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Family In The Great Gatsby

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The fabric of American society is comprised of a strong set of values, which, whether consciously or subconsciously, we all adhere to in some way or another. These values include things like innovation, liberty, truth and transparency, and equality, but family is one of the most emphasized and important values. The way we see the world, the opportunities that we are presented with, and how others perceive us are often connected to our families. Because of the things that our families provide for us, an important part of what it means to be an American is a close relationship with and desire for family. Before discussing why the family is so important to Americans, it is important to discuss what family means to Americans. In the past, a family …show more content…

In The Great Gatsby, James Gatz had parents who were “shiftless and unsuccessful farm people” (Fitzgerald 98). Wanting to get away from this lifestyle and to pursue “a universe of ineffable gaudiness” (Fitzgerald 99), he changed his name, became a gambler, and earned a very comfortable living for himself, under the impression that he’d be able to escape the guises of his true family and how they’d be seen under the affluent eyes of those in the East and West Eggs. Gatsby was humiliated by his family, and because of this, aspired to be more than they had been and wanted nothing that would associate him with them. My father has experienced a similar phenomenon. He grew up in a very poor household and did not have much. Not wanting to replicate this experience in his adult life, he works extremely hard to ensure that he is as far as possible from the life he was born into. I notice that he does not talk about his childhood much, and especially not to people outside the family. Both these cases mirror each other. Perception of us is connected to our families, especially in America. Although it is entirely possible to rise from what you were raised from, the family that you were a part of will be with you for the rest of your

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Contrast of Relationships in The Great Gatsby Modern Author F. Scott Fitzgerald, in his novel The Great Gatsby demonstrates the opposite sides of Gatsby and Tom’s true character through the way they treat others by using specific details, strong diction, and dialogue. Fitzgerald’s purpose is to contrast the different personalities and moral standards of tom and Gatsby’s characters. He achieves this purpose by creating a compelling tone and summarizing the point in time where each of their true character is revealed by each of their actions. The contrast that Fitzgerald creates between the characters Tom and Gatsby is demonstrated through how he uses romantic diction to describe the relationship between Gatsby and Daisy and loaded diction to describe Tom and Myrtle’s relationship.

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Social Economic Lens In The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald the effect of different social classes and the influential ways of the viewed higher classes demonstrates how hollow and ignorant having money and being perceived as wealthy can make a person. Compared to how the lower-class characters are viewed and treated by the upper class. The Great Gatsby is a good representation of seeing literature through a social-economic lens, this is shown in many different ways in the story. The reader is shown the ignorance of the upper class, the things that the characters do not know they have compared to the lower classes, and the opportunities they do not have, the little things that the rich take advantage of.

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The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, tells a story about social structures and how impossible it is to achieve the American Dream. The story takes place in the villages of East Egg, West Egg, and New York City in the 1920s. It depicts the rigid class system of the time and how hard it was to move up in status. Narrated by Nick Carraway, one of the main characters in the book, who witnesses the withering of the American Dream for Jay Gatsby and the shallowness of the upper class. Each character in the book has a unique personality, characterized by descriptions of where they lived.

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Today we ask ourselves, what defines a family? Will we ever be able to pinpoint one exact answer? Meanings and explanations of our past have been rightfully challenged. The family structures and dynamics that we see today have evolved great lengths from what they once were in the 1950’s. The 1950’s consisted of “standard” families.

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Breaking Social Boundaries The era of the 1920s was a pinnacle time in American History and the literature that was produced from this era showcases the social change happening. This was the time of social upheaval where the people were challenging social boundaries. The values that had been sought after in the period before this were becoming less and else prevalent in the new society. There are many viewpoints of this time period so the literature of this time was very diverse and many works showed the changing cultures.

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2. Gatsby comes from a poor family in North Dakota, but he lied about his past and said that he came from a wealthy family in San Francisco. Gatsby had also claimed that he inherited his wealth, but the truth is that he acquired his money from bootlegging. At the beginning of the novel he said he went to Oxford to make others think of him highly, but the truth was that he only studied at Oxford for 5 months. In other words, Jay Gatsby lied about his past to cover up that he came from a poor family.

