...The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a definite page-turner due to Fitzgerald’s passion, and emotion that he has captured. The novel was published on April 10, 1925; however, did not sell many copies until his death. Before his death he was believed to be a failure, but is now considered one of the best American writers of the 20th century. The story takes place in New York City and on Long Island. More specifically, the West and East Egg during the roaring 20’s. Fitzgerald reflects on his own life making The Great Gatsby more of a personal narrative. F. Scott Fitzgerald was born Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald on September 24, 1896, in St. Paul, Minnesota. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s life has influenced his writing on the novel The Great Gatsby....
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...F. Scott Fitzgerald Though there have been many great authors in history, F. Scott Fitzgerald is one of the most admirable for his works. During F. Scott Fitzgerald’s life, many things that were “in the air” influenced him. He lived through the roaring twenties, also known as the Jazz Age, and continued on his career into the Great Depression. On September 24th, 1896, Mary McQuillan gave birth to her child, Francis Scott Fitzgerald. He was born in the apartment that was rented by his parents. The man who fathered Fitzgerald was Edward Fitzgerald. Three months before Fitzgerald was born, his mother had lost her two daughters. F. Scott Fitzgerald began his school career at Miss Goodyear’s School in September of 1902. At Miss Goodyear’s School, Fitzgerald had become a very avid reader. Since F. Scott Fitzgerald’s father transferred jobs a lot, he attended many schools during his childhood. When his father transferred to Buffalo, New York, Fitzgerald went to Miss Narden’s school. During the time while he attended Miss Narden’s School, he got involved with the Catholic Church. The Fitzgeralds moved back to Minnesota after Edward Fitzgerald was fired, and F. Scott Fitzgerald began attending St. Paul’s School. While he was enrolled in St. Paul’s School, Fitzgerald wrote his first short stories. He was expelled from St. Paul’s School due to his grades, though, and soon after the Fitzgeralds got transferred to Hackensack, New Jersey, where F. Scott Fitzgerald was enrolled...
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...The American Dream is the aspiration to obtain wealth, status and power based on the desire of self-betterment through self-reliance and accomplishment. F Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, is an effective critique on the corruption that surrounds the American Dream. It is also a commentary on the warped view of Western hedonism and idealized lifestyles. The dream is portrayed strongly through the characters, depicting undignified ways to obtain wealth, the amoral social interactions and the illusion of affection and false fellowship. Thus exposing the unscrupulousness, self-absorption and disillusionment that lie at the wake of the American Dream. Fitzgerald critiques on the ideal of ‘self-made’ men (financially) and how through sheer desperation, men stray from conformity and followed a deviated path in order to reach wealth. The American Dream is the belief that regardless of one’s socio-economic background, an individual could still reach financial triumph through hard work, education and drive-which has been the belief of the American society. According to American sociologist Robert K. Merton, American society has generated common desires and pressures for material possession-which is how success was measured- those who fail to succeed by conformity or valid means, resort to devious acts to do so. Fitzgerald comments on this aspect of his society through the portrayal of Gatsby in the novel; who employed unorthodox ways of obtaining wealth in order to gain his incommunicable...
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...terribly wealthy person, an aspect depicted by Carraway since the first chapter of the novel, through “even in college his freedom of money was a matter of reproach”, and owner of such luxurious possessions like “a cheerful red and white Georgian colonial mansion, overlooking the bay” and “polo ponies from Lake Forest.” This wealth, luxury and opulence to which Tom is used to enjoy may therefore effectively prove that Fitzgerald’s main purpose for his character is to present him as the archetypal villain of The Great Gatsby. This may also perhaps, as aforementioned, contribute to the wonderment and sense of awe that this character generates on the readers of the novel. It can be noticed that the blithe type of visual images through which Fitzgerald describes Buchanan’s lavish possessions, may to an extent provide a contrast with the dismal way in which the character and his personality are described, creating an emphasis on Buchanan’s position as the villain. However, on the other hand, Buchanan is not close to being a social outcast, as the stereotypical anti-hero characteristics suggest. In fact, this character enjoys being not only wealthy but also an aristocrat living in the prestigious, “glittered” and “fashionable East Egg” of Long Island, which is just exclusive for the original wealthy people, for the ones that inherited their fortune, surname and consequently, social position or status. This exclusiveness is perhaps highlighted in the fact that Gatsby – having enormous...
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...be. When we do not handle these things, consequences are soon to follow. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, Daisy proves herself to be incapable of being fulfilled in her life; leeching off of the success and emotions of others to get what she wants. Daisy Buchanan is an incredible example of how wrong everything can go when we don’t respect the feelings of others, nor take our own into consideration. In The Great Gatsby, Daisy proves herself to be a manipulative and irresponsible person and fails to take responsibility for her actions on multiple occasions. Whether it’s taking care of her daughter, staying...
