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The great gatsby literature review
Literary analysis on the great gatsby
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In many works of literature, authors try to convey to their reader a certain message within the worlds that they have created. Often, these messages can overlap between different authors’ works. The theme of loyalty and its harmful effects can be seen throughout F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Toni Morrison’s Sula, and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Loyalty is the reason that Gatsby changed his whole life for Daisy, Nel blindly accepted Sula, and Hester kept Dimmesdale’s secret. It is the driving force for conflict within the three novels, as it causes problems for each of the main characters, showing that the authors view loyalty as possibly dangerous. In each novel, although being overly loyal ends up hurting each of the …show more content…
characters, it is only truly their downfall in one case. Jay Gatsby, through being blindly loyal to someone he knew once five years ago, ends up living an incomplete life and dying alone. Gatsby was poor when he first met Daisy, first a fisherman, then a lieutenant in the army, and he knew that to have a chance with Daisy, he would have to change himself just to be in her world.
In just a few years after meeting Daisy and getting out of the army, he “came into a good deal of money”(Fitzgerald 65), “bought a house so that Daisy would be just across the bay”(Fitzgerald 78), “read a Chicago paper for years on the chance of catching a glimpse of Daisy's name”(Fitzgerald 79), and put out weekly invitations, hoping that Daisy would “wander into one of his parties, some night” (Fitzgerald ibid). All of this was done for Daisy, who since then, fell in love with Tom Buchanan, got married and had a child. None of this occurred to Gatsby until they finally met again, and he realized that he had built Daisy up in his head for so long. “Compared to the great distance that had separated him from Daisy it had seemed very near to her, almost touching her ... Now it was again a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one” (Fitzgerald 93). Although Gatsby continued to fight for Daisy to the very end, he realized in this moment that what he had been dreaming of for years might not actually be within his …show more content…
grasp. Throughout the rest of the novel, Gatsby ceaselessly tried for Daisy’s love, but was ultimately shot down after Daisy and Tom went back home after going to the city and were content with each other without Gatsby “there was an unmistakable air of natural intimacy about the picture, and anybody would have said that they were conspiring together”(Fitzgerald 145). Daisy is not the person that Gatsby remembered; married to someone else, she is unable to drop everything and join Gatsby like it was 1917 again. Gatsby spent a large portion of his life being loyal to Daisy, but it turned out to be for nothing. All those years spent cheating the system, working with people who could help him climb the social ladder fast, didn’t give him the opportunity to actually fit into one place or make any friends. When he is killed by Wilson, only the press and his father show up to his funeral. Gatsby died alone because he spent too much of his time being loyal to someone he didn’t actually know. Although being loyal was detrimental for Gatsby, this is not always the case. Nel’s loyalty to Sula caused her pain, but unlike Gatsby, it did not cause her downfall.
Ever since they were twelve years old, Sula Peace and Nel Write have been inseparable. Opposites, they complete each other, making it only natural that they would spend every minute together and be unquestionably loyal to one another. When they got older, as Nel started a family, Sula found herself in her ability to sleep with whomever she chose. Nel’s loyalty to Sula blinded her from her knowledge of how Sula was around men. She wasn’t careful when she invited Sula into her home, and the visit ended with Jude cheating on Nel with Sula (Morrison 105). Loyalty cost Nel her best friend and husband. After this, Nel went into a depression for a long time; sad about losing her husband, and angry with her best friend. “She could not see it, but she knew exactly what it looked like. A gray ball hovering just there. Just there. To the right. Quiet, gray, dirty. A ball of muddy strings, but without weight, fluffy but terrible in its malevolence” (Morrison 109). Although it seemed for all this time that Nel was grieving the loss of her husband, after Sula died, Nel realized that she was grieving the loss of her best friend. “‘All that time, all that time, I thought I was missing Jude.’ And the loss pressed down on her chest and came up into her throat. ‘We was girls together,’ she said as though explaining something. ‘O lord, Sula,’ she cried, ‘girl,girl,girlgirlgirl.’ It was a fine cry--loud
