...The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald Chapter 6 Color Analysis May 24, 2011 Jay Gatsby | -“torn green jersey” (104): The color green symbolizes wealth and money. At this time in the book, Gatsby is working for Dan Cody, the guy who greatly supplies his wealth. The fact that the jersey is torn signifies the hard work that Gatsby demonstrates which then leads to him reaping the benefits of hard work. This section furthers to talk about his parents and how they were “unsuccessful farm people” also that Gatsby “was a son of God.” This is to say that although Gatsby’s parents were hard workers, they were unsuccessful in reaching their ideal “American dream”. Gatsby is currently making those dreams happen. He was helping to complete his father’s business, and is therefore relatively “a son of God.”---- The green jersey also symbolizes the new life that he yearns for that is full of wealth. Right at this stage in the book, Gatsby is called different names: Gatsby, James Gats, Jay Gatsby, young Gats: Each name recognizes a different stages of growth towards the Wealthy life.-“His brown, hardened body lived naturally through the half fierce, half lazy work of the bracing days.” (104): Brown is the color of earth, and of “getting down and dirty”. It further symbolizes the humility Gatsby underwent while with Dan Cody. Because the idea of wealth plagued Gatsby (“his heart was in a constant turbulent riot.”), he reaped the fruit of his labor as discussed with the color change discussed...
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...Compare and Contrast: Jay Gatsby and Dick Diver Griffin Gilmore Mrs. Clark Humanities 28 November 2012 In the novels Great Gatsby and Tender is the Night by Scott Fitzgerald the two main characters, Jay and Dick both face problems in achieving their dreams and face much adversity trying to achieve it. In both novels pursuing their dreams leads to their demise due to their failure to realize that success is from within, not from the superficial qualities that the society around them looks up to. The first difference between Gatsby and Dick is how they value money. Jay Gatsby believes that with money he can buy his happiness, he plans on using his money to fall in love with him and have her leave her current husband (Tom) to be with himself. Dick on the other hand doesn't like all the wealth of Nicole and trues to distance himself way from it. When Nicole and himself start out they are living off of his few thousand a year. Nicole's parents then buy them their own clinic. Much like Gatsby his wealth by no means that he is happy. “had wedded a desire for money to an essentially unacquisitive nature … he had never felt more sure of himself … than at the time of his marriage to Nicole. Yet he has been swallowed up like a gigolo, and somehow permitted his arsenal to be locked up in the Warren safety deposit vaults.” This just goes to show how even with their almost endless income, they were not satisfied, which properly illustrates the time period which took place then,...
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...Themes Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work. The Decline of the American Dream in the 1920s On the surface, The Great Gatsby is a story of the thwarted love between a man and a woman. The main theme of the novel, however, encompasses a much larger, less romantic scope. Though all of its action takes place over a mere few months during the summer of 1922 and is set in a circumscribed geographical area in the vicinity of Long Island, New York, The Great Gatsby is a highly symbolic meditation on 1920s America as a whole, in particular the disintegration of the American dream in an era of unprecedented prosperity and material excess. Fitzgerald portrays the 1920s as an era of decayed social and moral values, evidenced in its overarching cynicism, greed, and empty pursuit of pleasure. The reckless jubilance that led to decadent parties and wild jazz music—epitomized in The Great Gatsby by the opulent parties that Gatsby throws every Saturday night—resulted ultimately in the corruption of the American dream, as the unrestrained desire for money and pleasure surpassed more noble goals. When World War I ended in 1918, the generation of young Americans who had fought the war became intensely disillusioned, as the brutal carnage that they had just faced made the Victorian social morality of early-twentieth-century America seem like stuffy, empty hypocrisy. The dizzying rise of the stock market in the aftermath of the war led to a sudden, sustained...
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...Serri 11/3/11 English 11-1 The Great Gatsby Character Questions It is almost impossible to grasp anything fully from one side. To truly understand a 3-dementional item you need at least two different angles. This is precisely what makes Nick Carraway the perfect narrator for The Great Gatsby. He is a stranger in a strange land, who sees the most eccentric part of the east coast. Therefore, the reader not only gets his own perspective on the situation but sees through Nick’s fresh pair of eyes. Also Nick has two very key personality traits, unique to the mid-west, which make him the ideal narrator for The Great Gatsby. He restrains his judgment and he is a good listener. His listening skills give him a sense of trust and people respond by telling him certain secrets. We definitely see this with his relationship with Gatsby. Nick’s opinion of Gatsby changes drastically, along with the reader’s. Ultimately, Nick believes Gatsby. Gatsby, on their ride together, tells Nick about his life. Our unbiased narrator seems to pass a little judgment on his neighbor’s story. “And with this doubt his whole statement fell to pieces and I wondered if there wasn’t something a little sinister about him after all” (p. 66). This is mentioned after Gatsby talks about his Oxford education. It is clear that Nick, at first, does not believe most of what Gatsby is saying. It is funny how his perception changes as the conversation continues. Once Gatsby mentions his wartime achievements...
