...Is everything all about wealth in The Great Gatsby? Throughout this novel, one of the main themes is the hollowness of the upper class. As explained in the novel, the East eggers are considered a part of the new wealth and the West eggers are considered a part of the old aristocracy. Is wealth the only thing that makes you a part of society? The book does not really expound on the lower class or how they live, so can you truly say there is one. Is this book only about the life of the upper class or the life of the “The Great Gatsby” himself as interpreted from the title? Initially, the first you see of wealth in the novel is when the difference between the East and West eggers is pronounced. Reading further into the novel, the only things that pop out to you is wealth and the mysterious Gatsby. Many people during this time are wealthy or trying to obtain a high status in order to gain wealth. For example, Myrtle Wilson wanted a high society life and the only way to get it was through Tom Buchanan. The only twist was that both were married. Myrtle loved her husband, but she craved and wanted more, which her husband, Mr. Wilson, could not give her. In addition, the affair with Daisy Buchanan and Jay Gatsby is a great example. Daisy is a person whose only concern is money and being married to Tom gives her all the money she wants, but what happens when old love reappears with wealth on his side also. Wealth was the only thing people were thinking about during the 1920’s. This...
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...Williams1 Alima Williams Mr.DiCristino English 3H 16 December 2015 The Bad Effects of Wealth In the world we live in today, people tend to crave love and happiness, but most importantly wealth. Unfortunately, people don’t understand that wealth has bad effects and it doesn’t solve every problem they encounter. Jay Gatsby, a main character in Great Gatsby The was one of these people. Gatsby and other characters of his class all strived for happiness, wealth, status and love. To their dismay, they realized that the desire for wealth could lead to their downfall. Through Gatsby, Fitzgerald proves that the pursuit of wealth is corruptive, useless and dangerous. The old money crowd’s actions make the pursuit for wealth danger. The people of this crowd were born into their wealth which makes them careless. They don’t have to worry about consequences and whatever they want they get. The characters of this novel, Daisy and Tom, are a part of this crowd. They have no regard for other people or empathy. Daisy killed Myrtle in a car accident but didn’t get punished as a normal person would. Instead, Gatsby said he’ll take the blame for her and Daisy left with Tom. For example, it says “I called up Daisy half an hour after we found him, called her instinctively and without hesitation. But she and Tom ...
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...The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a novel that takes a different spin on the stereotypical American dream. To say “through the novel, Fitzgerald puts across the idea that the American dream has been corrupted by the desire for materialism” would be accurate. Because “we see that Gatsby had a pure dream, but became corrupt in his quest towards that dream,” this is how the American dream was viewed as corrupt. Throughout the novel Gatsby displays many examples of how his quest towards the dream that was once pure, slowly becomes more and more corrupt. The first showing of corruptness in Gatsby’s dream, which is to marry Daisy, is his unethical means of obtaining a fortune. The stereotypical American dream is working hard for honest money. However, this is not the case for Gatsby. Gatsby attains his fortune through the illegal means of bootlegging. In the novel, the narrator Nick describes Gatsby, “The truth was that Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself. He was a Son of God—a phrase that, if it means anything, means just that—and he must be about His Father’s business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty. So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end” (The Great Gatsby Chapter 6 pg). This quotation shows how Nick saw Gatsby as trying to transform himself into the ideal person. He even goes as far as to...
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... “The Great Gatsby,” a novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, depicts life in the 1920’s. “The Roaring Twenties,” a nickname given to the decade which was loaded with money and industry. It was a time where the rich people in society only had so much to do, and so much money to spend in many ways. Jay Gatsby, one of the “newly” rich people, chooses to spend his money recklessly; throwing large, extravagant parties every weekend of the summer. Fitzgerald paints a picture of modern society by writing about these crazy parties that Gatsby hosts; and using wealth to impress, lack of morals in modern society and The American Dream. All factors of how Gatsby uses parties for support and how the American Dream can be portrayed in the “Roaring Twenties.” Gatsby’s parties were huge, they brought great numbers of people from all over New York, the people who came were all unknown to each other, not many people were actually invited, and they just came, not knowing Gatsby, they did not care about him. When Nick Carraway describes what he has seen before Gatsby’s party, “At least once a fortnight a corps of caterers came down....On the buffet tables, garnished with glistening hors d’ oeuvre, spiced baked hams crowded against salads of harlequin designs and pastry pigs...In the main hall a bar with a real brass rail....By seven o’clock the orchestra has arrived” (44), he tells of the luxuries provided by Gatsby in order to accommodate and impress his...
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...The Greatness of Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel the Great Gatsby is a well-known classic and an extraordinary piece of literature but the title leaves little to the imagination with the exception of one question “why is Gatsby so great?” Jay Gatsby has everything at his disposal, money, success, good looks all of which are seen as his greatness to some but Gatsby is great for bigger reasons such as his hopefulness, relentlessness and the fact that he is flawed. Gatsby has many things going for him but it was not always like that. Gatsby was born James Gatz, a farm boy with little to no income or social stamina. His parents were unsuccessful and “his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents at all” (Gatsby, pg. 98). James...