and long--but it had no bottom and it had no top, just circles and circles of sorrow” (Morrison 174). It was only after Sula was gone that Nel realized that she didn’t miss Jude, it was her best friend that she loved the most. Although the actions of being loyal to Sula caused Nel great pain, in the end, none of that mattered more than the bond they had for so many years. People are often loyal to those whom they love, which was also the case in the Scarlet Letter. After committing a terrible sin, Hester’s loyalty to Dimmesdale is the reason she had to live her life in seclusion, while raising their daughter alone. After Hester stood on the scaffold in front of the whole town as punishment for her sin, she was given the opportunity to reveal who the other adulterer was, but she refused. “‘But, Hester, the man lives who had wronged us both! Who is he?’ ‘Ask me not!’ Replied Hester Prynne, looking firmly into his face. ‘That thou shalt never know!’” (Hawthorne 70). Although revealing her partner’s name might lessen some of the blame put on Hester, she stayed loyal to Dimmesdale and chose not to tell. Hester’s conviction caused her to be ostracized by her town, leaving her to raise her daughter by herself without the help of Dimmesdale or anyone else. “In this little, lonesome dwelling, with some slender means that she possessed, and by the license of the magistrates, who still kept an inquisitorial watch over her, Hester established herself, with her infant child” (Hawthorne 75). Because Hester didn’t reveal their secret, the town sees her as the only perpetrator, leaving her by herself and judging her even when she tries to be charitable. After seven years of Hester’s seclusion, and Dimmesdale’s deteriorating health, he decides that finally, at the end of his life, he will reveal to the town his role in the affair. “At last!—at last!—I stand upon the spot where, seven years since, I should have stood” (Hawthorne 227). Finally after all this time, Dimmesdale decided to do what was right and because of this, something sort of spiritual happened and a weight was lifted from everyone around him. “Pearl kissed his lips. A spell was broken. The great scene of grief, in which the wild infant bore a part, had developed all her sympathies” (Hawthorne 229). Hester stayed loyal to him for seven years, and although she spent all those years alone, it payed off in the end. In each of these three novels, one character has ended up alone due to blind loyalty, either based on memories or principal. The characters ignored the bad qualities of the respective people that they loved about because they cared too much, and couldn’t see what it was doing to them until it was too late. By looking at how the characters behaved in the books, we can see how each author viewed the world. Fitzgerald is the odd one out; he believes that the world is every man for himself. By showing what happened to Gatsby, he wants to show his reader that you shouldn’t focus your whole life for one person, because if they leave, you are left with nothing. Morrison and Hawthorne see the world a little differently. Morrison believes that loyalty is so important. Most of the relationships in the book revolve around loyalty and by the end of the book, Nel realizes that even though she was mad at Sula for the longest time, she knows now that their relationship was the most important thing that they could have. Hawthorne saw loyalty as important too, because after seven years of suffering, once the secret was out, the weight was lifted and the Hester’s loyalty was finally rewarded.
“ Its attitude is one of disillusionment and detachment; Fitzgerald is still able to evoke the glitter of the 1920s but he is no longer dazzled by it; he sees its underlying emptiness and impoverishment” (Trendell 23)The story is narrated from the point of view of Nick, one of Gatsby’s friends. The problematic and hopeless romantic, Gatsby, sets out to fulfill his dream in acquiring Daisy, his lifelong love, through his many tactics and ideas. Gatsby is introduced extending his arms mysteriously toward a green light in the direction of the water. Later, Gatsby is shown to be the host of many parties for the rich and Nick is invited to one of these parties where Gatsby and Nick meet. When Gatsby later confesses his love for Daisy he explains she was a loved one who was separated from him and hopes to get her again explained when he says, “I hope she'll be a fool -- that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool”(Fitzgerald 56). There are several obstacles that Gatsby must overcome and the biggest one that is Daisy’s current fiancé but that still does not get in the way of him trying to recover Daisy’s old feelings. His attempts are made through money and wealth because he tries to buy her love back instead of letting it happen naturally.