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...expectations. Ethical and moral justification emerges in ones actions often leading to infatuation and obsession in order to achieve society’s expectations. This is predominantly exposed within the texts “The Great Gatsby” by Fitzgerald and “Sonnets from the Portuguese” by Barret Browning. Within the Victorian era individuals were bound by strict moral code. This impacted the way literature was written evident in Barret Browning’s poems. Deontological ethics bound Barrett to write in a sense of selflessness which included concepts of moral absolutism. Barrett also adapted concepts of preference utilitarianism in her relationship with Robert. Sonnet 22 “What bitter wrong, Can the earth do to us, that we should not long, Be here contented?” The rhetorical question emphasizes Barrett’s contentment with Robert whose relationship fits in her view of a utilitarian world. In this way Browning meets society’s expectations and succeeds in her role as a woman. Comparatively within the Jazz age moral code was loosened to the point where previous norms were set aside as mores and values evolved into a self-focused frame of mind. This mindset persists through ‘The Great Gatsby” as characters are governed by concepts of hedonism, majorly seen in the character Jay Gatsby. Gatsby is blinded with obsession and infatuation of Daisy who will complete his American dream of idealism and perfection. But the quest proves to be myth in the scene of Daisy first...
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...The Great Gatsby (Novel) Author Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald Purpose To show the author’s conflicting feelings about the Jazz Age Relationship with the Author and the Characters Fitzgerald and Carraway Thoughtful young man from Minnesota Educated at an Ivy League school Moves to NYC after the war Found the new extravagant lifestyle seductive and exciting Fitzgerald and Gatsby Idolizes wealth and luxury Falls in love with a beautiful young woman while at military camp Narrator Nick Carraway; he also implies that he is the book’s author Point of View Both first and third person Presents only what he himself observes Tone Ambivalent and contradictory; sometimes he seems to disapprove Gatsby, and sometimes he romanticizes and admires Gatsby, describing events in nostalgic and elegiac tone Background Year written: 1925 (the Jazz Age) American economy soared; great prosperity for majority Prohibition (18th Amendment in 1919) ‘bootleggers’ Money is everything Plot Nick Carraway moves from Minnesota to New York (West Egg) to learn about bond business West Egg: wealthy and fashionable area; where the “New Rich” live Nick has social connections with East Egg, where the “Old Rich” live Nick’s classmate at Yale, Tom Buchanan, lives with Nick’s cousin Daisy in East Egg Tom has a lover, Myrtle Wilson, in the Valley of Ashes Valley of Ashes is a gray industrial dumping ground At one party, Nick breaks...
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...1. “ I’m glad it’s a girl. And I hope she’ll be a fool – that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.” 2. “You see I think everything’s terrible anyhow…Sophisticated – God I’m sophisticated!” 3. “We heard it from three people so it must be true.” 4. I'm one of the few honest people I have ever known 1. “It’s just a crazy old thing, I just slip it on sometimes when I don’t care what I look like.” 2. “It’s really his wife that’s keeping them apart. She’s a Catholic and they don’t believe in divorce” 3. "I can't stand my husband. The only crazy thing I did was marry him" 1. The bar was in full swing…until the air is alive with chatter and laughter and casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot and enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each other’s names. 2. It’s a bona fide piece of printed matter. It fooled me. This fella’s a regular Belasco. It’s a triumph…What realism! Knew when to stop too – didn’t cut the pages…. 1. Finest specimens of human molars” 2. Everybody had seen it. It was a rich cream color, bright with nickel, swollen here and there in its monstrous length with triumphant hatboxes, and supper- boxes and tool-boxes and terraced with a labyrinth of windshields that mirrored a dozen suns. 3. He came alive to me, delivered suddenly from the womb of his purposeless splendor 1. I keep it always with interesting people, night and day. People who do interesting things. Celebrated people. 2. …I think...