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...The Great Gatsby The Great Gatsby The Great Gatsby is a 1925 novel written by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald that shadows a cast of characters living in the fictional town of West Egg on the prosperous Long Island in the summer of 1922. The story focuses primarily the young and mysterious bachelor Jay Gatsby and his quixotic passion and obsession for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan. The Great Gatsby offers a vivid variety of social commentary, dwelling heavily on the theme of the abandoned American dream, Fitzgerald exposes this due to the apparent blind fixation on the past that the story exhibits with the characterisation of Jay Gatsby. Perhaps none is more sophiscated and well established than the sense of social stratification. The book is regarded as a remarkable piece of writing as it conveys the moral issues different social classes had to deal with in the 1920’s. Through exposing distinct social classes Fitzgerald delivers a strong sense of elitism circulating the society. Fitzgerald’s first method of approach was to create the riches and place them into distinct groups, new money and old money. New money were the people who benefited from the ufrom prohibited business trades such as the illegal selling of liquor Gatsby participated in. Characters in the story that acquired the majority of their wealth through inheritance include Daisy Buchanan, Tom Buchanan and Jordan Baker – these characters are referred to as examples of “old money.” Their family were rich and...
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...to represent the amount of wealth possessed by the characters. Fitzgerald uses imagery to help the reader develop an understanding about the characters, their personality, and their characteristics. Imagery really targets one theme and characteristic, specifically wealth. There are multiple examples of how Fitzgerald implements and takes advantage of this literary device to help develop the theme of wealth throughout the book. The author uses imagery to help him develop the theme of wealth throughout the book. There are multiple examples throughout the book that exemplify this idea. A perfect example lies on page 5 when Nick says, “The one on my right was a colossal affair by any standard-it was a factual imitation of some Hotel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool, and more than forty acres of lawn and garden. It was Gatsby’s mansion.” This quote describes Gatsby’s house using imagery and shows the...
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...The Colourful World of The Great Gatsby In the novel The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald utilizes colour symbolism to enhance each character’s personality flaws and convey a symbolic meaning behind everything the characters do. Throughout the novel, the colours that highlight these flaws are Green, Yellow, White, and Silver. Each colour conveys important symbolic meanings, which ultimately highlight each character’s tainted personalities. Fitzgerald magnifies these clearly identifiable flaws in Gatsby, Daisy, and Myrtle through the use of colour symbolism throughout his novel. The first colour, which F. Scott Fitzgerald introduces to the reader, is the colour green. Green embodies the hope in which Gatsby clings on to and the limitless dream...
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...The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald illustrates static characters that are unable to learn from their pasts and their mistakes. A static character is one who throughout the duration of the novel does not change their morals, personality, or beliefs. While it is apparent that not all the characters undergo change, an argument could be made that throughout the novel some characters change their ways because of the situations they are put through. Gatsby, Tom, Daisy, and Nick are the characters who remain static. These characters do not change because they are unable to see past their wealth, move on from their pasts, nor learn from various mistakes caused by either themselves, or those surrounding them. Responsible for the death of Myrtle, Daisy has an emotional reaction yet continues to remain the same. It would be thought that if a person killed another person that the murderer would have an emotional reaction. However, Daisy does not change after she runs over Myrtle. People generally learn from their mistakes so they do not make the same mistake twice, but as it is seen in The Great Gatsby, many of the characters do not change after they make their mistakes; “so we drove on toward death through the cooling twilight” (Fitzgerald 143). The characters just keep living life without letting their faults interfere. Not only do the characters fail to learn fro m their mistakes, but also fail to live in the present. As a prime example of one who gets caught up in the...
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...The Great Gatsby Oct 26, 2012 “Dishonesty” Dishonesty in a relationship exists when one person withholds or manipulates information about themselves or others and presents the facts as a truth. Being dishonest or bending the truth may seem favorable initially, but when the truth is finally revealed, you will have to spill back on more lies which will eventually push the relationship further apart. The Great Gatsby is a novel that shows the reader slyness and fraud around every corner. All of the main characters are dishonest people who portray their lives as nothing more than living in a self obsessed world while making adolescent decisions about love; all these people care about is living in the now. They lie, cheat, and deceive. This was a time when the economy was booming, spreading prosperous jobs in big town cities. This era saw the large-scale diffusion and use of automobiles, telephones, motion pictures, electricity, and unprecedented industrial growth. People dreamed big, and expected better. Everyone was breaking traditions and experimenting with advanced and diverse goods. Fitzgerald depicts Nick Carraway as a moral guide throughout a novel infused with lies and deception. Fitzgerald utilizes many themes throughout the book; truth versus lies, illusion versus reality, or compassion versus apathy. Within the novel, virtually all of the main characters are dishonest to others or to themselves, which exposes each character’s true self to the reader. Deception...
