The Great Gatsby Analysis

Character

Describe three key characters and how they changed through out the novel

I think that nick is the character that undergoes the most change throughout the novel of the Great Gatsby as at the start he seems all innocent and at the end, he is judgemental and follows the upper-class group. The more he learnt about the upper-class group such as Daisy, Tom, Gatsby the more opinions he gained and had more to judge. Nick the narrator of the story begins the novel by talking about how his father told him he should never judge other people because they haven’t had the advantages he’s had in life but as the novel goes on he sees peoples true colours and begins to judge people at the ends he states to Gatsby “You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.” meaning he doesn’t think much of the other elite group and thinks more of Gatsby rather the group of people he knew beforehand, its almost betrayal .

Gatsby’s character also changes a lot through out the novel as at the start no one knew much about him at all and are only thoughts of him were off rumours. He was a very mysterious man in which no one could figure him out he kept his stories to himself. Fitzgerald purposely brings Gatsby into the novel at chapter three so we could get all these first impressions and think he’s a wealthy powerful man when really its all a lie. As the story goes on and Gatsby becomes closer with nick he un ravels his story and says he’s a college drop out and got his money by bootlegging (illegal sale of alcohol), which he did through his ties to the mob. Gatsby starts of being a mysterious man and as the story goes on his story unravels, he was a man who was very focused on having that American dream life but he just cant get there.

At the start of the novel we look at daisy and think she’s very floaty, sophisticated, wealthy and graceful but as the novel goes on and we learn more about her character and her past, our opinions take a turn. Daisy always seems to get it her way and as soon as Gatsby came back for her she fell in love again leaving all her feelings for tom behind. as she chooses Gatsby because he is a more wealthy and powerful man, she just chose what was best for herself, not others around her. at the end of the book when daisy ran over Myrtle and didn’t stop and Gatsby took the blame, it all came back on Gatsby leaving him dead. Daisy did not check on Gatsby once or go back to him, she left the town with tom being her selfish self.

Settings

The four sets in the great Gatsby are west egg ( the new rich), east egg ( the old money/elites), valley if ashes which separates west egg from New York. The valley of ashes symbolises moral decay as the valley is full of ashes from the cities industry.

West 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.” -nick, Nick lives in west egg the people that actually work for there money in this quote nick states that its the least fashionable of the two because everyone wants to be in the elite ( east egg) because they have the American dream handed to them by there families but the west eggers have to work for there money and fight for that American dream. for instant Gatsby had to work for his money but he earned money in an illegal way as most of the west eggers did, he worked very hard to complete his American dream he had wealth, power and all he needed was daisy to top it off. “My own house was an eyesore, but it was a small eyesore, and it had been overlooked, so I had a view of the water, a partial view of my neighbour’s lawn, and the consoling proximity of millionaires—all for eighty dollars a month.”- nick. In the quote, he explains that he lived in an ugly house and had a lovely view of the water for cheap. He lives a sustainable life and wasn’t worried about completing the American dream like the rest.

East egg: “Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water, and the history of the summer really begins on the evening I drove over there to have dinner with the Tom Buchanans. Daisy was my second cousin once removed, and I’d known Tom in college. And just after the war I spent two days with them in Chicago”- nick, Nick describes the east Eggers as the elites, they get everything handed to them from there families and don’t have to work to earn the lives they have. East egg is the place that everyone dreams to be as you don’t have to work and the American dream becomes easier to complete even though it’s almost impossible. as a daisy is separated from Gatsby it is not just by water but by class, daisy is part of the wealthier/elite group and Gatsby is part of the said to be “poorer” class and cheated his way to wealth, this separation causes a delay in gatsby pathway to the American dream. “They’re a rotten crowd,” I shouted across the lawn. “You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.”- Nick. These were the last words gatsby heard from Nick before he got shot, Gatsby was so caught up on joining in the old money and Nick tried to say that he’s so much better than that.  Nick disapproves of the whole elite circle and upper-class and compliments gatsby by saying he’s worth the bunch put together but he’s still dissing Gatsby.

Valley of Ashes: The valley of ashes is what separates west egg to new york it is where the poor life but they work insanely hard to try to achieve the American dream but they just continue to fail over and over again. “This is a valley of ashes–a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air. Occasionally a line of grey cars crawls along an invisible track…the ash-grey men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud…”.
The Valley of Ashes is an important aspect of the novel, The Great Gatsby because it emphasizes the lifestyle differences between the grey-stricken working class and the golden wealthy. The ashes and everything that is covered in it like the houses and cars shows us that the working class has learned to accept the gloomy way in which they live in. “The ash-grey men swarm up with leaden spades” because they have less hope of migrating to the golden world of the wealthy and that is why their world is so grey and “dimly lit.”

