Synopsis of Review The Great Gatsby is such a well shaped book, every point is balanced perfectly to have a highly unified ending. It doesn’t get old, always grabbing your attention. If fits every generation, making it a classic. The theme has had no real answer, having the possibility to be anything that you make it. It also ties up the American dream: being wealthy, having perfect love, and fulfillment in life. Some see the book as a spiritual failure. The background to Gatsby’s life isn’t certain even though there are many theories. The book’s narrator is compared to Joseph Conrad Marlow’s narrator in Heart of Darkness, they both dominate the novel. Marlow isn’t as involved in the storyline as much as Carraway is, but they are both used as “devices [to distance] the novelist from his fictive narrator.” Carraway differs from the other characters, one of his “ultimate strengths,” drawing us to Gatsby emphasizing the hero of the American experience. We picture Gatsby as rich, having the opportunity to experience so much more and be able to fall in love easier. Gatsby has a “Platonic conception of himself,” causing him to think he can go back to the past and get Daisy back. Gatsby works hard to fulfill his dream; he doesn’t want to face reality. “Edith Wharton told Fitzgerald that ‘to make Gatsby really great, you ought to have given us his early career.’” But having little background gives Gatsby that mysterious feel. Fitzgerald wrote a short story, Absolution, about Gatsby’s early life but took it out of the novel to keep the mystery alive. Gatsby’s death adds to how great Gatsby is made out to be. “The dreamer dies so that an image, however grotesque, of the American dream can continue to live. Even though Gatsby dies, Carraway has had a life changing experience because of Gatsby. This book is oddly accepted by us, all the