The Great Gatsby Fire Analysis

Without the advent of the harnessing of hungry, sanguine, licking flames of fire, there is no conceivable path where early homo sapiens evolve to become the modern man. The physical, material world that exists today would stand absolutely no chance of seeing the light of day without the utilization of fire. However, fire has played a much bigger role in human history than simply allowing for the advancement of the physical world, it has inextricably tied itself to humankind through the culture and religions practiced over every square mile of inhabited land on this planet. Fire is unpredictable and uncontainable, it is man’s friend but is also his foe, fire is essential to the sustaining of human life, but it also has the power to wipe every ounce of that life force from the face of the Earth. The power of fire has been recognized in language, in literature, art and religion. Fire is judgment, fire is sacrifice, fire is punishment, fire is rebirth, fire is cleansing, fire is destructive. Ultimately, though fire can be used by human beings, its meaning bent to the will of man, fire itself is an uncontrollable force of nature capable of unknown destruction. The fiery religious imagery F. Scott Fitzgerald employs in the Great Gatsby, reflects the moral degradation engendered by the cyclical destructive nature of the designation of wealth as the ultimate achievement in life.

The religious fire imagery in the

In the Great Gatsby, it is mirrors both the destructive nature of the immorality greed provokes but also the cyclical nature of destruction as well where at the end of the progression a sacrifice is made and new ashes are scattered. The destruction brought inevitably by rampant material greed is cyclical in nature, the immorality and the consequences of it will always afflict the world, as someone gains, another must lose and so it