The Great Gatsby Novel Written by F Scott Fitzgerald - Essay Example

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 characterized 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 maneuver 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 analyze 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 possible means that may come his way. It is not only wealth that Gatsby dedicates himself in finding, but he uses the same energy in pursuit of his long lost lover Daisy. In one of the novel’s famous descriptions; Gatsby say “Her voice is full of money” (Fitzgerald & Stuart, 2005). Well, Gatsby succeeds in his quest for searching for wealth and in the process he gathers millions and buys a mansion across Island Sound from Daisy’s patrician East Egg address. Hoping that Daisy will appear Gatsby throws lavish parties that include people of Daisy’s class (Bloom, 2010). When she finally appears in the parties, unexpected events unfold with all tragic inevitability of a Greek drama. Self-made, self-invented millionaire Gatsby demonstrates the author’s most abiding obsession that exists in the world today: ambition, money, greed, and the promise of new beginnings (Fitzgerald & Stuart, 2005). Gatsby strong believe was on the green light, the orgiastic future that annually recedes before us. Things can seem as if they have eluded you then, but that is no big deal because tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther( Joucla & Fitzgerald, 2012). Gatsbys rise to glory and eventual fall from grace becomes a kind of cautionary tale about the American Dream (Tredell, 1999). This novel is definitely a book to read. Analysis Robertson Dean’s rich, deep voice sweeps the reader into this admirably classic followed by a straightforward narrative elegance Fitzgerald give Nick Carraway-the narrator (Fitzgerald & Stuart, 2005). It is a fact to claim that Dean manages to move without dramatically exaggerating the act, and to distinguish characters-male from women, without opting for stereotyping (Fitzgerald & Stuart, 2005). This is truly one of the ways of referring to Gatsby in relation to his ambition and naïveté. Dean paints the authors complex picture of love, power, money and hypocrisy with simple sonority ( Joucla & Fitzgerald, 2012). The cover of the novel, The Great Gatsby, is among the most celebrated pieces of art in the contemporary American literature. The cover page represents disembodied eyes and a mouth over a blue skyline, together with naked images of women reflected in the irises. Critical analysis of Fitzgerald’s remarks can lead to an interpretation that the eyes are reminiscent of those of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg (the novel’s erstwhile optometric) which Fitzgerald described as “blue and gigantic-their retinas are one yard high”. A closer examination of the cover page can represent Daisy as the girl whose disembodied face floated along the dark cornices and blinding signs (Tredell, 1999). The novel’s theme is very interesting one. It is a cautionary tale of the decadent downside of the American dream. The novel focus on the human aspiration to start over again, the betrayal and brutality of social politics, the ideals of an individual and that of other people. Through the use of literary elements of irony and tragic ending, The Great Gatsby delves into themes of excesses of the rich and recklessness of youth. The novel can also be viewed as a story that describes the breakdown of class difference in the face of the contemporary world based not on status and inherited position but on innovation and an ability to meet the ever dynamic needs of consumer (Tredell, 1999). This is because the novel talks about change and those who resist it. Whether the change comes about as a result of nouvea riche or successful minorities, America has undergone greater economic and social transformation in the recent past as shown in the novel (Fitzgerald & Stuart, 2005). The Great Gatsby is a curios book which gives one of the mystical and glamorous stories of today. Its setting is such that it leaves the reader in a mood of chastened wonder. Truly the book is a revelation of art. It can be best described as a literary lemon meringue (Tredell, 1999). In the closing pages of the novel, Fitzgerald considers Gatsby in a wider context. Fitzgerald links Gatsby with the class of people with whom he has completely became associated with (Fitzgerald & Stuart, 2005). These are the prominent people of the 1920s and 1930s (Tredell, 1999). Fitzgerald attacks the shallow social climbing and emotional manipulation, which only causes pain and suffering. Those who attend the parties organized by Gatsby cannot see something good apart from the enjoyment they are getting (Fitzgerald & Stuart, 2005). The social situation frustrates Gatsby’s love and his death is a symbolization of dangers of his chosen path. The author paints a picture of a lifestyle and a decade that is both horrific and fascinating. In so doing, he talks about the people of the society; and he wrote them into myth (Tredell, 1999). The novel is a true reflection of literature whereby many literary styles and devices have been used. One thing that is clear about the novel is that it is full of fiction (Bloom, 2010). Irony is another literary device that is used by Fitzgerald to convey his message on the novel. For instance, the title of the novel has one of the special distinctions. That is, it says two things at once. First, Gatsby is portrayed as truly “great” hence a legitimate hero (Tredell,1999). Secondly, Gatsby is a figure in a sideshow, a freak, a carnival oddity, “the Great Gatsby.” The more we get to know about Gatsby in the novel, the more clearly the two meanings of the title (Tredell, 1999). The writing style is superb. Fitzgerald loves winding sentences that begin with one idea, location or person and end up somewhere else entirely (Tredell,1999). And through this, he managed to draw amazing connections. This can be demonstrated in the sentence below: If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away...( Joucla & Fitzgerald, 2012). The commas tell us that while Fitzgerald may prefer beautifully ornate sentences, he was liked to enforce order. These sentences are always a map. Fitzgerald also utilizes epigraph to lead us to the right direction. What, you’ve never heard of Thomas Parke D’Invilliers? That is because Fitzgerald made him up. This is one of the ways of breaking the normal rules of epigraphs, which is usually utilizes someone else’s words and not the author’s (Fitzgerald & Stuart, 2005). Gatsby is dead; Myrtle and George Wilson are dead; Tom and Daisy have fled back West; and theres Nick, standing on Gatsbys beach and "brooding on the old unknown world" (9.150), thinking that we all chase after our dream, believe that one day well achieve it—and all the while, were "boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into our past" (9.151) (Fitzgerald & Stuart, 2005). This is a way to send the reader off. Nick comes to conclude that all our dreams are based on vision of our past self. By chasing these dreams into the future, we will just end up destroying ourselves. This is a metaphor for post World War I in America. The USA is bound to some past visions. Whatever is in the past is gone but what matters is the future (Fitzgerald & Stuart, 2005). References Bloom, H. (2010). F. Scott Fitzgeralds The great Gatsby. New York: Blooms Literary Criticism. Fitzgerald, F. S., & Stuart, D. D. (2005). The great Gatsby & the diamond as big as the Ritz. London: Collectors Library. Joucla, P., & Fitzgerald, F. S. (2012). The great Gatsby. Tredell, N. (1999). F. Scott Fitzgerald, The great Gatsby. New York [u.a.: Columbia Univ. Press. Read More