Irony In The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby was written by F. Scott Fitzgerald describes a tragic love story of the protagonist, Jay Gatsby. Gatsby’s conquest to pursue Daisy Buchanan analyzes and critiques the lifestyle of the Roaring Twenties, the period between World War I and the Great Depression. Fitzgerald introduces and glamorizes the primary notion of the entire novel, the American Dream. The American Dream is defined as regardless of race, class, or gender standing, an individual has the potential to achieve success in America. The storyline deals with the human aspiration to start over, social politics, and the use of judgement while using the elements of irony and tragedy. The idea of the American dream is not only seen within the story plot itself but also

Due to society’s corrupt and superficial idea of wealth, the types of wealth needed to be separated. This was the birth of West Egg and East Egg. “I lived at West Egg, the—well, the less fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them. [...] Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water” (Fitzgerald 14). People in East Egg came from families that always had money, the “old money” type of wealth. These were the trust fund babies, the families that had so much money that they didn’t even need to flaunt or brag about it because the community already knew how wealthy they were. These were the type of people that did not know what work was or had to ever work in their lives. They were unaware of the hardships of labor and were often stuck up. East Egg was personified by Tom and Daisy Buchanan. They represented the moral decay and the increase of shallow characteristics. Although characters such as Nick and Gatsby had just as money as the Buchanans, they were segregated and were placed in West Egg. West Egg was often defined as “new money”, money derived from hard work, the “rags to riches story”. Those that live in the West Egg were portrayed as less sophisticated, which is seen from the different types of parties held throughout the novel. The first party mentioned in the novel was Tom Buchanan’s party; it had less people, less decoration, and less entertainment, more simplistic. This is a sharp contrast from Gatsby’s extravagant and lavish parties. Although those in West Egg were seen as less sophisticated, they have more moral values than those that live on East Egg. Both cities are located on peninsulas and are separated by a body of water, symbolizing Gatsby’s separation from Daisy. The peninsulas will never merge together or become one, just like