Prelim Great Gatsby Essay PDF

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The Great Gatsby The Great Gatsby is a 1925 novel written by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. The novel is widely considered to be a literary classic with multiple adaptations being inspired by the great text. During the first publishing of The Great Gatsby, it received mixed reviews and sold poorly with only 20 000 copies. However, the novel experienced a revival during World War 2, and became a part of the American high school curriculum. The text ties well within the genres of tragedy, realism and modernism. The text’s plot follows Jay Gatsby, a man whose life is ordered by his one desire - to be reunited with his lost love Daisy. His quest leads him from poverty to wealth, and eventually death. It is a novel of triumph and tragedy where his desires led to his downfall. The film adaptation The Great Gatsby (2013) is a romantic drama film based on Fitzgerald’s novel. The film divided critics and received both praise and criticism. The film tied in similarity with the appearance of the character Jay Gatsby as a famous, rich millionaire who is chasing his love Daisy. As Gatsby transitions from a poor boy to a wealthy man, the events of a drunken afternoon brings about an ending where everything is lost. The main recurring theme of Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, was to present the American dream as nothing but a fraud. The novel makes this idea obvious with the character Jay Gatsby, a man who once had nothing, achieves immense wealth, fame, intelligence and has fooled everyone into thinking he’s a genius. As well as that, Gatsby has earnt the love of his dream woman Daisy and is even on the path of creating a whole new family for himself with Daisy. However, as Gatsby comes back and learns that Daisy has professed her love for another guy, is when he realised that his American dream of wealth and fame did not by itself lead him to a happy life. By achieving a huge fortune, Gatsby surrounded himself with false friends who knew him for his fame and wealth but did not actually like him. After achieving no real friends throughout his life, Jay was the result of an unsuccessful American ‘dream’. We learn about Gatsby’s goal in Chapter 4: to win Daisy back. Despite everything he owns, including huge amounts of money and an expensive mansion, for Gatsby, Daisy is the ultimate status symbol. So in Chapter 5, when Daisy and Gatsby reunite and begin an affair, it seems like Gatsby could, in fact, achieve his goal. In Chapter 6, we learn about Gatsby’s less-than-wealthy past, which not only makes him look like the star of a rags-to-riches story, it presents Gatsby as someone in pursuit of the American Dream, and for him the personification of that dream is Daisy. However, in Chapters 7 and 8, everything comes crashing down: Daisy refuses to leave Tom, Myrtle is killed, and George breaks down and kills Gatsby and then himself. Furthermore, we learn in those last chapters that Gatsby didn’t even achieve all his wealth through hard work, like the American Dream would specify, but instead he earned his money through crime. The ideals of love and marriage and its profound links to class are also presented in The Great Gatsby, a book that centers on two loveless marriages: the union between Tom and Daisy, and between George and Myrtle. In both cases, the marriages seems to be unions of convenience or an advantage than actual love. Myrtle explains that she had married George because she thought he was a ‘gentleman’, suggesting that she had hoped to raise her class status. Daisy however, almost backs out of her marriage with Tom the day before her wedding, with Tom also having an affair within a year of the wedding. Even so, the couples are depicted as well-suited due to their shared class and desire for fun and material

(expensive) possessions. Even Gatsby’s obsession over Daisy seems more of a desire to possess something unattainable than actual love. The Great Gatsby film (2013) is a direct adaptation of the original text by Fitzgerald with all core concepts coinciding with the original. Again, the main recurring theme of the film is about the deterioration of the American dream. Within the film, the futility of the American Dream is represented in Gatsby's struggle to be with Daisy and to become a man of influence. He tells Tom that he is just as respectable as him, alleging, "Now I've just as much as you. That means we're equal." In this moment, Gatsby outlines the promise of the ‘American dream’, by suggesting that because he has as much money as Tom, the two men are equals. Tom Buchanan, a man of "noble" birth—which, in the American context, simply means being born into money rather than having earned it—quickly laughs off Gatsby's naivety, and assures Gatsby that their difference lies in their respective "blood." To an oldmoney, privileged man like Buchanan, the American Dream is only available to those with the proper breeding and inheritance. While Gatsby had dreamed that he could ascend into the upper classes if he had enough money, this is simply not the case. Thus, the film shows the fragility of the American Dream. The second major theme throughout the film of The Great Gatsby is material wealth and ethics and its involvement in society. It represents how success is viewed in the upper class and in this case, allows people to detach from consequences and behave in unethical ways. This is blatant in the example of Daisy and Tom where they show no regard for anyone but themselves. This is shown at the end of the film, where he states “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy. They smashed up things and people, and then retreated back into their money and their vast carelessness.” Daisy and Tom are so used to disregarding the lives of others that, following Myrtle’s and Gatsby’s deaths, they simply move on with their lives, run away from the problem, and don’t give it a second thought. They remove themselves from the situation both physically and mentally, because their money gives them the privilege to do so. My second text that I have chosen which has been influenced by The Great Gatsby is The Notebook (1996) by Nicholas Sparks. I chose The Notebook as it follows extremely similar plotlines with the main character (Gatsby and Noah), having to overcome their wealth and social standings for the women they loved as well as having to wait for their love to actually come true. More examples of similar values would include:       

