...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 desire for Daisy’s affection. His illegal background was hinted by Gatsby himself: “… You see, I carry on a little business...
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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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...When my family moved to America from Pakistan before I was born, they chased the American Dream. This dream consists of having a fulfilled life with wealth, happiness and protection for the family. In the novel written by Scott Fitzgerald in 1925 called The Great Gatsby provides a great commentary for the life that people lived in the 1920s. The protagonist, Nick Carraway witnesses corruption with different relationships because of lavish lifestyles. Jay Gatsby, Nick’s neighbor throws lavish parties in hopes to attract his past lover, Daisy. He lost the love of his life when he went to war and came back realizing that she married a man with more wealth and security, Tom. The American Dream is defined as someone with low income or social status...
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...A common sight in both Fitzgerald’s book and early 1900’s era was the rich and their endless supply of wealth spent on lavish materials and events (17.5). Evidently, the possession of luxuries was a sign of status and wealth. The Great Gatsby characters embodied this excessive lifestyle of moral ambiguity and obsession of wealth through the effusive parties. This immoderate use of money reflected in the novel was analogous to the equally excessive spending of the upper class in the 1920s. The wealthy submitted to the persuasion of consumer culture, frequenting department stores tailored to their social class. Consequently, this huge influx of spending during a fragile bubble of economic prosperity brought upon the depression after the Roaring Twenties. Naturally, the rich had profitable sources of income equal to their expenditure. However, many profited through ill-suited means, such as the character Jay Gatsby who worked with gangs to illicitly sell alcohol during a time of prohibition. Similar to that, the rich utilized capitalism to profit off the backs of workers. Though the demographic of the upper class was the smallest of the social classes, they were always the ones profiting due to capitalism. As workers’ wages lowered and their expenses increased, the owners of companies and businesses received a...
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...THE GREAT GATSBY The Great Gatsby is a tale of luxury, lust, deceit, and murder. In Long Island, New York, Nick Carraway lives next door to the mysterious Jay Gatsby, the owner of a huge mansion and host of frequent and lavish parties. Although prohibition has made alcohol illegal, Gatsby always has a surplus available at his wild social gatherings. As Nick starts to spend more time with Gatsby, he begins to learn about Gatsby’s past, his strange profession, and his love for Nick’s cousin, Daisy. The story that unfolds truly highlights the scandalous and risky nature of the Roaring Twenties. Fitzgerald had encompassed many literary devices in order to make this novel effective and more appealing. He has used techniques such as imagery, similes and the strongest one is symbolism. Fitzgerald has very smartly constructed his novel. "And only let me leave it in the soap dish when she saw that it was coming to pieces like snow.”(page 76) is an example of simile used in the text. This sentence suggests that Daisy was holding onto that letter until there wasn't really anything left of it. The letter obviously meant a whole lot to her if she took a bath with it. A representative of imagery used in the novel is "Gatsby, pale as death, with his hands plunged like weights in his coat pockets, was standing in a puddle of water glaring tragically into my eyes.” This sentence paints a picture in our heads of Gatsby feeling cold with his hands in his pockets, while standing in a puddle...
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...What is the meaning of glamour? Two of the omnipresent themes within ‘The Great Gatsby’ are glamour and corruption . A key debate about two of these themes is whether they are co-existing or mutually exclusive ideas. What is the meaning of corruption? An air of compelling charm , romance , and excitement , especially when delusively alluring . The quality of fascinating , alluring , or attracting , esp. by a combination of charm and good looks. Gatsby's "Career" Lack of integrity or honesty (especially susceptibility to bribery); use of a position of trust for dishonest gain; moral perversion . Inducement (as of a public official) by improper means (as bribery) to violate duty (as by committing a felony). Gatsby's Parties Gatsby throws massive, extravagant parties regularly, as evidenced by the ‘ juice of two hundred oranges ’ being extracted every week for his party guests. ‘ leaving the door in pulpless halves ’ – a reminder of the wasteful results of glamour and Capitalism Gatsby's house is a ‘ colossal affair by any standard ’ with a marble swimming pool, private beach, a Rolls-Royce in the drive and forty acres of land. Gatsby's parties have ‘ buffet tables garnished with glistening hors-d’oeuvres ’, an orchestra, a cocktail bar, and not to mention hundreds and hundreds of celebrity guests. Fitzgerald subtly combines this sense of glamour through Gatsby’s parties with the idea and theme of corruption...
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...The Great Gatsby: The Corruption of the American Dream through Materialism The American dream is an ideal that has been present since American literature’s onset. Typically, the dreamer aspires to rise from rags to riches, while accumulating such things as love, high status, wealth, and power on his way to the top. The dream has had variations throughout different time periods, although it is generally based on ideas of freedom, self-reliance, and a desire for something greater. The early settlers’ dream of traveling out West to find land and start a family has gradually transformed into a materialistic vision of having a big house, a nice car, and a life of ease. In the past century, the American dream has increasingly focused on material items as an indication of attaining success. In The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby is a self-made man who started out with no money—only a plan for achieving his dream. He is so blinded by his luxurious possessions that he does not see that money cannot buy love or happiness. Fitzgerald demonstrates how a dream can become corrupted by one’s focus on acquiring wealth, power, and expensive things. Gatsby’s dream “is a naïve dream based on the fallacious assumption that material possessions are synonymous with happiness, harmony, and beauty” (Fahey 70). His American dream has become corrupted by the culture of wealth and opulence that surrounds him. Gatsby is a “nouveau riche,” and his romantic view of wealth has not prepared him for the self-interested...