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...example, in the Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gatsby is trapped living in the past and is disillusioned by modernization. Additionally, in the story A Rose for Emily, Emily is also afraid of modernization because she is trying to escape death by holding onto her father’s dead body. She is afraid to move on in her life and decides to hide in her past. Lastly, in one of Langston Hughes poems called Mother to Son, he writes about how in the early 20th century African Americans were not equal to white people and then society began to modernize blacks to become equal. This led to segregation because the white people wanted to isolate themselves from African Americans. Because their dream of what society should be was disillusioned, just like in all three of these literatures. Therefore the results of modernization, isolation and disillusionment was that many people didn’t except a change their life. Gatsby wanted to feel like he was living in the past with Daisy but he was isolated and disillusioned because he was living in a modern society. Additionally, he was isolated because he could not have a social status or Daisy. In the book, Gatsby was a fantastic character because he wanted to hide in the past with Daisy when everything was perfect. While the other characters in this book went with the change of society. Also in the book, Gatsby’s yellow car symbolizes the modernization. Gatsby’s car accidently kills Myrtle, which eventually leads to his death. Gatsby cannot escape...
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...1920s era novel The Great Gatsby, the character George Wilson shoots the protagonist Jay Gatsby dead. But who is to blame for this moral lapse in judgment? Obviously the person who pulled the trigger, right? But what about other shady characters like Tom and Daisy Buchanan who lied to George in order to get “off the hook”? It is clear that Tom and Daisy played a key role in the murder of Gatsby; therefore, they should share the responsibility for his death. When George comes to Tom to find out who owns the yellow car, Tom reveals that it was Gatsby, knowing full well George’s deranged mental state and his intentions to murder the car owner. Furthermore, Tom fails to mention important details about the accident—like the fact that it was Daisy driving the car, not Gatsby—in order to pin the blame on Gatsby. It is obvious that Tom knew about Daisy’s involvement in car accident because of his decision to leave town the day after the incident. Furthermore, Tom’s spineless cowardice is displayed by his failure to fess up to the crime of adultery with George’s wife. It is obvious to Tom that George is hunting for the man who had the affair with his wife, and yet Tom has the mendaciousness to blame his own crimes on Gatsby as well. It must be stressed that Tom knew full well while speaking with George that afterward he would seek out Gatsby and try to kill him—and yet he does nothing. This makes him directly accountable for the death of Gatsby and thus morally...
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...question on Prescribed Poetry from SECTION III – Poetry N.B. Candidates must answer on Shakespearean Drama. They may do so in SECTION I, the Single Text (Macbeth) or in SECTION II, The Comparative Study (Macbeth, The Winter’s Tale). INDEX OF SINGLE TEXTS Wuthering Heights The Great Gatsby The Grass Is Singing Macbeth Antigone − Page 2 − Page 2 − Page 3 − Page 3 − Page 3 Page 1 of 8 SECTION I THE SINGLE TEXT (60 marks) Candidates must answer one question from this section (A – E). A WUTHERING HEIGHTS – Emily Brontë (i) In your opinion, to what extent are the values represented by the world of Thrushcross Grange defeated, in Brontë’s novel Wuthering Heights? Support your answer with suitable reference to the text. OR (ii) “Emily Brontë makes effective use of both Nelly Dean and Mr Lockwood in a variety of ways.” Discuss this statement, supporting your answer with suitable reference to the novel, Wuthering Heights. B THE GREAT GATSBY – F. Scott Fitzgerald (i) “Readers of The Great Gatsby are greatly influenced by the narrator, Nick Carraway.” Discuss this statement, supporting your answer with suitable reference to the text. OR (ii) “Readers often find aspects of The Great Gatsby attractive but ultimately the world of the novel is not admirable.” Discuss this view, supporting your answer with suitable reference to the text. Page 2 of 8 C THE GRASS IS SINGING – Doris Lessing (i) “Lessing offers a disturbing vision of...