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...The American Dream is defined as a happy way of living that can be achieved by anyone that works hard. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a novel that portrays the decline of the American Dream in the 1920’s. Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan, the protagonists in the novel, as well as Tom Buchanan, Daisy’s wealthy husband, symbolize the corruption of the American Dream. Gatsby portrays the corruption of the American Dream through the way he makes his fortune, and by doing everything specifically to impress Daisy. Daisy exposes the American Dream as a fraud because she marries Tom for his wealth. Tom represents the wealthy person that never needs to work hard to be successful because he inherits billions of dollars from his father....
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...In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald portrays the 1920s in America as an era of “decayed social and moral values,” evidenced in its greed and pursuit of pleasure. The reckless elation and enthusiasm that led to wild parties and jazz (like the extravagant, over-the-top parties Gatsby throws in the novel) resulted in the corruption of the American dream. The American dream was originally about discovery, individualism, and the pursuit of happiness, and the desire for money and status have corrupted this dream, as it has Gatsby’s. The Great Gatsby is a symbolic contemplation of America in the 1920s regarding the collapse of the American dream in an era of prosperity and wealth. The ending of World War I in 1918 soon led to Prohibition and the Jazz Age, which was a period of fun and carelessness for young Americans. Like Gatsby, even a person from the lower class could potentially make a fortune, but the American aristocracy (old wealth) looked down upon the “newly rich.” In the novel, the East Egg and West Egg were the homes to the two separate classes of wealth, the East populating the old wealth (such as the Buchanans) and the West populating the newly rich (Gatsby). In this society, simply being wealthy wasn’t always good enough; people made distinct separation even in the upper class. Gatsby had always admired the luxury and sophistication that wealth could bring. He preferred to be around those with wealth and class, like when he joined Dan Cody on his yacht and when...
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...22, 2015 The Great Gatsby Essay Just after the World War 1, in the US there had been huge changes that involved all aspects of American life, including a tendency towards materialism, changes in clothing, women getting the right to vote gangster life emerging, parties and dances, and most importantly the American Dream. Fitzgerald’s novel define that American dream changed by time; the first time for European living in America was American dream, and originally any discovery which gave them happiness was American dream, but in the ear of 20s mean for American dream has become perverted into desire for wealth by whatever means; thinking that money will bring happiness. The Great Gatsby, was published in this era; therefore; it gives us a vivid portrayal of that time by demonstrating symbols and character behavior the impossibility of American dream. The characters that Fitzgerald describes in his novel all tie in with many aspect of the 1920s lifestyle. The Jazz Age was a tendency toward materialism, and characters are described in the way that shows materialistic tendency. Callahan says “Critics from several different generations have noted how Fitzgerald used his conflicts to explore the origins and fate of the American dream and the related idea of the nation.” (Callahan). Fitzgerald describes Gatsby, the main character in the novel, as a dream achiever, who is looking for wealth and property even he compare Daisy as an object of wealth. He had dreamed...
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...the dreamer chooses to rise from being poor to being wealthy, while accumulating things such as love, status, wealth, and power. The dream has grown through the years and time periods, even though it was based on freedom, self-reliance and the desire to be something greater. In the past the dream was for someone to go out west for land and to start a family. It has turned into a very materialistic vision of a big house, nice car, and living the easy life. As represented in the novel The Great Gatsby and Baz Luhrmann’s, The Great Gatsby, the American Dream was more focused on instant gratification of material things and needing material things as an indication of success. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby and Baz Luhrmann’s, The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby is a renaissance man; a man who has it all but started out with nothing. His plan was to achieve his dream. He was so blinded by his possessions, in front of him, that he could not see that money could not buy love or happiness. Fitzgerald demonstrated how a dream can be corrupted by one’s focus on accruing wealth, power, and expensive things. Gatsby’s dream was “ambiguous, contradictory, romantic in nature, and undeniably beautiful while at the same time grotesquely flawed” (Hearne 189). His American Dream had become tarnished and corrupted by the culture of money and opulence that surrounded him. Gatsby was ‘new money’, and his romantic view of the wealthy did not prepare him for the self- absorbed, snobbish...
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...them what they desire. For example, President Nixon in the Watergate Scandal of 1972 lied about his association with the burglars who were trying to get government information to help him win reelection. Here, he lies about his involvement in the case in order to save his chances to remain president. He tried to maintain his high status through lying; however, this dishonesty backfired and forced him to resign and lose his title as president. This is similar to characters in The Great Gatsby who lie to gain or keep a high social status. Social dishonesty in The Great Gatsby, by F....
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