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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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...The novel The Great Gatsby was written by an American author F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1925. The setting of the novel was the Jazz Age and the characters were mostly the lost generations. The novel captured and portrayed the era’s mood and characters’ living style through the vividly description of symbols. Gatsby’s big white house, Daisy’s green light on the end of her dock, and the Myrtle and her husband Wilson’s garage in the valley of ashes were functioned as implied indications of the plot and theme. In the novel, main character Gatsby owned an enormous beautiful big white house in the fashionable East Egg where the riches gathered. The outlook and the shape of the house were showed by resplendent dictions and the action of the servants in the house was described as dexterous and delicate. Especially the colorful description when big fancy parties that was held in Gatsby’s house. However, people who came to the party were not even invited, they just came and dance. No one in the house knew Gatsby’s antecedents; they just knew he is very rich. The big white house represents the accomplishments of Gatsby’s American dream. Also his flashy yellow car shows the pretentious characteristic of him. Nevertheless, all the show offs revealed as Gatsby’s persistent effort of getting and achieving the goal of wealthy. And this fancy material things he own was the fundamental requirements for getting Daisy’ love, which later leads to the transition of the plot and Daisy’s character...
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...The Great Gatsby: Obsession with Self Worth The desperation found in the lack of affection an individual receives can lead one to alter themselves and their lives to achieve the affection they desire. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald shows the desperate lengths one may go to in order to be with the person they want. Gatsby changes his entire life to win Daisy’s heart, chasing the dream which her lifestyle represents to him. Daisy also happens to risk her marriage to be with someone who appreciates her, unlike her husband who tries to relive his glory days through an affair. Some characters go to more creative actions to achieve their desires. In Choke by Chuck Palahniuk, the main character is a sex addict and a conman, dealing with his lost childhood his mother provided. His mother faces mental illness in a nursing home, after being unstable her whole life and never understanding the affect she had on her son. His best friend is also a sex addict, but his tendencies come out in different ways which tend to drive people away. Every character in this book has a different way of dealing with the feeling of insignificance the lack of love instilled in them. The characters from Choke by Chuck Palahniuk, and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, all show an insatiable craving for affection and purpose among the people around them because they never possessed it themselves. Although expressed in different ways, these characters all have personal issues relating to an obsession...
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...Eng 106 04/30/09 Social Boundaries F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is a story that portrays the foundation and continuing evolution of American society’s social normalities and structure. Set in the mid 1920’s, the story reveals undeniable evidence and implication into the reality of social separation between the “sophisticated” and unsophisticated worlds. The story follows one man, Jay Gatsby’s, futile attempt to work his way from the poorly perceived, insignificant, and menial lower class to the so-called “sophisticated” and recognizable group of society, simply to win the favor of a love never lost. As a result of Jay Gatsby’s chase of an unattainable goal and the events that follow, it is evident that although love is a free affair, it can come at a high cost. Ultimately the novel exemplifies the misguided American dream, that all of life’s happiness, desires, and satisfaction can be fulfilled through wealth. Fitzgerald divides the ensemble of characters into two distinct groups, the “sophisticated” and the unsophisticated. Take for instance the valley of the ashes, which symbolizes the most menial facet of society, the hard working blue collar men of industry with no identity and no money, “obscured from sight by an impenetrable cloud.”(Fitz 27) However, the distinction comes not from wealth alone, but rather a temperament of money, or perhaps old money versus new money or no money. This is apparent when Gatsby and Nick, the narrator, converge on the idea...
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...The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald Download free eBooks of classic literature, books and novels at Planet eBook. Subscribe to our free eBooks blog and email newsletter. Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her; If you can bounce high, bounce for her too, Till she cry ‘Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover, I must have you!’ —THOMAS PARKE D’INVILLIERS The Great Gatsby Chapter 1 I n my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. ‘Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,’ he told me, ‘just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.’ He didn’t say any more but we’ve always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that. In consequence I’m inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college I was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men. Most of the confidences were unsought—frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon—for the intimate...
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...The Great Gatsby: Summary: Nick Carraway, a young man from Minnesota, moves to New York in the summer of 1922 to learn about the bond business. He rents a house in the West Egg, Long Island, a wealthy area populated by the new rich, people who made their fortunes due to the economic upswing of the Roaring Twenties. Nick’s next-door neighbor in West Egg is a mysterious man named Jay Gatsby, who lives in a huge mansion and throws extravagant parties on the weekends. Nick is unlike the other inhabitants of West Egg—he was educated at Yale and has social connections in East Egg, a fashionable area of Long Island and the home of the upper class. Nick drives out to East Egg one evening to have dinner with his cousin, Daisy Buchanan, and her husband, Tom, a former classmate of Nick during his time at Yale. Daisy and Tom introduce Nick to Jordan Baker, a beautiful, cynical young woman with whom Nick begins a romantic relationship. Nick also learns a bit about Daisy and Tom’s marriage: Jordan tells him that Tom has a lover, Myrtle Wilson, who lives in the valley of ashes, a gray industrial dumping ground between West Egg and New York City. Not long after this revelation, Nick travels to New York City with Tom and Myrtle. At a random, vulgar party in the apartment that Tom bought because of his affair, Myrtle begins to taunt Tom about Daisy, and Tom responds by breaking her nose. As the summer progresses, Nick eventually gets an invitation to one of Gatsby’s legendary parties. He encounters...
