A Freudian Reading of The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby is generally regarded as an excellent novel which expresses much more than the superficial plot. The Great Gatsby could be, however, more complex than the average reader might imagine. The Great Gatsby is often interpreted as the corruption of the American Dream. In this framework, the Buchanans are viewed as the example of irresponsibility and degradation, and Gatsby the embodiment of idealism and sentimentality. In this essay, I want to offer another reading of The Great Gatsby in Freudian frame of reference.
I like to begin with the last. On this novel's last chapter, we confront the mystifying passage:
...gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors'
eyes--a fresh, green breast of the new world. its vanished trees, the trees that had made
way for Gatsby's house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all
human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the
presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood
nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his
capacity for wonder.(227)
Here Fitzgerald's phrasing is of importance and should not be easily overlooked. The "fresh, green breast of the new world" and the "last and greatest of all human dreams" are two fatal phrases that help launch my Freudian reading of The Great Gatsby.
According to Freud's theory, in the beginning of sexual development of both boys and girls, the mother is the first desired object, seen as almighty and capable ...
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...lusion: "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us"(228). Nick and Gatsby retreat from the adult sexuality to the state of infants in which the mother's breasts are desired. This retreat is expressed most obviously in the last sentence: "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past"(228).
Notes
(1) The question of Nick's sexuality is discussed in detail and thoroughly in Keath Fraser's Another Reading of The Great Gatsby.
Works Cited
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. Taiwan: Caves Books, 1989.
Fraser, Keath. "Another Reading of The Great Gatsby." F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Ed. Harold Bloom. NY:
Chelsea House Publishers, 1986. 57-70.
Green, Keith, and Jill LeBihan. Critical Theory & Practice: a Coursebook. NY: Routledge, 1996.
His duplicity continues, as he meets Tom’s mistress, and later arranges Daisy and Gatsby’s meeting, even going as far as to say “don’t bring Tom” (85). These are clear deceptions and violations of trust, which both reveal that Nick is not the honest and forthright man he wants the reader to believe he is; on the contrary, in many ways he is the opposite of honest and forthright. However, Nick’s most clearly professed lie is in protection of Daisy, when Tom insists that Gatsby had killed Myrtle, and Nick remains silent, forgoing telling Tom about the “one unutterable fact,” - that it had not been Gatsby who was driving the car when it had hit Myrtle, but Daisy - in favor of protecting Daisy (178). Once again, Nick mischaracterizes his traits and even fails to recognize his deceptions and violations of trust as being dishonest, failing to evaluate his own traits. By highlighting Nick’s opinions of and interactions with life amongst the rich, F. Scott Fitzgerald crafts Nick into a complex character whose contrasting thoughts and actions create a many leveled, multifaceted character who shows the reader that one’s appraisal of one’s own traits can often be incorrect.
“The Great Gatsby” was a extremely sophisticated novel; it expressed love, money, and social class. The novel is told by Nick Carraway, Gatsby’s neighbor. Nick had just moved to West Egg, Longs Island to pursue his dream as a bond salesman. Nick goes across the bay to visit his cousin Daisy and her husband Tom Buchanan in East Egg. Nick goes home later that day where he saw Gatsby standing on his dock with his arms out reaching toward the green light. Tom invites Nick to go with him to visit his mistress Mrs. Myrtle Wilson, a mid class woman from New York. When Nick returned from his adventure of meeting Myrtle he chooses to turn his attention to his mysterious neighbor, Gatsby. Gatsby is a very wealthy man that host weekly parties for the
Gatsby makes many mistakes throughout the novel, all of which Fitzgerald uses these blunders as a part of his thematic deconstruction of the American Dream. However, Fitzgerald does not write Gatsby as a bad person whom embodies all that is wrong with western capitalism. Instead, Fitzgerald portrays Gatsby as a good man who was victim of the qualities ingrained in him by an imperfect ideological system. It is this distinction which makes Fitzgerald’s argument all the more potent, and his audience’s ability to mourn Gatsby as a tragic figure all the more important. Whereas Fitzgerald’s opinion of Gatsby may otherwise have been misconstrued as a negative one, the scene of Gatsby’s funeral clearly conveys the character of Gatsby as a tragic and sorrowful one.