All the while, Gatsby stands outside Daisy’s house to ensure her safety. He unknowingly waits as Daisy makes amends with her husband. She had no intention on running away with Gatsby anymore, because she knew Tom would always give her anything she wanted. Daisy had sunk her claws so deep into Gatsby that he never suspected that she would stay with her husband. For Gatsby, what Daisy and he shared was everything to him. For Daisy, it no longer meant anything. “So I walked away and left him standing there in the moonlight—watching over nothing.” (Fitzgerald
...was sick and dying, but because she needed to know and understand for herself why Sula betrayed her in such a manner. Armed with the information that Sula was sick and may be in need of assistance since no one else in the neighborhood was willing to help her, she visited Sula for the last time. Nevertheless, Sula had not changed, she still considered herself to be above reproach for whatever deeds she committed. Nel finally understood her friend for who she really was and realized that even though she did not like some of her way, she liked the good parts of her enough to forgive the bad. She is finally able to not only cross the chasm that was created in their friendship by Sula’s betrayal but she realized how much she really loved her as a friend, albeit a little too late since Sula was already dead. All in all Sula was a mean self-centered person whose only emotional outlet was in the person of her best friend Nel. They compliment each other in many ways and paint a myriad picture of what true friendship is all about. In friendship, one has to take the good with the bad, and the thick with the thin, and Sula and Nel were the best of friends in that respect.
When thinking about loyalty in the book, The Great Gatsby not much loyalty is shown. It’s like people come around when they need something but when you need a friend, they are nowhere to be found and you don’t exist. A lot of abandonment is shown towards the end of the story, which leads us back to loyalty and what the relationships each character had with Gatsby meant to them. Throughout the story the only loyalty shown was from Gatsby and Nick towards each other and the loyalty Gatsby showed to everyone around him.
Nothing is more important, to most people, than friendships and family, thus, by breaking those bonds, it draws an emotional response from the readers. Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan had a relationship before he went off to fight in the war. When he returned home, he finds her with Tom Buchanan, which seems to make him jealous since he still has feelings for Daisy. He wanted Daisy “to go to Tom and say: ‘I never loved you” (Fitzgerald 118) Gatsby eventually tells Tom that his “wife doesn’t love [him]” and that she only loves Gatsby (Fitzgerald 121). But the unpleasant truth is that Daisy never loved anyone, but she loved something: money. Daisy “wanted her life shaped and the decision made by some force of of money, of unquestionable practicality” (Fitzgerald 161). The Roaring Twenties were a time where economic growth swept the nation and Daisy was looking to capitalize on that opportunity. Her greed for material goods put her in a bind between two wealthy men, yet they are still foolish enough to believe that she loved them. Jay Gatsby is a man who has no relationships other than one with Nick Caraway, so he is trying to use his wealth to lure in a greedy individual to have love mend his
When he first meets Daisy, Gatsby becomes infatuated with his idea of her, or rather, the false persona that she creates of herself. In fact, Gatsby reveals that “she was the first ‘nice’ girl he had ever known” (155). Gatsby was so impressed with Daisy mainly because of her wealth and her status; it is what he wants. However, Daisy chooses Tom Buchanan over Gatsby, solely because of his social status. As a result, Gatsby revolves his whole life around her: he becomes wealthy, creates a new image of himself, and buys a house across the bay from Daisy. For instance, he fabricates lies about how “ [he is] the son of some wealthy people in the middle-west” (69) and how “ [he] was brought up in America but educated at Oxford” (69) in order to impress her. These lies end up altering others’ perspectives of him - not necessarily in a positive way - and impacting his life as a whole. Daisy unwittingly transforms Gatsby into a picture-perfect image of the 1920s: lavish parties, showy cars, and a false illusion of the attainment of the American Dream. Despite Gatsby’s newfound wealth and success, he never fully accomplishes his dream: to get Daisy. Gatsby’s final act for the sake of Daisy has no impact on her feelings towards him. When Gatsby claims that he crashed into Myrtle and killed her, Daisy carelessly lets him do so, which ultimately results in his death. To make
Gatsby’s love life has become surrounded by ideas from the past. No longer is he able to fall in love with the moment, but instead he is held up on what have and should have been. He spends his time reminiscing on old times and previous relationships while he has also been building up a new life in order to return to the past. The unreal expectations he has for Daisy prove to us that he has trouble letting go of his old romantic ideas. Gatsby doesn’t want to accept and love this new Daisy, and instead he is hoping for the Daisy he knows to come back. But people change and there can be no expectations for someone to continue to remain the same after a number of years. Instead we must let go of the past and embrace the future for everything it could be.