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...Spring 2012 Semester Project Choose one of the following AP/College Recommended Novels: Native Son The Great Gatsby In Cold Blood The Road The Handmaid’s Tale Love Medicine Catcher in the Rye Moby Dick Beloved In the coming month, reading your novel in its entirety, taking notes and annotating throughout. Complete the following assignments: 1) Response Paper; in this one to two page essay, you will write a personal response to your author and his/her work. Your response should address these questions (at a minimum): Why did you choose this particular author and work? What is intriguing about their style? What themes does the work address? Would you read any other work by this author? This assignment will be due on FEBRUARY 16th, 2012. 2) AP Argumentative Essay Question; you will need to compose an AP-style argumentative essay prompt for your novel. This is a question you would likely see on an actual AP English Language Exam. Have question TYPED and submitted by FEBRUARY 17th, 2012. 3) AP Argumentative Essay. You will compose an AP argumentative essay on the prompt that you created and that I approved. This assignment will be due on March 1st, 2012. 4) AP Rhetorical Analysis Essay question; you will need to compose an AP-style rhetorical analysis essay prompt for your novel. This is a question you would likely see on an actual AP English Language Exam. Have question TYPED and submitted by March 8th, 2011. 5)...
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...The concept of American Dream in general can be described as a life of personal happiness and material comfort as traditionally sought by individuals in the U.S. It is a very vague concept as people tend to input their own perceptions. The American Dream can highly be related to my goals and aspirations. I try to name one personal who wouldn’t relate to the American Dream and I found none. But attaining that level of serenity and comfort is a challenge especially at this point of time. In relations to the context of the book “The Great Gatsby” and basing it upon the author’s emotion, this book portrays the 1920’s as an era of decayed social and moral values. The evidence was verified as a part of greed, empty pursuit of pleasure, and attaining the raging peck by overthrowing anyone that stands on the way. Whereas my professional goals and objective are the exact opposite from the context of this book. Yes, I too want to attain the highest possible peak in relations to my field, but I want to earn it being ethical towards my society and surroundings. The word “ethics”, means a lot to me, and upon the current economic and social standpoint, it is hard to afford ethics but we can. This World is a cruel place to live in but then again it’s a challenge for us young personal’s to modify and make this place livable. Probably, we won’t be privileged to enjoy our time of life, but we can make sure to make it a better place and set a stage that can be crucial for the next upcoming...
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...Angelique Arrizon American Lit. 11 Period 3 Fitzgerald’s life and its connection to The Great Gatsby During the Jazz Age in 1925, The Great Gatsby was written by Francis Scott Fitzgerald. It was a novel that served as a portrait of the frenzied post- WWI society. It was a novel noted for its remarkable way in which the author captured a cross section of American society. Reflecting mostly on the way Fitzgerald lived, the characters in Gatsby live in a time of corruption. Tom Buchanan’s infidelity, Nick Caraway’s fascination with the lifestyle of wealth, and Jay Gatsby’s idealism of riches are all a reflection of the lifestyle that the author, F. S. F. and his wife Zelda led in the roaring 20’s. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda had had marital problems as well as Tom and Daisy Buchanan did. Like Tom, Fitzgerald had a mistress. Tom insisted that he “[wanted Nick] to meet [his] girl,” he did not care about how uncomfortable it would make Nick to meet the woman he was fooling around with (p 28). Tom and Daisy moved around multiple times similarly to Fitzgerald and his wife. Both couples lived in Chicago, but an incident caused the Buchanans to move up Northeast to New York. “They were careless people Tom and Daisy” just like Zelda and Scott, “they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back to their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together and left other people to clean up the mess they had made.” (p 179) Always running from their problems...
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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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...happiness. But F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, examines the American dream from a different perspective, one that sheds light on those who contort these principles to their own selfish fantasies. Fitzgerald renders Jay Gatsby as a man who takes the Dream too far, and becomes unable to distinguish his false life of riches from reality. This 'unique' American novel describes how humanity's insatiable desires for wealth and power subvert the idyllic principles of the American vision. Jay Gatsby is the personification of limitless wealth and prestige, a shining beacon for the aspiring rich. Nick Carraway declares that there is "something glorious" about Gatsby, and that he is filled with "some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life"(8). It appears to mere mortals who are not blessed with riches, that Gatsby fulfills the American dream of achieving fame and fortune. But instead of being content with his greenbacks, Gatsby believes that he can replicate the "Platonic conception of himself" (89) and become the flawless god of wealth that he depicts. The American dream has many interpretations, but Gatsby latches onto the concept of wealth alone, failing to see that he can improve his character through hard work and toil as well. One understanding of the American dream, bettering oneself to achieve a higher social status, sadly spurs people like Gatsby to achieve social superiority through money, but never finding true happiness. Gatsby believes in this "unreality of reality"...
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