How Does Fitzgerald Create Sympathy In The Great Gatsby

When writing a novel, an author takes time to carefully craft each character and the feelings in which he or she aims to evoke from the audience towards them. Throughout his novels, F. Scott Fitzgerald was a natural at causing an audience to evoke certain feelings and emotions towards characters. One of his most popular novels, The Great Gatsby, is a great example of how Fitzgerald lures readers into feeling sympathetic towards characters that would most often be repulsive. Published in 1925, The Great Gatsby is a tale of the wealthy Jay Gatsby and his life post war in the 1920s, seen and narrated through the eyes of his neighbour Nick Carraway. Within the novel the reader learns of Gatsby’s lavish parties, his beautiful love, Daisy Buchanan,

Fitzgerald establishes sympathy for Gatsby to help paint the picture of the chaos occurring within the 1920s. By creating empathy for the protagonist, the audience is able to establish how quickly someone could fall victim to the time of the 1920s in order to try and live up to the social standards of being wealthy and living a luxurious life. From the moment that Nick Carraway attends his first elaborate party, hosted by Jay Gatsby himself, Nick finds himself being bombarded with rumours about Gatsby’s personal history and how he obtained his substantial wealth. The reader first acquires compassion towards Gatsby when hearing the outrageous rumours of how he was said to have “killed a man once” (Fitzgerald 44), or “that he was a German spy during the war” (44). Majority of these rumours occur because of the fact that Gatsby is a mysterious man who chooses to spend much of his time in isolation. The reader unknowingly feels sympathetic towards Gatsby when hearing the rumours, and realizes it later when Gatsby tells his true story, in which is nothing like the rumours told. During the 1920s, if someone was wealthy, it was because he or she had inherited their riches. However, when Nick heard Gatsby’s real life story, he explains that Gatsby “sprang from his Platonic conception of himself” (99). Gatsby’s parents were “shiftless and unsuccessful farm people” (99), and Gatsby knew he did not want to be like that, so he did many things for himself in order to receive the “future glory” (100) that he wanted for himself. Gatsby attended the Lutheran College of St. Olaf’s in Minnesota; however, it was only for two weeks. At this point in his life, Gatsby was part of the lower social class, and therefore, in order to pay for the college, he had to work as a janitor, and the humility of this job is what later led him to