...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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...shift in American culture. The culture of the “Victorian Era” is a sharp contrast to that of the “Roaring Twenties”; instead of the conservative ways of the Victorian Era, women wore loose hanging dresses and people led a life of smoking, drinking, and dancing until dawn. This all, however, masked the underlying sadness of the 1920s. As stated by the theme of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, “the wealthy of the 1920s...
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...Is Gatsby An Admirable Man? Jay Gatsby is an extremely complex character, whose actions paint a picture of a complicated man who can be interpreted in both a positive and negative light. However, Jay Gatsby deserves the title of being admirable because he was a self-made man who built himself up from the bottom and reinvented himself into the person he wanted to be, he served as a war hero with medals rewarded by the French government to show for it, and his devout dedication towards achieving his dreams is something that everyone can admire and strive to emulate after. Gatsby’s life story is one that is very similar to Benjamin Franklin’s in that they both did not like the path that their lives were going and they decided to be proactive...
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...Age of Human Error” (Florence King). This quote brings to light the fact that the American Dream is nigh impossible to achieve. This is simply because people are so caught up in dreaming about what other people have obtained rather than taking the necessary steps to live the dream themselves. American author F. Scott Fitzgerald has an unparalleled impact on the idea of the American Dream. Fitzgerald’s novels This Side of Paradise and The Great Gatsby have consistent themes that feature small aspects of the American Dream that conflicts him. Both the main male characters, Armory Blaine and Jay Gatsby showcase men in 1920s America who have come into wealth, yet their money and shiny trinkets do not bring them happiness, even though that is what both characters legitimately yearned for. Together, Gatsby and Blaine expose a perception of the American Dream that F. Scott Fitzgerald investigated thoroughly throughout his life. The idea that when a society is consumed by materialism and the promises it could bring the real American Dream is lost in the shuffle. Fitzgerald was born on September 24, 1869 in St. Paul, Minnesota. The author was named after his second cousin Scott Francis Key, who wrote the lyrics to the “Star-Spangled Banner”. As a young boy he went to two Catholic schools the most prestigious of the two being the Newman school where he graduated high school in 1912 and was admitted to Princeton the following year. During his time at the university he dismissed his studies...
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...The American Library Association is known for its’ banned book list, a set of books characterized by parents, teachers, and professors as being anything from, Anne Frank’s The Diary of Anne Frank being “too depressing”, to Shel Silverstein’s Where the Sidewalk Ends for “promoting cannibalism”. In 1982, the United States Supreme Court case Board of Education, Island Trees School District v. Pico found that schools cannot remove library material based on their own disagreement, the Supreme Court ruled that unless a book was “pervasively vulgar”, it was protected as the students right to express and receive information. F. Scott Fitzgerald's’ The Great Gatsby, was challenged at the Baptist College in Charleston, SC (1987) because of the books’...
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...2013 Project Title: Critical Analysis of Great Gatsby novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald Introduction The Great Gatsby is may be the F. Scott Fitzgerald’s greatest novel. This novel offers damning and insightful views of the American nouveau riche in the 1920s. It is an American classic and a wonderfully evocative novel (Bloom, 2010). The author seems to have a brilliant understanding of lives that are characterised by greed and incredibly sad and unfulfilled. The Great Gatsby is at once a romantic and cyclical novel about wealth and habits of a group of New Yorkers during the Jazz Age (Bloom, 2010). Fitzgerald’s work is magnificent as he paints a grim portrait of shallow characters that manoeuvre themselves into some complex situations. The use of symbols and articulate language makes the novel to be best appreciated by mature readers; and this enables them to analyse literature and think critically (Bloom, 2010). The plot Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, is a love story of sorts, the narrative of Gatsby’s quixotic passion for Daisy Buchanan. The initial meeting of the two lovers takes place two years before the novel is written. Daisy was then a legendary young Louisville beauty while Gatsby was an impoverished officer. The two fell in deep love, but while Gatsby serves abroad; his lover Daisy marries the bullying, brutal but extremely rich Tom Buchanan (Fitzgerald & Stuart, 2005). After the end of the war, Gatsby dedicates himself to find wealth by any...
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...F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, demonstrates that Jay Gatsby lives a life of the American Dream gone wrong by lowering his morals with the corrupt nature of greed, Jay only focuses on the past to move forward in his own grand dream for himself, and how Fitzgerald’s use of symbolism during the Roaring Twenties exemplifies theme areas in the novel. F. Scott Fitzgerald's, The Great Gatsby, the cars represent a form of status. Nick takes taxis while Gatsby drives his custom made, cream-yellow car. According to Dan Seiters, “It is a rich cream color, a combination of the white of the dream and the yellow of money, of reality in a narrow sense,” (1). After Daisy kills Myrtle a bystander talks about the car and says, “It was a yellow car....
