Major Themes In The Great Gatsby

The Great Themes from the Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a modern-classic novel which blends many themes to create an experience truly Gatsby-esque. The novel would not be the same without F. Scott Fitzgerald’s creative use of the major themes. Perhaps some of the most interesting themes and well developed themes were the themes of class, discontentedness, and the theme of time (past and future). All three themes are used to drive the plot of the novel and help to create the characters as they are in the novel.

Class is illustrated in almost every part of the novel and sets the tone for interactions between the characters, helping to push the plot. The novel starts with Nick telling the reader about advice his

It seems many of the characters are unhappy for one reason or another, sometimes they are discontent for many reasons. You can see Daisy is discontented having given birth to a girl because of how unfair the world is to girls, though she pretends to be happy, " ‘It'll show you how I've gotten to feel about – things. Well, she was less than an hour old and Tom was God knows where. I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned feeling, and asked the nurse right away if it was a boy or a girl. She told me it was a girl, and so I turned my head away and wept. 'All right,' I said, 'I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool – that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.' " (TGG pg 22)

“He nodded sagely. "And what's more, I love Daisy too. Once in awhile I go off on a spree and make a fool of myself, but I always come back, and in my heart I love her all the time." "You're revolting," said Daisy. She turned to me, and her voice, dropping an octave lower, filled the room with thrilling scorn: "Do you know why we left Chicago? I'm surprised that they didn't treat you to the story of that little spree." (TGG pg 125). It seems Tom is not satisfied due to his life having peaked in his college years, when he was a football star he can longer be satisfied with polo ponies and the life he has now. “ Why they came East I don't know. They had spent a year in France for no particular reason, and then drifted here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together. This was a permanent move, said Daisy over the telephone, but I didn't believe it – I had no sight into Daisy's heart, but I felt that Tom would drift on forever seeking, a little wistfully, for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game.” (TGG pg 11-12). Tom cannot be satisfied by anything really because he misses the days when he was a football star and nothing he does, even having affairs fill that wistfulness in