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The 1920s was an eventful century that is memorable to this day of what it has brought to the Americans. Different states of wealth gave such revolting influences and alteration towards one another’s positions in life. The years of 1920s was known as several different things such as The Sexual Revolution, Prohibition, The Jazz Age and The Harlem Renaissance, Entertainment and Pop Culture, and distinctly, The Lost Generation. In the case of Great Gatsby, it is power and privileges of the relationships.

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Amidst swashbuckling hobbits on horseback, women with butter in their socks and a boy with a collection of wrapping paper tigers one may see no common connection, but dig deeper into each of these characters and there is one strong link, the influence of family. A common theme in Sci Fi literature is that positive relationships with one's family leads to a deeper sense of self and greater empathy, while a stressed and negative relationship can cause one the opposite effects. Positive familial relationships manifest themselves in two ways in speculative fiction: serving as base to find ones purpose and as a source of strength an hope. On the other hand, a negative relationship with ones family can cause inner turmoil and sadness instead of

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In F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald portrays Jay Gatsby's life to have many highs and lows which all derived from Gatsby's confidence gained from his many illegal business tactics. Similarly, the economy in the 1920's was extremely volatile due to many American businesses accepting forms of credit as pay, by accepting credit as a form of pay the stock market was built on an unstable basis that was bound to fail. Whether it was the stock market crash of 1929 or Jay Gatsby's sudden death, both events have an uncanny resemblance to each other due to their shady beginnings which set up both Jay Gatsby and the stock market for failure. Starting from the beginning of the 1920's, in 1922 the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which is

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Look Back In life we as humans all have different personalities. In Particular we have different opinions on what it means to be modern. Being modern was also known as being classy, known as as the upper class of rich and wealthy people. Also, how different being modern was back then and how we see being modern now.

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Persepolis is a graphic novel that follows the true account of a young Marjane Satrapi, as she comes of age during one of history 's most dramatic times, the Iranian Revolution. In my opinion however, the beauty of this literary work lies in the way that Marji brings normalcy into her messed up experiences during wartime. The way that the author relates her experiences to the reader is unlike anything I’ve ever read before, and the reader can’t help but laugh and cry with her along the way. In the chapter called “Kim Wilde”, Marji’s parents finally got passports when the border opened up after years of being shut down during the revolution.

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Throughout The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the main focus of the plot appears to be on the erratic relationships that Nick, the narrator, observes over his time spent in West Egg. The main relationship however is the romance between Nick’s wealthy neighbor Jay Gatsby, and Nick’s cousin Daisy Buchanan, who is married to a rich man named Tom Buchanan. Over the course of the book, Gatsby’s “love” for Daisy leads both of them to pursue an affair that ends in the death of Gatsby, by a man who mistook him for his wife’s killer. The book, at first glance, attempts to make the romance of Gatsby and Daisy seem like a wonderful heart-wrenching reunion of two lovers after years of being apart from one another. However, there are many signs that

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The love of a family is life’s greatest blessing. In life, there is a universal desire for oneness among people—we want to belong. It is why we collaborate, support common causes, cheer for sports teams, feel nationalism; it’s why we build villages, towns, and cities. Families are where we connect ourselves in relationships to past, current, and future generations. For many, family is not only a blessing, but our greatest accomplishment.

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Family members may or may not be biologically related, share the same household, or be legally recognized” (Raney, 2015:6). In the series Modern family, it shows the dynamics of a 21st century family and how traditions and culture has evolved over the years. As opposed to “nuclear family” “No longer does the traditional family consist of two parents and two children; instead, more diverse and shifting family structures are becoming the norm.

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“Family” is a hard word to create a concrete definition for. If one were to ask three random people on the street, it is likely they will receive three completely different answers to defining a family. The textbook definition of family according to the etymology dictionary is: “Origin in early 15c. “servants of a household” from Latin familia “family servants, domestics collectively, the servants in a household.” The traditional dictionary describes family in a more narrow fashion stating, “a basic social unit consisting of parents and their children, considered as a group, whether dwelling together or not.”

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