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...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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...In the 1920s, partying and jazz were a strong front, but when the charade of happiness is removed, you reveal the bootleggers and mob bosses that truly controlled it all. F. Scott Fitzgerald personified the era with his book, The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald’s book gave examples, such as the main character Gatsby, of people who started off as dirt poor street hoodlums to tycoons in substantial mansions. Now that’s the real American Dream. Known as the “Jazz Age” or “The Roaring Twenties”, the 1920s were truly an extremely intriguing time in American history. America recently had assisted in winning the largest military conflict of that current time, Jazz was on the rise, and lavish parties were everywhere. It was a fantastic time, but there was...
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...since its publication, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby continues to be critically acclaimed as the Great American Novel, with millions of copies being sold annually. Fitzgerald’s slim novel perfectly encapsulates the highly sought-after American Dream in a way that hadn’t been written before in the era of its publication. The story of greed, envy, jealousy, and wealth implores readers to re-read and decipher its deeper-meanings, and serves as a worthy contender for the title of the Great American Novel. Fitzgerald began his novel in his late twenties, pouring his heart and soul into the soon-to-be masterpiece. Finally, after numerous revisions and edits, Fitzgerald’s third novel was...
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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 Great Gatsby, a novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, gives a vast insight to 1920’s America. This period is also known as the Roaring Twenties on account of the lavish lifestyles that many in the United States led. The Great Gatsby is the story of Nick Carraway, a resident of West Egg New York, and a main character and the narrator of the novel, and his aspiration to fit in with the wealthy crowd that he is constantly surrounded by. Throughout the novel, many parallels are drawn between Nick and Jay Gatsby to F. Scott Fitzgerald and the people in his life. Fitzgerald is very similar to Nick and Gatsby in that he too had the lifelong struggle of fitting in with the wealthy upper class. The elitist mood of The Great Gatsby directly parallels...
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...Iranian writer Azar Nafisi once said, “The negative side of the American Dream comes when people pursue success at any cost, which in turn destroys the vision and the dream.” In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby we see the decay of the American Dream through the selfless but selfish acts of the characters. In the Great Gatsby the symbols of the Valley of Ashes, the green light, and materialism show that the American Dream is unachievable. Through the symbol of the Valley of Ashes we see the hollowness and decay of the American Dream. Myrtle had the same dream as everyone who lives in the Valley of Ashes has, they all want to escape the Valley of Ashes to be a part of a higher social class“…Myrtle Wilson, her life violently extinguished,...
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...Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald Sean P. Conway Teacher Period 27 April 2013 Class System in the Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald Topic: F. Scott Fitzgerald Purpose: F. Scott Fitzgerald’s stories show the demise of the “American Dream” by Demonstrating that the American class system determines your manner, Lifestyle and character 1. Introduction: Fitzgerald believed the American dream was false and distorted. 2. Stories showed the decadence of the Jazz Age but with a jaded view 3. 1920s a. About the time period b. “The Jazz Age” c. Wealth d. Social values e. Fashion 4. Works by Fitzgerald a. This Side of Paradise b. The Great Gatsby c. The love of the last tycoon 5. Symbolism a. Great Gatsby i. Green light ii. Valley of ashes (poor’s lack of values, unfaithful’s lack of morals) iii. Beat up car b. This Side of Paradise i. Speed and cars ii. Alcohol as means to forget c. The Love of the Last Tycoon i. Car ii. Sheep /people iii. Light/darkness as reality/fantasy 6. Theme a. American dream b. Class system c. Relationships 7. Conclusion The death of the “American Dream” was a notable part of the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald. His use of symbolism and extensive writings on the large gap between the social classes demonstrated why he felt this way. According to his...
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...Adv. English 11 A4 Annotated Bibliography Rev. of Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gatsby'., by Brian Sutton. Gale Cengage Learning. The Explicator, 1997. Web. 23 Mar. 2010. <http://find.galegroup.com>. Brian Sutton asserts that F. Scott Fitzgerald's book, The Great Gatsby, has four interlinked images that traces Gatsby’s rise and fall as he attempts to recapture Daisy Buchanan's love. The first image is in the beginning of the book when Gatsby is seen by the narrator holding his arms wide open to a green light in the distance. Which we later learn is that the green light is on Daisy's porch. It symbolizes how Gatsby wants Daisy's love back again and that his arms are wide open for her. The second image occurs in the middle of the book when Gatsby experiences a moment of triumph, Gatsby and Daisy finally meet. During this meeting, Daisy is smoking a cigarette...which is another symbol of light! The third image is when Tom and Gatsby finally confront each other and while all this i is going on, Daisy throws her cigarette and the burning match to the carpet...which symbolizes that their(Gatsby and Daisy) love is over. The fourth image is at the end of the book when Gatsby is standing in the distance where he once looked at the light in Daisy's house, just hoping and praying that maybe she will return her love for him. Throughout this article, Sutton uses examples from the text to heighten...
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