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Thematic essay about the great gatsby
Symbolism of the great gatsby
Thematic essay about the great gatsby
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More handpicked essays just for you.
Thematic essay about the great gatsby
Symbolism of the great gatsby
Thematic essay about the great gatsby
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
In the novel “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the author uses many differnt retorical devices to add a personal flare to his work. He uses diction, symbolism, and irony to adress many different themes. These themes include Materialism, The American Dream, and includes a sharp and biting ridicule on American society in the 1920’s. The main point of Fitzgerald, arguement is one where he sharply criticizes the Society of the time.
Gatsby has spent his whole life trying to prove to Daisy and everyone around him that he is worthy of her. The only way to be on the same social level as her is to turn himself into new money. Since this is not possible, he has to try to convince to others that he truly is old money. To do this, he becomes rich, and lies about his past, but the only way for him to complete this idea is if he is with Daisy. She is the final piece in his American dream.
The Great Gatsby is an American novel written by Scott Fitzgerald. On the surface, the book revolves around the concept of romance, the love between two individuals. However, the novel incorporates less of a romantic scope and rather focuses on the theme of the American Dream in the 1920s. Fitzgerald depicts the 1920’s as an era of decline in moral values. The strong desire for luxurious pleasure and money ultimately corrupts the American dream which was originally about individualism.
Though Gatsby follows a corrupt path to gain considerable wealth through the façade that he has been born a wealthy upperclassman, he does so not for his own indulgence, but for Daisy’s love and approval, showing how people unknowingly undermine their moral values through disillusionment of their dreams. As he was actually born into a working family, Gatsby’s attempt to rise in status is seen as more understandable to the readers who can relate much more to his desires. Gatsby does not understand that his actions are not only immoral, but disillusioned as he equates reality and unreality. The idealistic diction and reference to his dream as a “rock” implies a foundation- stability and sturdiness- for Gatsby to leap off of and achieve what he desires. However the reality is difficult for Gatsby to accept as this “rock of [his] world” is founded on an intangible dream, a fantasy, “a fairy’s wing”.
In a book about a tragic love story, one would not expect to find a deeper meaning behind the dangers of jealousy or peril of lust. However, in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, there is a deeper meaning beyond jealousy and love. In The Great Gatsby, the author uses an empathetic storyline as a symbol to unwittingly give a complex depiction of the nuisance that people create that not only destroy our world but our society and gives warning to what will occur if we continue the path of destruction. With this intention, the brilliant opinionated writer, expressed his opinion through symbols such as the characters he uses, the setting the story takes place in, and the objects he uses in the book.
At the end of The Great Gatsby, Nick reflects upon Gatsby’s life and pursuit on the beach where “the green light” at the end of Daisy’s dock can be seen. As a significant metaphor, “the green light” represents Gatsby’s dream which guides him to keep pursuing wealth and social status, while the position of the light, the distant and inaccessible Daisy’s dock, indicates the close connection between Gatsby’s unreal dream and Daisy, and as well the disillusionment of the dream. In the last three paragraphs, Nick explains the disillusionment of Gatsby’s dream, “He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it” (162). Gatsby has always strived for his ambition and dream.
Gatsby’s dreams and aspirations in life are rather interesting and amazing as he goes about his life in the book. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald helps highlight the social, moral, and political issue that were very present during the 1920’s and today. Gatsby is the focus of the book as before the book began, he was an ex-soldier who came to wealth by some rather illegal ways. Daisy a married woman is his person of interest, who was his ex-lover 5 years before the book started. Gatsby’s actions, and words demonstrate a clear obsession with Daisy that seems to have no end.
In today’s duplicitous society, men often pursue the “perfect woman”. This woman is construed to be; fit, provocative and ravishing. However, in greatly distinguished American novel, The Great Gatsby, the men have strayed from stalking women for their looks. Instead, Gatsby chases Daisy to achieve her as a prize of his bounty and any affection Gatsby demonstrates toward her, is simply to appease to her sense of status and wealth. The author F. Scott Fitzgerald, exhibits Gatsby’s these feelings for Daisy through the clever usage of connotation, symbolism and metaphors.
In the world of the novel, money and possession have corrupted the mind leading to greed and destruction. Gatsby’s intentions for throwing wild parties were not for his own pleasure, but rather to lure Daisy, who represents his success, into meeting him again. Yet, like the American Dream, Daisy is unattainable, just like her mellow voice,
Intro + Thesis The modern American dream is a recurring ideal, one attainable through hard work and skill; however, this belief is challenged in The Great Gatsby, which questions if effort is truly the key to success when the illusion of the American dream overpowers the reality. No longer the phrase that helped form a nation, the road to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness has veered off course, paving way for a new, debased version to take its place, one that is highly criticized in the novel. Both Gatsby and Wilson were hard workers, and this, ideally, should have gotten them far, although conversely, they both paid a price, raising doubt if The Great Gatsby was actually a tribute to the American lifestyle after all. Para 1 - The
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby is a reflection of the American Dream. Written in 1925, the book tells the story of a man named Jay Gatsby, whose main driving force in life is the pursuit of a woman called Daisy Buchanan. The narrator is Gatsby’s observant next-door neighbor, Nick Carraway, who offers a fresh, outsider’s perspective on the events; the action takes place in New York during the so-called Roaring Twenties. By 1922, when The Great Gatsby takes place, the American Dream had little to do with Providence divine and a great deal to do with feelings organized around style and personal changed – and above all, with the unexamined self .
This brings to mind how the American Dream of fortune can’t always be brought around by hard work, in the case of George. Later on in Chapter 4 the reader learns about Gatsby’s plan to win Daisy back through his show of wealth and social power. Daisy, being the ultimate symbol of success for Gatsby, is his goal that has been for so long out of reach. Next in the 5th Chapter, Gatsby starts an affair with Daisy. This makes the audience believe that he might be successful in his ultimate “American Dream” with Daisy being the last level.
The characters in the novel pretend that they have their lives all figured out, but through their successes their downfalls and emptiness can be seen, to prove that money cannot buy happiness. Jay Gatsby is the newest and upcoming star in New York during the 1920’s. Through his business and inheritance he is one of the richest men of his time. One may think that his abundance of wealth would lead him to be eternally happy, but he is the opposite. Gatsby longs for his love of Daisy, which is his personal American Dream.
Jay Gatsby, the title character of the novel “The Great Gatsby” is a man that can not seem to live without the love of his life. Trying to win Daisy over consumes Gatsby’s life as he tries to become the person he thinks she would approve of. What most readers do not realize is that Jay Gatsby’s character mirrors many personality traits and concerns that the author of novel, F. Scott Fitzgerald, had. In fact, Gatsby and Fitzgerald are similar in that they both had a girl they wanted to win over, took a strong stance on alcohol, and ironically both had similar funerals, also, both people also symbolize the American dream.
The 1920’s was a very interesting time in United States history. After all World War I had ended and many Americans did not realize that the Great Depression was in the near future, so the 1920’s fell between these two dramatic events. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby teaches many morals, but none more important than the duality of the 1920’s. Duality is evident in Gatsby's dreams, his death, his lover Daisy, his wealth, and his parties, which all reflect the duality of the 1920’s. Throughout the novel, Fitzgerald makes the concept of achieving the American dream seem improbable.