According to Cynthia Wu, no matter how many critical opinions there are on The Great Gatsby, the book basically deals with Gatsby's dream and his illusions (39). We find out from the novel that Jay Gatsby is not even a real person but someone that James Gatz invented. Wu also tells us that Gatsby has illusions that deal with romance, love, beauty, and ideals (39). Wu also points out that Gatsby's illusions can be divided into four related categories: he came from a rich upper class family, a never ending love between him and Daisy, money as the answer to every problem, and reversible time. Through Nick's narrations we can really see who this Jay Gatsby is and the reality to his illusions, and from this we can make our own decision on who we think Jay Gatsby really is.
The first memory upon which the narrator meditates on is the story behind Jay Gatsby's true identity: James Gatz-that was really , or at least legally, his name. He had changed it at the age of seventeen and at specific moment that witnessed the beginning of his career-when he saw Dan Cody's yacht drop anchor over the most insidious flat on Lake Superior. It was James Gatz who had been loafing along the beach that afternoon in a torn green jersey and a pair of canvas pants, but it was already Jay Gatsby who borrowed a rowboat, pulled out to the Tuolomee, and informed Cody that a wind might catch him and break him up in half an hour. (qtd. in Dillon 53)
I agree with Nick when he tells us that Jay probably had the name ready for a long time. Jay couldn't accept himself for who he really was and couldn't accept his history for what it really was. Then it stands to reason that Nick is correct on page 104 when he states: Jay's imagination never accepted h...
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...cording to Dillon, even though Gatsby had so much missing he did have one greatness and that one greatness was his illusions (61).
Works Cited
Dillon, Andrew. "The Great Gatsby: The Vitality of Illusion." The Arizona Quarterly 44 Spr. 1988: 49-61.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1992.
Irwin, John T. "Compensating Visions: The Great Gatsby." Southwest Review 77 Autumn 1992: 536-545.
Mitchell, Giles. "Gatsby Is a Pathological Narcissist." Readings On The Great Gatsby. Ed. Bruno Leone, et al. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 1998. 61-67.
Pauly, Thomas H. "Gatsby Is a Sinister Gangster." Readings On The Great Gatsby. Ed. Bruno Leone, et al. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 1998. 41-51.
Wu, Cynthia The Great Gatsby: Illusion and Reality for Jay Gatsby and Nick Carraway. 17 (1984): 39-68
Jay Gatsby is the main character in The Great Gatsby. He is the mysterious character that the story revolves around. Nick is his neighbor that gets invited to Gatsby’s party that set in on Gatsby being a mysterious person that has so many people talking about him and talking about different stories about Gatsby that unravel how big of a mystery Gatsby is. In The Great Gatsby, “Gatsby’s notoriety, spread about by the hundreds who had accepted his hospitality and so become authorities on his past, had increased all summer until he fell just short of being news” (Fitzgerald 105). In chapter six, the real truth is revealed about the great Gatsby. The stories of the mysterious Gatsby in the parties were not true. The stories about Gatsby also went around New York, which made Nick ask Gatsby about his past ("The Great Gatsby," Fitzgerald). Nick also asked about Gatsby’s past hoping Nick would finally hear the truth. According to The Great Gatsby, “This was the night, Carraway says, that Gatsby told him the story (its factual details have been told earlier in the novel) of his early life. The purpose of the telling here is not to reveal facts but to try to understand the character of Gatsby’s passion. The final understanding is reserved for one of those precisely right uttera...
"The Great Gatsby." Novels for Students. Ed. Diane Telgen. Vol. 2. Detroit: Gale, 1997. 64-86. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 17 Oct. 2014.
The Author is telling you that Dunstan is starting to change. Robertson Davies has Dunstan talking about the reviving drop from the Cauldron of Ceridwen. The reviving drop from the Cauldron of Ceridwen means that he is going to start an aspect of his life over.
Trilling, Lionel. "F. Scott Fitzgerald." Critical Essays on Scott Fitzgerald's "Great Gatsby." Ed. Scott Donaldson. Boston: Hall, 1984. 13-20.
“Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky once said this and this quote has greatly influenced the theme statement for this paper. The theme statement for this paper on the Great Gatsby is some people are willing to put up a false façade in order to become something they think is better and they lose their true selves in the long run. This paper will go through three examples of putting up a false façade. First the paper will go through Jay Gatsby, then Nick Carraway and finally the paper will wrap up with the parties that Gatsby throws.
Fitzgerald presents Jay Gatsby as one character who cannot see reality. "Can't repeat the past? Why of course you can!"(Pg. 116) He focuses so strongly on trying to get what he had in the past that he cannot face the reality that he cannot have Daisy. When Gatsby meets Daisy, he tells her that he is from a wealthy family to try to convince her that he is worthy of her. He also thinks that he can buy Daisy with his money. In addition, Jay Gatsby's real name is James Gatz. He changes his name because he wants to be a different person. Gatsby stakes everything on his dreams, but he does not realize that his dreams are unworthy of him. He loves Daisy so much that he cannot see how money corrupts her.
Dillon, Andrew. "The Great Gatsby: The Vitality of Illusion." The Arizona Quarterly 44 Spr. 1988: 49-61.
New Essays on The Great Gatsby. Ed. Matthew J. Bruccoli.
Hermanson, Casie E. "An overview of The Great Gatsby." Literature Resource Center. Detroit: Gale, 2011. Literature Resource Center. Web. 24 Feb. 2011.
When looking at Jay Gatsby, one sees many different personalities and ideals. There is the gracious host, the ruthless bootlegger, the hopeless romantic, and beneath it all, there is James Gatz of North Dakota. The many faces of Gatsby make a reader question whether they truly know Gatsby as a person. Many people question what exactly made Jay Gatsby so “great.” These different personas, when viewed separately, are quite unremarkable in their own ways. When you take them together, however, you discover the complicated and unique individual that is Jay Gatsby.
Batchelor, Bob. Gatsby: The Cultural History of the Great American Novel. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014. Print.
SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on The Great Gatsby.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2002. Web. 9 Apr. 2014.
Trilling, Lionel. "F. Scott Fitzgerald." Critical Essays on Scott Fitzgerald's "Great Gatsby." Ed. Scott Donaldson. Boston: Hall, 1984. 13-20.
Trilling, Lionel. "F. Scott Fitzgerald." Critical Essays on Scott Fitzgerald's "Great Gatsby." Ed. Scott Donaldson. Boston: Hall, 1984. 13-20.
...in het amateurvoetbal is niet met één theorie te verklaren, blijkt uit observaties en interviews met respondenten. Bij het voorkomen en genezen van het wangedrag moet vooral de context waar het gedrag zich plaatsvindt goed bekeken worden. Door een bepaalde context kan het extreme gedrag namelijk nog extra benadrukt worden. Tegenwoordig zijn de spelers het steeds minder met elkaar eens wat leidt tot wangedrag dat met de laatste jaren alleen maar steeds excessiever is geworden.