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...the level of society in which they are born. The Great Gatsby is a commentary on the pursuit of the American dream in which the characters who are most rigorously working to achieve the American dream meet their ultimate demise. Fitzgerald argues through this text not that the American dream is dead, but that the American dream is not something that ends well. He suggests that American dream has negative connotations like materialism and the decay of morals. Lastly the text argues that the aristocracy prevents the American dream from being fully realized. Myrtle Wilson is our first American dreamer in the text. She is introduced as “Then I heard footsteps on a stairs, and in a moment the thickish figure of a woman blocked out the light from the office door. She was in the middle thirties, and faintly stout, but she carried her surplus flesh sensuously as some women can. Her face, above a spotted dress of dark blue crepe-de-chine, contained no facet or gleam of beauty, but there was an immediately perceptible vitality about her as if the nerves of her body were continually smouldering. She smiled slowly and,...
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...The roaring twenties, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, represent the past historical modernization of a male subjugated social system. The Great Gatsby is a love story, mystery, and a social commentary towards the American Life. This story explores the journey for happiness and wealth through the American Dream, and shows how idealism, dysfunctional relationship, and corrupt occur during the Jazz Age. The Great Gatsby, however, is not the story about a woman’s journey for happiness and improperly shows the representation of females during 1920. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby shows the historically male dominated social system through women being portrayed as shallow beings, which are dominated by men, and seen as erroneous...
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...This temperance movement played a monumental role in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. During the time of Prohibition, it was concluded that alcohol had given the impression of being fun and exhilarating, turned biddable American citizens into convicts, and ridiculed the government. The Great Gatsby portrays this type of behavior through its characters Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan, and their wealth and priorities. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is used as a social commentary about the 1920s to exhibit how the concept of prohibition was ineffective to the law, left a negative effect on society, and normalized illegal behavior. The prohibition era was the beginning of a great amount of organized crime. Some individuals set up self-owned businesses to sell illegal alcohol. A few of the people who were selling illegal alcohol had joined...
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...Fitzgerald illustrates the common characteristics of perseverance, hard work, and wealth in 1920s America through the protagonists of The Great Gatsby and how those certain ideals inevitably clash. In a time period swelling with the prospect of wealth and aspiration, The Great Gatsby twists the common ideals of the 1920’s by illustrating the iniquity of these prospects. The protagonist, Jay Gatsby, plays the role of the wealthy cultural icon, throwing grand parties while being adored by many. His intentions, however, resonate on a deeper level than simply rising above in social status. All that Gatsby does is based around winning the heart of his deep-rooted love, Daisy Buchanan. While Daisy is beautiful, her beauty is not what mesmerizes...
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...The Great Gatsby is a novel that illustrates the rise and fall of an a magnificently rich but socially secluded man named Gatsby. Through the eyes of the narrator, Nick Carraway, F. Scott Fitzgerald plunges into the struggles and adversity that plagues Gatsby. The central conflict of the story is Gatsby’s troublesome endeavor at attempting to rebuild a long-lost relationship with Daisy. Despite the seemingly shallow plot, Fitzgerald not only succeeds in creating a rich and elegant tale, but he also manages to make a commentary on the society that he was living in as well. It is the way in which Fitzgerald makes Gatsby idealize Daisy that gives the plot its insightful message, both in the story and in Fitzgerald’s society. He writes Gatsby...
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...The Great Gatsby’s third chapter mainly focuses on Nick’s first encounter, with the shrouded character of Jay Gatsby. Nick meets Gatsby at one of his gaudy parties; at which Nick seems to be “one of the few guests who had actually been invited”. Nick, of course, is employed by Fitzgerald and used to frame this chapter. Our established retrospective narrator writes in the subjective first person, meaning we only get his point of view of events; this peripheral style of narration generates intrigue within the reader, as Fitzgerald deliberately doesn’t want us guessing everything .In Jay McInerney’s article on ‘Gatsby’, he writes “Fitzgerald’s best narrators always seem to be partaking of the festivities even as they shiver outside with their noses pressed up against the glass.” I have to concur with McInerney here, as this quote sums up Nick’s narrative style completely. Nick is “within and without”, constantly on the outskirts of events, observing. From this it would be easy to conclude that Nick is a very dull narrator, whose appearance in the novel is only to mask Fitzgerald; so that Fitzgerald can get his opinions and views on this hedonistic lifestyle across. However, that is not the case, as Nick accommodates many aspects which pair with a good narrator. Nick is undoubtedly “one of the few honest people that I have ever known” and through his powerful quality of reservation, Fitzgerald allows other characters to express themselves and develop. This makes the novel more accessible...
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...The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (published on April 10, 1925) is one novel that anyone would regret not reading. It has gone down in history as one of the most important works in American literature — and, to many, the great American novel. Fitzgerald has succeeded in offering up commentary on a variety of themes — justice, power, greed, betrayal, the American dream and so on through Nick as a narrator. There are two most impressive symbols in the novel. The green light at the end of Daisy’s dock and the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg remains obsessing in readers’ minds. The first is a perfect example of the manner in which characters The Great Gatsby. Situated at the end of Daisy’s East Egg dock and barely visible from Gatsby’s West Egg lawn, the green light represents Gatsby’s hopes and dreams. Gatsby associates it with Daisy, to whom “ he bought house to be near her, he threw all those parties hoping she would wander in one night”. In Chapter 1 he reaches toward the green light on the other side of the river, in the darkness as a guiding light to lead him to his goal. Gatsby’s quest for Daisy is broadly associated with the American dream: “all man are created equal and that they are endowed with certain unalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and pursuit of happiness”, the green light also symbolizes that more generalized ideal. Though, The Great Gatsby illustrates the downgrade value of American Dream, instead of...
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...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, group of people he was about to associate himself with. He threw lavish parties every night, yet he had no real friends to surround himself with. Gatsby bought expensive things and entertained a lot of people, but he was hoping for something more. Nick Caraway realized that Gatsby was involved in a few...
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