ipl-logo

Stereotypes In The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

638 Words3 Pages

In contrast to other classic novels, The Great Gatsby does not feature central characters that are especially unique. Instead, they are stereotypes that serve to fulfill the purpose of the author, F. Scott Fitzgerald. The actions and attributes of these characters represent those of typical Americans from prominent social groups of the 1920s. For example, Tom and Daisy Buchanan represent the rich Americans who inherited their wealth from their blue blood families. They display their high position in society constantly, but tastefully. This is shown in part by their choice of possessions, which have a calculated elegance and appear to be more intended for show than anything. One major illustration of this is Gatsby’s description of Daisy’s …show more content…

Making use of the plentiful opportunities in organized crime, they became affluent very quickly. They then flaunted their new riches in a way that was viewed as garish and overblown, particularly by old money families. This is displayed in part by Gatsby’s mansion. In contrast to the Buchanan house, which suggests the owners’ status by its traditional architecture and careful upkeep, Gatsby’s mansion is implied to be new imitating old. While Tom and Daisy’s mansion was built long ago and its construction reflects that, Gatsby’s is a replica of a building in France. Even the ivy growing on his house is a thin new layer, not the thick covering that the Buchanan house has acquired over time. Basically, Gatsby’s mansion is not on the same level as the Buchanan mansion, much like Gatsby himself is not on the same level as the Buchanans. In addition, Gatsby is not as adept at reading the social cues of the upper class. The clearest example of his ignorance is when he is invited to dinner by Mrs. Sloane. He does not notice that Mr. Sloane does not want him to accept the invitation, despite how obvious it is to Nick and Tom. Tom especially is shocked that he is oblivious, saying “Doesn’t he know she doesn’t want him?” (Fitzgerald

Show More
Related
565 Words | 3 Pages

Gatsby becomes very opulent through bootlegging, and buys a huge mansion. While Gatsby uses his house to throw extravagant parties, Jordan tells Nick that “Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay” (Fitzgerald 78). He

Read More
794 Words | 4 Pages

“The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, exposes the American Society during the 1920’s. The author displays many heroes and villain throughout the book. The characters in the novel are mostly mixtures of good and evil. Although the book does not clearly delineate the villains or heroes, there is one character who tends to stand out as a villain known as Tom Buchanan. Tom Buchanan is a major character in the book.

Read More
462 Words | 2 Pages

Great Gatsby Essay The Great Gatsby written by Scott F. Fitzgerald a fiction book written about the 1920s during the era of Jazz, prohibition and bootlegging. The Great Gatsby had many important characters that played a big role in the plot. Many of the characters did not change throughout the novel like Gatsby never changed and was very static throughout the novel but others were very dynamic and changed throughout the novel in many ways. NIck Carraway is the narrator of the story but is also the main character in his story.

Read More
1215 Words | 5 Pages

Have you ever wondered what the stereotypes of women were in the 1920’s? Well, in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book, The Great Gatsby, there are three different types of stereotypes for women. In this book, a man named Nick Carraway moves near a billionaire who goes by the name Gatsby. Gatsby hosts many parties which include many different types of people, such as gold diggers, golden girls, and the new women. Throughout this book, Nick gets to meet all three types of these girls, and gets to spend time with them.

Read More
364 Words | 2 Pages

The Great Gatsby Paragraph Essay F. Scott Fitzgerald presents many themes in his novel, The Great Gatsby. Gatsby’s fame has become of his elaborate parties he throws every weekend at his mansion. Hundreds of people show up from middle class to high class. One theme express how the party is like, they’re people moving very fast with excitement in their souls going wild. Another theme goes to that celebrities even Gilda Gray a very famous dancer attends the party.

Read More
746 Words | 3 Pages

The novel The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald has many characters that are introduced in the beginning chapters of the novel. Some of the characters were Nick Carraway, Jordan Baker, Jay Gatsby, Tom Buchanan, and lasty Daisy Buchanan. Daisy Buchanan stuck out the most to throughout the novel. Daisy shows to be a victim, a siren, and a temptress. Daisy is a victim to her husband Tom Buchanan.

Read More
830 Words | 4 Pages

His novel, The Great Gatsby represents many aspects that were similar to his life. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, he used intellectual empathy by imagining himself through The Great Gatsby and many other stories and novels. In The Great Gatsby, Tom and Daisy are married quickly, but Tom cheats on Daisy many times with many diverse people. In the 1920’s is wasn’t likely to divorce their spouse and to marry someone else from a lower class. Throughout the novel The Great Gatsby, Daisy knows Tom has many affairs but stays with him, Tom and Daisy have an unusual and loving relationship, and the time period of the 1920’s that Daisy and Tom live in.

