F Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby Literary Fiction

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby Literary Fiction

The writer of the book F. Scott Fitzgerald was born on September 24, 1896, in St. Paul, Minnesota. His first novel's success (This side of Paradise)made him famous and let him marry the woman he loved. ‘The Great Gatsby’ was written in 1925 and published in the same year. At first, the book didn’t gain any success. However, the novel experienced a revival during World War II. Nowadays, ‘The Great Gatsby’ is considered to be the best American novel and the second best novel in English. F. Scott Fitzgerald died because of a heart attack in 1940, at age 44.

The main idea of the book It’s a romantic and cynical novel about the wealth and habits of a group of New Yorkers during the Jazz Age. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s writing is unassailably magnificent, as he paints a grim portrait of shallow characters who maneuver themselves into complex situations. The classical American novel is required reading for a lot of high school students, and it can definitely be appreciated and understood on some levels by teenagers. F. Scott Fitzgerald carefully sets up his novel into distinct social groups but, in the end, each group has its own problems to contend with, leaving a powerful reminder of what a precarious place the world really is.

Main Characters Million-dollar question: what makes the Great Gatsby great? On the surface, Gatsby is a guy whose wealth, sketchy business dealings, and questionable background make him both fascinating and repulsive – the people at his parties are happy to squander his riches, but they're all sure that there's something not quite right about him.

Jay Gatsby purposeful clever helpful faithful secretive generous The protagonist who gives his name to the story. Gatsby is a newly wealthy Midwesterner-turned-Easterner who orders his life around one desire: to be reunited with Daisy Buchanan, the love he lost five years earlier. His quest for the American dream leads him from poverty to wealth, into the arms of his beloved and, eventually, to death. If Gatsby, who embodied the American Dream, was unable to achieve the impossible, than no average man could either. The American Dream is a fable; designed to give the poor hope for a brighter future that can't be promised.

Nick Carraway Nick is the narrator of the story. He is one of the few—perhaps the only— person who really comes to understand Gatsby in the end. What makes Gatsby "great" to Nick is not just the extravagance of his lifestyle and the fascinating enigma of his wealth, but that, in his heart of hearts, he doesn't care about wealth, or social status, or any of the other petty things that plague everyone else in his shallow world. Instead, Gatsby is motivated by the finest and most foolish of emotions—love.

Daisy Buchanan represented everything that Gatsby wanted in a woman; she was beautiful, rich, and luxurious. He believed that by attaining such a lavish woman, he'd have fully achieved success. She symbolized success in his eyes because she had everything that he had never had growing up. Becoming rich, buying a mansion, throwing extravagant parties - all of these things were only performed as steps towards winning Daisy over.

Jordan Baker Friend of Daisy's Professional golfer of questionable integrity. who, like Daisy, represents women of a particular class. Jordan is the young, single woman of wealth, admired by men wherever she goes. She dates Nick casually, but seems offended when he is the first man not to fall for her charms. Although she is savvy, she comes off as somewhat shallow in her approach to life.

Themes, motifs and Symbols are objects, figures and colours which are used to represent abstract ideas or concepts. The novel is thrilling because the writer’s language of the symbols is surprising. It gives us an opportunity to imagine and understand the novel better and deeper. Symbols help readers to understand the idea and theme of the book.

7 Heroes Number 7 means rules, order and music.

The Valley of Ashes One of the first symbols, mentioned in the book, is the Valley of Ashes, “a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills…” The Valley of Ashes resembles something dark and lifeless. As a result of fire ashes stand for destruction and death.

East Egg vs. West Egg The areas of East Egg and West Egg in Long Island find isolation not just geographically, “separated only by a courtesy bay”, but more significantly in spirit. The East Egg consists of the already established wealthy class that has been part of the aristocracy for generations. In contrast to this, the West Egg attracts the “nouveau riche”, those that had more than likely been born under less comfortable circumstances and who suddenly find themselves well-to-do. The "new money" try desperately to situate themselves on to that level of wealth that the people of the East Egg perch on, but ultimately realize the difficulty of doing so.

Green Light The green light is probably one of the most important symbols in The Great Gatsby. Green is the colour of hope and itfirst appears when Gatsby stares across the bay towards a green light at the end of a dock. Later the reader finds out that this light stands on his beloved woman’s dock. In the context of the novel this green light represents Gatsby’s hope to meet her again and a chance to win her back. “Gatsby believed in the green light”.

Yellow and Gold Yellow is the colour of happiness and friendship. Yellow, however, is also the colour of betrayal and jealousy. Yellow represents corruption or a lack of moral values. Gatsby’s car is yellow because he bought it with drug money. Moreover, the girls at his party wear yellow to show there lack of values.

White The colour white in The Great Gatsby represents purity and honesty. However as we go throughout the book white becomes less prominent, which symbolizes that everyone is losing their purity and honesty. Daisy always wears white. She can be described as “high in a white palace the king's daughter, the golden girl“. But in reality, she is corrupted and unfair. She hides her real face under the white colour.

Blue is the colour of being depressed, moody, or unhappy. It commonly symbolized sadness, but also more specifically restlessness in this book. Nick describes Gatsby’s servants as blue. Therefore a lot of things around Gatsby are blue. "In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars“.

With its beautiful lyricism, pitch-perfect portrayal of the Jazz Age, and searching critiques of materialism, love and the American Dream, The Great Gatsby is considered Fitzgerald's finest work. It achieved its stature as the definitive portrait of the "Roaring Twenties, " as well as one of the greatest American novels ever written.

Sarah Churchwell sees The Great Gatsby as a "cautionary tale of the decadent downside of the American dream. " The story deals with human aspiration to start over again, social politics and its brutality and also betrayal of one's own ideals and of people. Using elements of irony and tragic ending, it also delves into themes of excesses of the rich, and recklessness of youth.

If you enjoy novels that tell fluent narratives, criticize society, and are full of surprises and fun, then The Great Gatsby is the book for you! Forever referenced by other authors, Gatsby is an important piece of literature in the world of novels.