Differences Between East And West In The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, published in 1925, tackles social and ethical problems that are found in his own time. Fitzgerald was born in Minnesota and as he became a writer, he moved to “the racy, adventurous” (Fitzgerald 56) New York City in 1919. In the film, director Baz Luhrmann accurately portrays the differences between East and West using colors and the positioning of the camera to show Fitzgerald's position. Fitzgerald's goal was to portray the backgrounds of his characters into a never ending chain of cause and effect, from where they once lived to their present situation and how that affects their personality. The social standards found on the East coast transforms the natural character of those who originated from the West. All characters in both novel and film actively portray their neighborhood in their personality. The main three areas of which the novel takes place in are, East Egg, West Egg, and New York City. East Egg is filled with “white palaces … (that) glittered along the water” (Fitzgerald 5) while West Egg is “-well, the less

From the film where he states that his gates were actually taken from a castle in France to the evidence in his back pocket to prove he went to Oxford, Gatsby creates a grand facade for those around him. Gatsby eventually shares that he’s from North Dakota and ran away from home to pursue a dream of unimaginable wealth. Although it may seem that perhaps Gatsby’s character never did change between his transition because it was always his goal, he did, from the way he talked to the way he dressed, Gatsby did his best to adapt his dream. Luhrmann presented it as a flashback with several stages to set the tone for an ambitious character but failed to include how the change negatively affected him as a person. By trying to create his