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The Story Behind F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby
The Story Behind F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby
Literary analysis for the great gatsby
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Since its publication in 1925, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald has indisputably been one of the most influential and insightful pieces on the corruption and idealism of the American Dream. The American Dream, defined as ‘The belief that anyone, regardless of where they were born or what class they were born into, can attain their own version of success in a society where upward mobility is possible for everyone,’ was a dominant ideal in American society, stemming from an opportunist pioneer mentality. In his book ‘The American Tradition in Literature’, Bradley Sculley praised The Great Gatsby for being ‘perhaps the most striking fictional analysis of the age of gang barons and the social conditions that produced them.’ Over the years, greed and selfishness changed the basic essence of the American Dream, forming firmly integrated social classes and the uncontainable thirst for money and status. The ‘Roaring Twenties’ was a time of ‘sustained increase in national wealth’ , which consequently led to an increase in materialism and a decrease in morality. Moreover, the …show more content…
In fact, none of the characters in the Great Gatsby are necessarily likeable. However, when Nick enters the Buchanan’s Mansion ‘Daisy and Jordan lay upon an enormous couch, like silver idols weighing down their own white dresses against the singing breeze of the fans’ Fitzgerald evokes an air of purity about the two women with the color white, which is mostly associated with cleanliness and purity. The women described as ‘silver idols’ implies wealth and high status. However, their impurity is slowly revealed through Jordan’s cheating in golf and Daisy’s affair with Gatsby. The women also represent the degrading morals in the 1920’s and the notion of appearance being more important than reality, which is essentially what the American Dream was about to
The theme “blind pursuit of an ideal is destructive” is the main message of The Great Gatsby. Gatsby is on a blind pursuit of happiness. His ideal is to be with Daisy as he was in the past. Although, you can not ever really grasp the past and have things the same as they once were. This pursuit is destructive because Gatsby can not be satisfied with Daisy anymore. He really longed for an image of the past and how he and Daisy used to be, but she is not the same as she once was. Her past self is unobtainable but Gatsby is persistent. Gatsby vision of Daisy is unrealistic and much better than her true self. Nick stated in the book, “Daisy tumbled short of his dreams- not through her own fault, but because of his colossal vitality of his illusion”.
In the novel The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald gives the reader a glimpse into the life of the high class during the 1920’s through the eyes of a man named Nick Carraway. Through the narrator's dealings with high society, Fitzgerald demonstrates how modern values have transformed the American dream's ideas into a scheme for materialistic power and he reveals how the world of high society lacks any sense of morals or consequence. In order to support his message, Fitzgerald presents the original aspects of the American dream along with its modern face to show that the wanted dream is now lost forever to the American people. Jay Gatsby had a dream and did everything he could to achieve it however in the end he failed to. This reveals that the American dream is not always a reality that can be obtained. Fitzgerald demonstrates how a dream can become corrupted by one’s focus on acquiring wealth and power through imagery, symbolism, and characterization.
The novel The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, deals heavily with the concept of the American Dream as it existed during the Roaring Twenties, and details its many flaws through the story of Jay Gatsby, a wealthy and ambitious entrepreneur who comes to a tragic end after trying to win the love of the moneyed Daisy Buchanan, using him to dispel the fantastic myth of the self-made man and the underlying falsities of the American Dream. Despite Gatsby’s close association with the American Dream, however, Fitzgerald presents the young capitalist as a genuinely good person despite the flaws that cause his undoing. This portrayal of Gatsby as a victim of the American Dream is made most clear during his funeral, to which less than a handful
...on materialism and social class. While novel is widely considered a zeitgeist of the time period, it is also a warning for the American Dream. Although the Dream is not Marxist materialism, it is certainly not traditional individualism and freedom. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby poses a question: what is the American Dream?
Through the use of symbolism and critique, F. Scott Fitzgerald is able to elucidate the lifestyles and dreams of variously natured people of the 1920s in his novel, The Great Gatsby. He uses specific characters to signify diverse groups of people, each with their own version of the “American Dream.” Mostly all of the poor dream of transforming from “rags to riches”, while some members of the upper class use other people as their motivators. In any case, no matter how obsessed someone may be about their “American Dream”, Fitzgerald reasons that they are all implausible to attain.
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby focuses on the corruption of the American dream during the 1920‘s. For the duration of this time period, the American dream was no longer about hard work and reaching a set goal, it had become materialistic and immoral. Many people that had honest and incorruptible dreams, such as Jay Gatsby, used corrupted pathways to realize their fantasy. People’s carelessness was shown through their actions and speech towards others. Fitzgerald uses characterization and symbolism from different characters and items to convey the corruption of the American dream.
The American dream is a farce. Hopeful American children and quixotic foreigners believe that freedom will lead to prosperity, and that prosperity will bring happiness. This anticipation of joy will never come to fruition, and all these unfortunate people will feel that they were cheated out of happiness by some unlucky roll of dice, but really they have been chasing cars, because the American dream is not something one can truly capture, but only smoke trapped in the palm of a hand. In The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby’s lavish parties, characterized by music, dancing, and illegal alcohol, are a representation of the corruption of society’s values, and are filled with guests only concerned with material things as they step further and further away from the moral values that once dictated the lives of those before them. Author F. Scott Fitzgerald uses Gatsby’s parties to illustrate the “roaring” twenties as a time of gluttonous people who have abandoned moral values like wrecked ships in a storm of trivial desires as they chase the happiness that the American dream promises.
