Chapter One
In Chapter One, F. Scott Fitzgerald mainly uses detail to introduce the setting and
characters. For example, when introducing the main setting of the book, he describes his house as
squeezed between two huge places that rented for twelve or fifteen thousand a season. (9). One
of these houses was Gatsby's. This detail gives the reader an idea of what kind of town this was,
and what kind of people lived in it. Fitzgerald also uses detail to introduce characters. When
introducing Daisy, one of the main characters, he says that she had bright eyes and a bright
passionate mouth with an excitement in her voice that men who cared for her found difficult to
forget... (14). These details show that Daisy is obviously a character hard to forget,
foreshadowing future events with her in the book. When he first mentions Gatsby he describes
him saying "if personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures then there was something
gorgeous about him"(6) This shows how Gatsby is looked up to in the town, and he says himself
he is never met him but there is the rumors spread about his mystery. You also see Nick's
attraction to Miss Baker saying her voice "compelled [him] forward breathlessly as [he]
listened"(18). The detail shows his immediate attraction right away and some sort of romantic
chemistry between them.
Chapter Two
Fitzgerald uses many stylistic devices in chapter two, but the most dominant and important
is the syntax. He opens the chapter describing the valley which is about half way between the West
Egg and New York in a loose sentence. He says it's a "valley of ashes" where they take "forms of
houses" and the "men move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air"(27). The
syntax of the sentence shows the valley is gray and the poverty grown people who live there are
over looked by the wealthy people that live on both sides of them. This is where the poor
characters of the book live. Above the gray valley Fitzgerald introduces Doctor T. J. Eckleburg.
The syntax adds more mystery to the story as he does not describe the characteristics of Eckleburg
as a person but just his eyes. He says the eyes are "blue and gigantic and "they look out of no face
but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a non existent nose"(27).
city like New York has on our fantasy. His preoccupation with the way that we
In the third sentence, note the metaphor and explain Fitzgerald’s choice of this particular metaphor.
One of the traits of Gatsby that makes him truly great is his remarkable capacity for hope. He has faith that what he desires will come to him if he works hard enough. He does not comprehend the cruelty and danger that is the rest of the world. Gatsby, while a man of questionable morals, is as wide-eyed and innocent as a small child in his views of the world. These ideals are evident in Nick’s narration and in the words spoken by the other characters, including Gatsby himself.
focused upon Daisy. Daisy was the only thing (or at least he thought) between him and
Thesis: How does F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel, The Great Gatsby, compares the American Dream in today's generation and back in the 1920's-30's? What did the American Dream really mean and why? So why did this issue happen? Do you think America can change in the future? What is the american dream really about? When did the phrase: ‘american dream’ started? Have you ever wondered what the 20s and 30s were like back then? How can this so called dream ever bring hope to our country? These are all the questions I would like to know myself. I’ve found three online sources & one source from the novel that can help explain about the 20th century, the Gatsby novel, today's generation, and about Mr.Gatsby from the book.
Unbeknownst to the literary world, a future great American novelist, Francis Scott Fitzgerald was born in 1896. As an intellectual young man with great ambition, F. Scott Fitzgerald attended Princeton in the fall of 1913 with great hopes of fulfilling his dream to become a writer (“F. Scott Fitzgerald – Bio”, 2015). Unfortunately, Fitzgerald did not find much success at Princeton, was put on academic probation, and in 1917 left the school and enlisted himself into the U.S Army. During his time spent on base in Alabama, Fitzgerald met a woman, Zelda Sayre, and fell in love. Following his discharge at the end of the war, Fitzgerald and Zelda moved to Great Neck, New York on Long Island to pursue his literary aspirations
Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby is one of the most carefully structured stories of all time. The narrator, Nick, is a very clever and well spoken storyteller. Nick confides with the reader in the first pages of the novel. He says that he needs to tell the story of a man called Gatsby. It is as if Nick has to overcome disappointment and frustration with a man who has left him with painful memories. Nick says that, even though Gatsby did alright in the end, “it was the foul dust that collected in his wake” that disgusts him now. Nick, thus, begins the novel with uncomfortable memories. Time is a meaningful concept in this story. It is evident that dreams and memories are central to the overall plot and meaning. Secondly, the American Dream is a “green light” of desire that Gatsby never stops yearning for and something he will not forget over time, even as he is dying. This is so, even though no one cares about Gatsby or his dreams after he died, except maybe Nick. Finally, the fact that Fitzgerald uses flashback; that Nick is telling us about a main character after he has already died and before the story begins, is ultimate proof. The Great Gatsby is structured by Nick’s memory. Fitzgerald’s clever use of flashback throughout and within the novel is the greatest evidence that he intended his novel to be centered on memory and going back in time, which will be sort of a focus as we go further into this essay.
From the beginning of the The Great Gatsby, Francis Scott Fitzgerald uses the narrator, symbols, and the characters. Using the narrator, symbol, and characters throughout the novel makes up the book that is popular today.
Nick too can be just as careless and false as the rest of them . Nick acts intrested in
Eyes in “The Displaced Person” tend to be illustrated with violent terms. The eyes are harsh and very rarely are they described softly; Mrs. McIntyre has eyes like “steel or granite,” characters’ gazes often “pierce,” and “icy blue eyes” and other similar descriptions are common.
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby follows the path of a young man who claws his way from rags to riches in attempt to revel in the pleasures awarded to those born into the “superior” class. Throughout the novel, the titular protagonist endeavors to reclaim a lost love and throws lavish gatherings every weekend in hopes of crossing paths with his former lover. Fitzgerald’s employment of multiple symbols such as the green light, the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg, and the swimming pool solidifies the theme that achieving the American Dream does not guarantee the happiness it promises and can ultimately lead to self-destruction.
that when the girls were eighteen, he was with Daisy Fay in her “little white roadster.”
telling stories about his life without really setting up a structure for the audience to follow.
The Valley of Ash, the least described region of the book, is an impoverished region connecting the prosperous, the wealthy New York City and the wealthier Long Island. The neighborhood is a “dismal scene” (23), which Nick Caraway is forced to view every time he rides the train into the city. The name valley of ash is an informal name deriving from the sheer quantity of ash, littering the city. Ashes cover and define everything in the city: the “ridges and hills and grotesque gardens”, the “houses and chimneys”, and the “men”. Similarly, the residents of the valley are hardly characterized by Caraway, because he cannot understand them. The smoke “obscures” and “obfuscates” the actions of these men both literally and figurative: a rich man like Caraway cannot understand the pure and intolerable poverty. The residents of the valley are plain and not very interesting. Most predominately featured ...
A Deeper Meaning Symbolism adds meaning and requires readers to think deeper about the story. It gives objects more than just their physical meaning. The Great Gatsby utilizes the use of symbolism extremely well. Without this use of symbolism, the story would have no meaning at all. The symbols are what help move this story forward.