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...Rhetorical Analysis Any great novelist knows that a good story entails an intensive amount of detail. Literary elements really help bring a story to life and capture the event or time period that the author is writing about. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote an “over-the-top” novel, The Great Gatsby , using diction, tone, and selection of details to portray life in an upper echelon high class environment, as well as create an aesthetic impact on the reader. Diction is the choice of words that’s makes the author’s writing unique. No two authors can capture an element the same using words . “So I walked away and left him standing there in the moonlight- watching over nothing.”(98) Mr. Gatsby was really watching over Daisy outside over her home , but since nick had seen her and Tom reconciling, he know that Gatsby had no chance. F. Scott Fitzgerald uses abstract diction to set the scene, Fitzgerald is giving one's mind something to think about metaphorically or figuratively. Throughout The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald uses plenty of styles of diction ture the audiences attention . He uses concrete diction after the tragic accident of Myrtle's death. “It was a yellow car, a big yellow car (94.)” The African American man was describing the car that had hit Myrtle in the accident to the police, because Tom had been driving the yellow car on the way to New York and Daisy had been driving it on the way home it was a significant piece of work in The Great Gatsby. The crime could have been pinned...
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...The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a novel shown through Nick Carraway’s eyes. Nick is the narrator of the story who describes his person accounts with people he met throughout his life. Nick, growing up in the Midwest, moves to the East Coast to learn the bond business. He encounters a man named Jay Gatsby, his next door neighbor, who is a main character in the story. Nick and Gatsby spend plenty of time together but how did Nick actually feel about Gatsby? Fitzgerald expresses Nick’s admiring attitude toward Gatsby by the use of imagery and polysyndeton. Nick’s admiring attitude is shown through the use of imagery. Nick is packed and ready to leave but returns to Gatsby’s house one last time. Nick notices Gatsby’s house was vandalized, “On the white steps an obscene word, scrawled by some boy with a piece of brick, stood out clearly in the moonlight, and I erased it, drawing my shoe raspingly along the stone.” Nick cared about and admired Gatsby. The imagery portrays the feeling of Gatsby by many people but Nick erases the word to show the Nick feels the direct opposite of most people. If Nick had hated Gatsby he would have left the obscene word on the steps but he returns to Gatsby’s house and is willing to show Gatsby respect by taking off the word from Gatsby’s steps. He wipes off the word with his shoe which shows he cares enough for Gatsby to ruin his personal things. Nick admires that Gatsby was willing to do everything in his power to try to get Daisy to love...
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...In the secluded areas of India lie barren and desolate wastelands, and those who reside in such places are ruthlessly oppressed by the British-Indian Trading Company. One man caused change. That man known as Mahatma Gandhi once mused, "We must become the change we want to see." Change is a necessary part of the human life that is motivated by pain, such as the death of a loved one; the seeking of acceptance, such as gaining social approval; or to seek personal desires, such as those in Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby. When a sudden, unexpected event such as the death of a loved one occurs at a point in one's life, it causes a very solemn impact to one's mentality. A void is formed and a sense of emptiness will overcome you, memories of a past relative or friend constantly bombarding your everyday life. In mournful situations such as this, people tend to change to mold themselves to the decease's teachings or personality in order to preserve his or her legacy. On a more social viewpoint, lies the common situation of peer pressure or to seek the acceptance of others. It is human nature to seek acceptance by one's peers and this is usually a source of change. Known to many as peer pressure, one will adapt and change to the norms that will allow him to be accepted by others. This often leaves one of the greatest changes on one's life as it is how he or she will learn to act. Change can also be sought after in order to be more appealing to that of the opposite sex, as can be viewed...
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...After that, Gatsby was determined to become rich and successful. Later on, Nick visits Gatsby and is shocked to find Tom Buchanan there, and the next Saturday Tom and Daisy attend one of Gatsby’s parties. After the party Gatsby is worried that Daisy did not enjoy it and Nick tells him to give up on Daisy, however, Gatsby refuses and instead tells Nick about he and Daisy’s past. The quote that best describes Jay Gatsby is, “He talked a lot about the past, and I gathered that he wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy” (110). The good qualities of Jay Gatsby are he is a loyal person and he has a good heart. The bad qualities of Gatsby are he is amoral, dishonest, and throws his money away. Fitzgerald developed this character to show how people use their wealth to get love only to discover the love is not real. Additionally, he is developed throughout the novel to be an example of how living extravagantly can be an empty life. A meaningful quote in the chapter is, “The truth was that Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself” (98). This quote is meaningful to the story because it reveals the truth of Gatsby changing his identity. Also, it focuses on the fact that Gatsby wasn’t going to let any obstacle stop him from fulfilling his dream. So, James Gatz changed his identity into Jay Gatsby to fulfill his image of himself. In The Great Gatsby Dan Cody...
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