The early 1920’s were a time when the economy began to soar, and the notion of the American dream began to take effect. The American Dream is the idea that anyone can come from any background and no matter who they are, if they work hard and stay true to themselves, they can achieve their dreams. The Great Gatsby, set in the early twenties, displays that socio-economic power is obtained through inheritance, forming an aristocracy of power and wealth. The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, demonstrates how geography and location dictate where the social-class level of an individual exists permanently in society. Furthermore, illusion and affectation portrayed in the novel to conceive the image of power and wealth in a way for someone to attempt to become something they are not, this goes against the idea of the American Dream. Even when the American Dream seems obtainable it is restricted by unruling variables. Therefore, the American Dream is simply, just a dream.
The two leading female characters in the novel, Daisy Buchanan and Jordan Baker, are frequently seen in white. Daisy's character is developed by Fitzgerald's use of the color white to reveal Daisy's clarity and virtuousness. He states the luminous white house, the vivacious white rooms, and Daisy dressing in a white dress. When Daisy initially appears, she represents both privilege and purity. The use of white aids to portray her as the captivated princess who becomes embodied as Gatsby's dream. Nevertheless, the diverse shades of white specify that Daisy may not be an epithet of innocence. The privilege of being in a high social class may also have a demeaning effect on her. This example correlates exactly to the appearance of Daisy's character throu...
The American Dream is a concept that has been wielded in American Literature since its beginnings. The ‘American Dream’ ideal follows the life of an ordinary man wanting to achieve life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The original goal of the American dream was to pursue freedom and a greater good, but throughout time the goals have shifted to accumulating wealth, high social status, etc. As such, deplorable moral and social values have evolved from a materialistic pursuit of happiness. In “Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity”, Roland Marchand describes a man that he believed to be the prime example of a 1920’s man. Marchand writes, “Not only did he flourish in the fast-paced, modern urban milieu of skyscrapers, taxicabs, and pleasure- seeking crowds, but he proclaimed himself an expert on the latest crazes in fashion, contemporary lingo, and popular pastimes.” (Marchand) This description shows material success as the model for the American Dream. In his novel The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald reveals the characterization of his characters through the use of symbols and motifs to emphasize the corruption of the American Dream.
The title of F Scott Fitzgerald’s novel ‘The Great Gatsby’ can be seen as incredibly ironic: not only can the ‘greatness’ of the eponymous character be vehemently contested, he is not even named ‘Gatsby’. In fact, he is a criminal, James Gatz, who, although he appears to be an epitome of the idealistic American Dream, having grown from an impoverished childhood into a life of excess and splendour, he has obtained everything through crime and corruption. Indeed, it has been said that ‘The Great Gatsby’ is “a parable of disenchantment with the ‘American Dream’” , and it is, for the American Dream is the idea that “through hard work, courage and determination, one could achieve prosperity.” James Gatz did not obtain his prosperous lifestyle through “hard work”, but rather through felony. Of course, it may seem that he ‘worked hard’ for it, and there is no disputing his determination and perhaps even his courage, but the “hard work” on which the American Dream is based is not the work of criminals.
The American Dream, a long standing ideal embodies the hope that one can achieve financial success, political power, and everlasting love through dedication and hard work. During the Roaring 20s, people in America put up facades to mask who they truly were. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald conveys that the American Dream is simply an illusion, that is idealist and unreal. In the novel, Gatsby, a wealthy socialite pursues his dream, Daisy. In the process of pursuing Daisy, Gatsby betrays his morals and destroys himself. Through the eyes of the narrator, Nick, one sees the extent of the corruption Gatsby is willing to undertake in order to achieve his dream. Although Fitzgerald applauds the American Dream he warns against the dangers of living in a world full of illusions and deceit; a trait common during the Roaring 20s. The language and plot devices Fitzgerald uses convey that lies and facades, which were common during the Guided Age, destroys one’s own character and morals. Through Fitzgerald use of symbolism, expectations, and relationships, he explores the American dream, and how it is an illusion that corrupts and destroys lives.
In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald explores the idea of the American Dream as well as the portrayal of social classes. Fitzgerald carefully sets up his novel into distinct social groups but, in the end, each group has its own problems to contend with, leaving a powerful reminder of what a precarious place the world really is. By creating two distinct social classes ‘old money’ and ‘new money’, Fitzgerald sends strong messages about the underlying elitism and moral corruption of society. The idea of the American dream is the idea that opportunity is available to any American, allowing their highest aspirations and goals to be achieved. In the case of The Great Gatsby it centres on the attainment of wealth and status to reach certain positions in life, which Fitzgerald’s protagonist sets out to achieve even if it means moral corruption.
With new modernist American literature, Americans lose faith in their traditional beliefs and values, including the American dream. Many novels used the concept of the American dream to make people question whether the dream still existed in the mist of the First World War and the Great Depression. In describing the American dream, one is led to believe that the individual is led to self-triumph, and their life will progressively get better and better in America. In Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, published in 1925, the American dream is perceived originally by the thought of discovery and the pursuit of happiness. Money, parties, and relaxed social views came with ease to the American people in the 1920s. However, Fitzgerald demonstrates how the American soldiers re...
Henry Ford, the founder of Ford Cars, once stated, “ An idealist is a person who helps other people to be prosperous”. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, the main character, Jay Gatsby, is an idealist who becomes a new person in New York City to escape his poor upbringing and to pursue his new life as “old money”. Unfortunately, Jay Gatsby’s beliefs, combined with falling in love with the wrong person, ultimately led to his downfall.Gatsby is essentially an innocent victim (romantic idealist) who is destroyed by his inability to accept reality.