbor and close friend, considers Gatsby to have achieved greatness. Nick sees greatness in Gatsby that he has never seen in any other man; unfortunately, all great characters do not always have happy endings. Gatsby’s ambition from a young age, along with his desire to please others, pave the road to his prosperity, but, ultimately, his enduring heroic love for Daisy, steers him to his demise. Several individuals mark Gatsby as a man of great wealth, with a beautiful estate, and an abundance of friends.
“The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is blankly stare.”
Gatsby is one of the most determined and organized characters in the book. When Mr. Gatz shows Nick the schedule from Gatsby?s childhood, Nick realizes how even though Gatsby?s history changed, Gatsby was always a very goal oriented person. Once Gatsby set his mind to something, he would do anything to follow through with his over-all goal. For the main portion of the novel, the goal that Gatsby has is Daisy. Gatsby becomes determined to get her in anyway he can. Nick respects that Gatsby still has love for Daisy after all of the years apart, even after she married Tom when she promised to wait for Gatsby when he came out of the army. Gatsby?s trait of following through on something is very admirable and is a quality that many characters in the novel greatly lack. Gatsby has a heart and is true to it, whilst Daisy, Tom, and other characters are bullish and inhuman, running over people and then hiding behind their money. Gatsby is true honest and determined and Nick truly respects Gatsby for these traits.
Nick explains to the reader how Gatsby got his name and what his childhood was like on
Nick is our narrator and the voice of reason in a time and place where parties are the goals and having a good time is all that matters. Parties at Gatsby’s mansion are the rule not the exception and all who attend pay homage to their false prophet Gatsby. He is their leader the charming man living in a mansion and driving and awesome care. Too bad he has no sense of real worth. Yet nick seems to be loyal to him the whole time “They're a rotten crowd, “I shouted across the lawn. “You're worth the whole damn bunch put together.”I’ve always been glad I said that. It was the only compliment I ever gave him, because I disapproved of him from beginning to end. First he nodded politely, and then his face broke into that radiant and understanding smile, as if we’d been in ecstatic cahoots on that fact all the time” (Pg 162). Nick appears on the sidelines more than in the mix with all the drinkers and boasters and unfaithful spouses. “I forgot to ask you something,...
At the beginning of the book, Nick's dependability is demonstrated as he recounts various information about himself. He is “inclined to reserve all judgments”(1), a trait that implies objectivity and therefore reliability as a narrator. However, he continues to say that this reservation of judgment has certain limits, especially recently in his life. These limits, apparently, do not apply to Gatsby, as evidenced in the next line. Nick says that only Gatsby “was exempt from [his] reaction”, even though Gatsby “represented everything for which [he has] an unaffected scorn”. He then continues to praise Gatsby's “heightened sensitivity to the promises of life”, and his “extraordinary gift of hope”(2). This beginning excerpt from the book in the first two pages sets the tone for the rest of the book and foreshadows the events that are going to happen. It is one of the most important sections of the book, as it lays out ...