The Great Gatsby and the Destruction of a Romantic Ideal
In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald tells the story of a romantic ideal and its ultimate destruction by the inexorable rot and decay of modern life. The story is related by Nick Carraway, who has taken a modest rental house next door to Jay Gatsby's mansion. Jay Gatsby is a young millionaire who achieves fabulous wealth for the sole purpose of recapturing the love of his former sweetheart, Daisy Fay Buchanan. Five years prior to the principal events of the story, Daisy broke off with Gatsby and married the vulgar and arrogant Tom Buchanan because he was rich and came from a respectable family. In the years since, Gatsby turns his memory of Daisy into a near-religious worship. He places her on a pedestal and transforms her into his own romantic ideal. In the process, he also transforms himself. He changes his name from Gatz to Gatsby; he invents a past, saying he was from a wealthy family and studied at Oxford; he affects the speech patterns of an English aristocrat ("old sport"), and stages parties that resemble theatrical productions.
The irony is that Gatsby's extreme pursuit of materialism is just an elaborate facade that allows him to pursue his enchanted spiritual vision. All of the trappings of his wealth have a sense of the unreal, as having no weight or substance. Our first sense of this occurs in Chapter 3, when Gatsby invites Nick to one of his parties. In Gatsby's library Nick encounters a drunken guest who announces that Gatsby's books are actually real:
"What do you think?" he demanded impetuously.
"About what?"
He waived his hand toward the book-shelves.
"About that. As a matter of fact you needn't bother to...
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..., boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
Works Cited and Consulted:
Bruccoli, Matthew J. Some Sort of Epic Grandeur: The Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald. New York: Carrol and Graf, 1993.
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Mizener, Arthur, ed. F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963.
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Trilling, Lionel. "F. Scott Fitzgerald." Critical Essays on Scott Fitzgerald's "Great Gatsby." Ed. Scott Donaldson. Boston: Hall, 1984. 13-20.
is here to see him this might be a secret message by J.B Priestly (the
...ald." Critical Essays on Scott Fitzgerald's "Great Gatsby." Ed. Scott Donaldson. Boston: Hall, 1984. 13-20.
An Inspector Calls by J.B. Priestley An Inspector Calls is the tale of a wealthy manufacturer who is holding a dinner party for his daughter’s engagement. Into this cosy, what seems secure scene, appears a harsh police inspector investigating the suicide of young working class woman. Under the pressure of his thorough investigations, every member of the Birling family is revealed to have a shameful secret that finally led to the corruption, and consequent death of this young woman, Eva Smith. Priestly attempts to convey his attitudes and ideas through his characters and their behaviour in the play.
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An Inspector Calls by J.B. Priestley The inspector wants to show and teach the Birlings that they are responsible for how they affect the lives of others (Eva Smith). The inspector tries to make the family clear that each uncaring behaviour can produce serious consequences. While the children Sheila and Erik notice and then admit their heartless acting, their parents just see their legal innocence and do not accept any moral guilt. J.B Priestley's main concerns about the class divide were how the middle class treated the working class. Priestley is trying to show that the upper classes are unaware that the easy lives they lead rest upon hard work of the lower classes.
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Donaldson, Scott, ed. Critical Essays on F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby." Boston: G. K. Hall, 1984.
Trilling, Lionel. "F. Scott Fitzgerald." Critical Essays on Scott Fitzgerald's "Great Gatsby." Ed. Scott Donaldson. Boston: Hall, 1984. 13-20.
"Joel get up you lazy get! Jo is right, all you ever do is eat and