Both stories are told from the future, and are set in the past. Both stories feature the poor guy and rich girl theme. In both stories, there is a short-lived love as the basis for the basis of the core romance. Both are about a guy who does everything for a girl. Both have a stand-out main character who uses wealth to impress their love. Both have racial undertones, and statements about wealth, with social status being a driving force. Lastly, both Gatsby and Noah are characters who only have one goal to drive them on.

However, there are still underlying differences where The Great Gatsby is a warning of the consequences of the American Dream, and a critique of the rich and their effect on society, The Notebook is a story of undying love.

Theory Sebastian Fälth

Fitzgerald portrays the American Dream in the character of Jay Gatsby. Gatsby succeeds in changing his life as he goes from having nothing to being very wealthy. His success, however, comes during a corrupt time. Exactly how Gatsby made his fortune is not clear but it is clear that he is or was involved in some illegal business. In Gatsby Fitzgerald shows that the American Dream is achievable but by adding the illegal aspect to Gatsby’s success he also problematizes the American Dream. Gatsby’s success is dependent on the fact that he did not follow the rules of society. In A Corruption of Character (2008), Michael Millgate considers Gatsby’s involvement in an illegal business to be criticism of the American Dream: “In stressing the corruption at the heart of Gatsby’s dream, as well as exposing, in the revelation of Daisy’s character, the tawdriness of what the dream aspires to, Fitzgerald clearly intended a fundamental criticism of the ‘American Dream’…” (76). As Gatsby turns to an 10 illegal business to achieve his American Dream, the fact that everyone does not have the same opportunities to succeed is demonstrated by Fitzgerald. Gatsby has a romantic view of wealth and is unaware of the realities of the American society where wealth is not the only aspect when it comes to social class (Bewley 28). There is a bond stronger than money between people like Tom and Daisy Buchanan and even though Gatsby has made a great fortune it is not enough to belong to the same social class as Tom and Daisy. Tom and Daisy’s contempt against people like Gatsby, wealthy people but with a different socioeconomic background, is demonstrated by Daisy’s loathing of West Egg, where Gatsby lives (Fitzgerald 102). An example of this will be explored later on in the text. This contempt as well as the bond between Tom and Daisy Buchanan can be explained, according to Weber’s theory, with their similar upbringing and education. That is also evidence that no matter how hard Gatsby tries, he cannot change his past and he cannot change other people’s past. “Men make their own history but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past” (Marx in Elster 277). Since status is, more than social class, dependent on things from the past, such as upbringing, it is also more difficult to change.

Kimberly Pumphrey Fitzgerald criticizes how the industry of the area has changed. The area may have once been the ‘fantastic farm’ that he writes about, but now it is ash that grows like the wheat once did and the garden is now grotesque. Fitzgerald is describing the decline of genuineness and authenticity in America, due to the harrowing effects of consumerism. This land was once thriving with life and now is dead and turned to ash. It has been consumed by consumerism. The farmers are now railroad workers, serving the transportation system of goods bought and sold in the area. The area was taken over by the budding consumerist culture and now there is nothing left. All of the temptations of the consumerist lifestyle, including houses and cars, have even burned and turned to ash. This world is not about people; consumerism is about the material things, not genuine human relationships. The people here are gray and lifeless, and have no spark to them. They merely walk through the motions of life. This scene is what Fitzgerald thinks will become of the country once it is destroyed by consumerism, like a look into the future. This novel is a cautionary tale for the people of America. The American dream is so easily corrupted by the temptations of a consumerist lifestyle. This era was a period of change after World War I, and Fitzgerald is warning America about the direction the country could be heading in. Zamira Hodo The Roaring years show that there was no any golden role for the accomplishment of the American dream. Every man has just to work hard enough for his success, even if he is not part of a rich family or a high social class. Roland Marchand (1986) claims, “Not only did he

flourish in the fast-paced, modern urban milieu of skyscrapers, taxicabs, and pleasure seeking crowds, but he proclaimed himself an expert on the latest crazes in fashion, contemporary lingo, and popular pastimes.” The definition on his book for the man of 1920’s attaining the American dream is quite similar with the way Fitzgerald portrays the figure of Gatsby from the lower class to a luxury life. Jay Gatsby is the embodiment of the self-made success who invented a new identity for himself regardless the poor past. The richness and the social status of him are the factors that cause the death of the American dream....