Read More
142 Words | 1 Pages

Nick has several biases which are obvious throughout the novel. His first bias is a general bias in favor of millionaires. Nick discloses that he is comfortable around millionaires: “the consoling proximity of millionaires” (5).This is important because it shows that he is comfortable and wants to be around millionaires’ more than poor people. Since he likes millionaires, more than poor people that causes him to have a bias toward them. With this bias, his description of wealthy characters is obscured which causes Nick to be less critical of them.

Read More
1169 Words | 5 Pages

Gatsby travels back to the first time he saw Daisy at her grand home and goes into vivid detail of her house, “There was a ripe mystery about it, a hint of bedrooms upstairs more beautiful and cool than the other bedrooms of gay and radiant activities taking place through its corridors and of romances that were not musty and laid away already in lavender but fresh and breathing and redolent of this year’s shining motor cars and of dancers whose flowers were scarcely withered”. Gatsby goes into the nitty-gritty details of Daisy’s home, calling it ‘beautiful’, ‘gay and radiant’ and ‘breathing’ in order to demonstrate how symbolic the home is to him. This is the first taste of the upper class that Gatsby has ever experienced and serves as the true epitome of wealth to Gatsby. He falls in love with the newness of her home and the activities of the rich. Because of Gatsby’s love for the home, when he sees Daisy become consumed by her own luxuries, he feels betrayed; “She vanished into her rich house, into her rich full life, leaving Gatsby-nothing”.

Read More
955 Words | 4 Pages

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald portrays the perverted side of humanity. This is accomplished through using characters who have serious flaws as well as character and color symbolism. Fitzgerald uses Nick Caraway to illustrate the modernist side of individuality, while Tom Buchanan represents a twisted version of the American Dream. The desire of Gatsby to obtain Daisy's love and realize the American ideal is symbolized by the color green. Fitzgerald's book-the Great Gatsby is a work of modernist literature.

Read More
1244 Words | 5 Pages

The Great Gatsby is hailed as a great piece of 1920 's fiction due to its detailing of a new, fast paced America, and the way that America affected the population. These affects manifested as traits in people, and further developed into stereotypes. In the post World War 1 America this novel is set in, industry and technology were becoming readily available to the public, cementing these stereotypes into our population as we quickly moved along at a new pace. In The Great Gatsby, these people, actions, and relationships, are represented by the four main characters: Nick, Daisy, Tom, and Jay. F. Scott Fitzgerald uses these characters to symbolize the stereotypical people of a modern America.

Read More
88 Words | 1 Pages

Introductory paragraph: The roaring 20’s halted great success, cities became bigger, businesses became more successful, and money became more disposable, however while this time period inflicted great success it boasted many consequences as well. Life became unrealistic, standards became higher, life became more and more elite, and past emotions of war will still remained unhealed. All of these factors led people to lose touch with reality, and develop unrealistic ideologies. In his novel the Great Gatsby Fitzgerald utilizes stylistic devices to illustrate theses unrealistic ideologies of the time.

Read More
317 Words | 2 Pages

Racism in The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote the Great Gatsby in the mid-1920's, where some of the comments people said about the races would be seen as offensive or degrading. I think the reason Fitzgerald included these comments was because of the time period he wrote the story. There are several times in the story where he makes he The characters he portrays as "racist" in my opinion would be Nick Carraway and Tom Buchanan. In my eyes, Tom is more of a racist then Nick.

Read More
737 Words | 3 Pages

As a child, Gatsby grew up without much money or status. After losing Daisy to Tom, her wealthy and high ranked husband; he knew that he had to do something to win her over. After several years of working,Gatsby buys the mansion that he wanted to impress Daisy with. He became extremely wealthy living in West Egg and bought a fabulous house, “... —it was a factual imitation of some Hôtel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool and more than forty acres of lawn and garden. It was Gatsby’s mansion” (ebook 7).

Read More
780 Words | 4 Pages

In an attempt to win Daisy back from her lifestyle of “Old Money”, Gatsby becomes excessively greedy with his money. While he himself may not care about wealth, he knows Daisy does. Therefore, when Daisy comes to his mansion, he flaunts his expensive shirts. “‘They’re such beautiful shirts,’ she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds. ‘It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such—such beautiful shirts before.’”

Read More

More about Stereotypes In The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

Related Topics

Open Document