In F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby’s conflicts between passion and responsibility demonstrate that chasing empty dreams can only lead to suffering. Gatsby’s motivation to achieve his dream of prosperity is interrupted when his fantasy becomes motivated by love. His eternal struggle for something more mirrors cultural views that more is always better. By ultimately suffering an immense tragedy, Jay Gatsby transforms into a romantic and tragic hero paying the capital price for his actions. Gatsby envokes a deeper Conclusion sentence
Indeed one of the unique features of this novel is the mystery surrounding it’s main character ‘Gatsby-the man who gives his name to this book’ This sense of inscrutability which is omnipresent with Gatsby is cleverly achieved through the narrative techniques which Fitzgerald employs. The most obvious, and also most effective of which is the narration from Nick’s perspective. Throughout this novel it is Nick’s views of Gatsby which we read, not Fitzgerald’s and not anyone else’s. Only Nick’s. And even Nick seems to be some what in the dark as to Gatsby’s character, he often switches tact throughout the novel on his impression of Gatsby. This seems to insinuate that he has been ponderous over Gatsby for some time. The reader gains the impression that Nick has made calculating decisions throughout the novel, in terms of what he allows us to know about Gatsby. He is after all writing in retrospect. The very fact that Nick still has an ambiguous attitude towards Gatsby even after his death, endorses the readers opinion of Gatsby as a character who can not be categorised. He is uniqu...
The Great Gatsby is the story of one man's journey of trying to achieve what is commonly referred to as the American Dream. Fitzgerald successfully makes the reader become attached to Gatsby by giving the reader some elements of Gatsby’s back story to latch on to. He achieves this by using Gatsby’s love stroking heart to to capture the imagination of the hopeless romantic, and he then uses Gatsby’s deep seeded ambition of becoming better to capture the ambitious reader. Throughout the story Fitzgerald makes Gatsby out to be the hero, and he accomplishes this by having Gatsby’s goals in life become relatable to the common reader, because everyone wants to be able to change their lives around, everyone wants to someday fall so madly in love with someone else that they would follow that person to the ends of the earth, regardless of the obstacles, and Gatsby is the perfect embodiment of these hopes and dreams. What strikes a deeper chord is that the reader can tell that Fitzgerald truly loved his creation and this can be seen by the way he describes him. Sadly, like many other great writers do, Fitzgerald realised that this life like world that he has created, would need to have malevolent forces that are always conspiring against the main character in this case being Gatsby behind the scenes. Fitzgerald does this by embedding these forces into the society that surrounded Gatsby.
Capital punishment has been around in the United States since the early 1600s; it was a penalty for breaking common law. It was enforced in the American colonies prior to the Declaration of Independence being written. The first recorded death sentence was in 1608, given to Captain George Kendall, who was executed by firing squad (Capital Punishment in the United States). In earlier times, the method of execution was immensely gruesome. Death by burning, stoning and crushing are just a few examples of how brutal the death sentences could be. Majority of Americans throughout history have always supported the death penalty, but as time has gone on, the number of Americans in favor of the death penalty has dropped.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner, 2004. Print. The.
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 practice of capital punishment originated in Europe. Early settlers brought the practice of capital punishment to what is now known as the United States. The first execution by settlers in the United States occurred in 1608 when a man in Virginia was executed for being a Spanish spy. The thirteen original colonies participated in capital punishment. “Executions were made public with the intention of deterring future offenders from committing crimes.” (Beverlin, 2010).
"US Army MP's in Vietnam." UNITED STATES ARMY MILITARY POLICE. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Feb. 2014.
Hermanson, Casie E. "An overview of The Great Gatsby." Literature Resource Center. Detroit: Gale, 2011. Literature Resource Center. Web. 24 Feb. 2011.
Work Cited Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. London: Penguin Books, 1990.
Trask, David F. "A Note on Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby." University Review 33.3 (Mar. 1967): 197-202. Rpt. in Novels for Students. Ed. Diane Telgen. Vol. 2. Detroit: Gale, 1998. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 15 Jan. 2014.
Kyra Sedgwick plays Lace, George's love interest. The agony of having gone through the loss of her perfect family show through her smiles. Despite being intent on keeping George at arms' length, head-strong Lace falls in love with George, with no small help from her two precocious kids. Gerard Dipego's choice of the two kids as parallels and inversions of the adults' relationship is simply brilliant. It is the little girl who extends herself to George when Lace plays the silent, "I want to keep my life simple" girl.