For five years, Gatsby was denied the one thing that he desired more than anything in the world: Daisy. While she was willing to wait for him until after the war, he did not want to return to her a poor man who would, in his eyes, be unworthy of her love. Gatsby did not want to force Daisy to choose between the comfortable lifestyle she was used to and his love. Before he would return to her, he was determined to make something of himself so that Daisy would not lose the affluence that she was accustomed to possessing. His desire for Daisy made Gatsby willing to do whatever was necessary to earn the money that would in turn lead to Daisy’s love, even if it meant participating in actions...
Daisy Buchanan, in reality, is unable to live up the illusory Daisy that Gatsby has invented in his fantasy. After Daisy and Tom Buchanan leave another one of Gatsby’s splendid parties, Fitzgerald gives the reader a glimpse into what Gatsby’s expectations are. Fitzgerald claims that “he wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say: ‘I never loved you.’” (109). Here it is revealed that Gatsby’s one main desire is for Daisy to go willingly...
The Great Gatsby: Unfaithfulness and Greed. The love described in the novel, The Great Gatsby, contains "violence and egoism not tenderness and affection." The author, F. Scott Fitzgerald, writes on wealth, love, and corruption. Two coupes, Tom and Daisy Buchanan and George and Myrtle Wilson, match perfectly with these categories. Both couples are different in the way they choose to live together, but are similar in a few ways. Unfaithfulness and greed are the only similarities the couples shared.
Sula and Nel’s friendship in their childhood was beneficial for both of them. Sula’s meeting of Nel was fortunate, because they find a soul mate within each other. They are both the daughters of “distant mothers and incomprehensible fathers” (Morrison, 50). Both girls lack affection in their relationships with their mothers. They can’t find this affection in their relationships with their fathers either, because Sula’s father is dead while Nel’s father is away at sea. They find the affection they need with each other. Their friendship was a way to mother each other. Since they can’ find the support they need from their families with their families they began to support each other and figure out what each other need in their life. The significance
Gatsby leads a great life when readers first meet him; he is wealthy and popular among Long Island citizens. However, it all quickly comes to an end when Gatsby’s true past and identity are revealed. Fitzgerald compels readers to believe that the main character had achieved “The American Dream”. However, Gatsby’s fulfillment of the dream was a fabrication for many years. Readers learn that Gatsby’s true dream is to reconnect with Daisy, although, he is not able to do so despite his efforts. It is clear that, considering that Gatsby is revealed to be a fraud, he would never be able to achieve his true American Dream of being with
In Fitzgerald’s works, losing love to someone of a higher status is a recurring motif. In The Great Gatsby, Gatsby and Daisy are two lovers, brought apart by war. During this time Daisy marries a man named Tom, an extremely privileged young man, because of her need for love and falls in love with the wealth, rather than the man and the “perfection” that comes with it. When returning from the war, Gatsby sees their life in the newspapers
The Great Gatsby presents the main character Jay Gatsby, as a poor man who is in love with his best friends cousin, Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby was in love with Daisy, his first real love. He was impressed with what she represented, great comfort with extravagant living. Gatsby knew he was not good enough for her, but he was deeply in love. “For a moment a phrase tried to take shape in my mouth and my lips parted like a dumb man’s”(Fitzgerald 107). Gatsby could not think of the right words to say. Daisy was too perfect beyond anything he was able to think of. Soon Gatsby and Daisy went their separate ways. Jay Gatsby went into the war while telling Daisy to find someone better for her, someone that will be able to keep her happy and provide for her. Gatsby and Daisy loved one another, but he had to do what was best for her. Gatsby knew the two might not meet again, but if they did, he wanted things to be the same. “I 'm going to fix everything just the way it was before”(Fitzgerald 106). He wanted Daisy to fall in love with him all over again. Unsure if Daisy would ever see Gatsby again, she got married while he was away. The two were still hugely in love with one another, but had to go separate ways in their
Gatsby on the surface, does truly appear to be pursuing Daisy. However, Gatsby’s need for Daisy could rather be an unconscious facade. The facade covers up the depressing truth. The truth is that Gatsby has been pursuing the “idea” of Daisy. “Idea” as in an interpretation of her that may not be entirely true. A five year gap separated the time between Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship before the war and their meeting postwar. Five years was plenty of time for Gatsby to idealize a completely unrealistic ideal of Daisy. The Daisy he idealized would pick up their love right where they left off prewar. Gatsby grew way too close to this idealization and set all his hopes on this. It seems as if the relationship does not work, it will break Gatsby.