Summary: The Wolf Of West Egg

Kat Allen

Katowich

American Literature

14 December 2015

The Wolf of West Egg

In 2015, James Patterson wrote the novel The Wolfe of West Egg, rewriting a modern version of The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Patterson used the similar characters and settings, but gave Nathan Wolfe a different backstory. Despite the small changes, Patterson while still addressed the shared major themes of materialism, socializing, the characters’ personas, and fame.

The Wolfe of West Egg. takes place in West Egg, Long Island where Nathan Wolfe had just returned from the Iraq War and made a new life for himself. He put the experiences of the war behind him, but suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. Wolfe fell in love with a woman named

Patterson observed that in The Great Gatsby, Gatsby was well-known and had hundreds of friends from across the state, but it did not matter because none of them showed up to his funeral after his murder. In The Wolfe of West Egg, instead of the main character being murdered, Wolfe decides confront his past and tell everyone the truth, including Daisy. After he explains that he is not as wealthy as he made himself out to be, Daisy came out to him and told him that it would not have worked out anyway. Devastated, Wolfe turned to his “friends” but soon found out that they had only been his friend for his money and his social status. He went on various talk shows and talked about why he lied and why he changed his story so many times. He admitted that he went to Iraq but when he returned home, he had lost everything. His entire family was dead, his hometown barely standing. He was scared of ending up with the same fate, so he changed who he was and moved to West Egg. After all of the interviews were done, Wolfe’s PTSD worsened, he suffered from depression and anxiety, and eventually he could not live with himself anymore. Nathan Wolfe made a public apology for his deception and lies, and shot

Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby’s major themes of materialism, socializing, personas, and fame all reflect modern life in the United States. We, as a society are more materialistic than the society of the 1920’s. People spend over one-hundred dollars on a pair of jeans that they will eventually outgrow just for the simple reason that it is name-brand. The upper-class looks down on people that cannot afford the top-dollar luxury items, such as MissMe Jeans, UGG boots, or even something as simple as an Under Armor headband. Rather than communicate on the telephone by speaking, we text or rely on social media to do the talking for us. We are so concerned with impressing other people and worrying what they will think, that we ourselves, stop communicating. We tell people what we believe they want to hear, or what we believe will make us more appealing to that person or that group of people, rather than say what needs to be said or say what we feel is important. We are constantly checking the number of “followers” or “subscribers” or “friends” that we have across various platforms. When we notice that someone has more than us, it causes us to feel less important or more insignificant. Society has become almost dependent on social media, as most people cannot even remember someone’s birthday or phone number without it. We change what we share or what we upload because we want to get more likes or shares on our page, and eventually