New York: New York was said to be the place to go to pursue the American dream, to find a well-paid job and live the life everyone wanted. New York City provides Fitzgerald with the perfect symbol for the wealth and status that Gatsby envies. For, New York was considered the home of the socially elite and the centre of culture,” and a global city as the centre of international trade. this is where Nick said he was going to move to get a job and become wealthier as he mentions near the start of the novel

Symbols

Identify how each of the characters you have explored above presented the idea of illusion in the text, describe how they concealed their true self from other characters in the novel. explain what helped you uncover there illusion in the text.

Jay Gatsby is the true illusionist in this novel, his entire life is an illusion. he was born as James Gatz a poor boy born in north Dakota and all he wanted was to pursue the American dream. 17 year old James Gatz invented Jay Gatsby a man who got involved with people who made him wealthy, bought a big fancy house across the water from daisy, drove a nice car and wore designer suits so daisy would notice him and fall in love with him. As Gatsby got more known rumours spread that ” he killed a man” or that he was a german spy during war which was not at all true and he didn’t tell them otherwise because he didn’t want to ruin the illusion with the truth so he let them beleive these false accusations. another part of Gatsby illusion is the way he speaks and says how he has to pick his words with care. at the start of the novel there is an illusion that gatsby is perfect but he’s really not. Gatsby created this illusion to make daisy fall in love with him.

Daisy also creates an illusion of her own as she leads Gatsby to think she’s in love with him and they will be together forever whether, as in 1917 Gatsby left for war and Gatsby was under the impression that daisy would be waiting for him when he gets home but instead falls in love with another man. in 1922 she also becomes an illusionist when she has an affair with Gatsby and leads Gatsby to believe that she will leave tom for him but can’t tell tom she was ” never in love with him”, this shows that Daisy didn’t know what she wanted and was doing what was best for her, she revealed her true self in the end leaving with tom while Gatsby was lying dead in the pool. This illusion is the basis of the novel and is the reason that the theme illusion dominates the novel.

Nicks illusion throughout the novel of The Great Gatsby is that he is an open-minded, non-judgemental person, he says this in the first chapter of the novel before he meets Gatsby that his dad told him ” whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had”, his father tries to get across to him, to try be a reserved, non-judgmental person but as time goes on throughout the novel nick changes. when Nick gets invited to Gatsby party he hears rumours before he has even met him. rumours such as he killed a man, he’s a student of Oxford, that he was a German spy and that people would hate to be on the wrong side of him because Gatsby is such a wealthy and powerful man. these rumours create an illusion in nicks head before he meets him. when nick does get to finally meet this well-known man he automatically is drawn to his smile, Nick states “He smiled understandingly-much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life.”. This illusion that Nick creates shows that he thinks Gatsby is great and is a man that can attain his dreams and Nick doesn’t see the bad side in Gatsby.

Three important relationships and how there relationships are “false”.

Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship in the novel of The Great Gatsby is very important as his love for daisy eventually gets him killed. Their relationship started way back before Gatsby was a wealthy man and Gatsby fell in love with her but, as he left for war Daisy got impatient and got herself married to a handsome, wealthy man who would love her. As Gatsby left he was determined to come back a wealthy man and pursue his American dream all he needed was Daisy. When he came back daisy still married daisy figured out that Gatsby is now a rich man who is very powerful so daisy starts to fall in love with him again. As daisy can never say she was never in love with tom and when Gatsby takes the blame for daisy which eventually gets him killed daisy simply didn’t care because she was selfish. There relationship was false as Gatsby was obsessed with Daisy but Daisy didn’t feel the same way even though she let of she did, near the end we find out the darker side of daisy as she runs of with Tom leaving Gatsby dead.

Tom and Daisy got married in 1919 as Daisy was sick of waiting for Gatsby to return so she decided to marry a wealthy, handsome man that would fulfil her love. Daisy always had doubts about marrying Tom as before the wedding she had doubts but she couldn’t wait any longer for Gatsby. “he had deliberately given Daisy a sense of security; he let her believe that he was a person from much the same stratum as herself—that he was fully able to take care of her.” this quote explains to us that the marriage wasn’t just purely out of love and that just because tom had the same kind of upbringing as it states “from much the same stratum as herself”. As Daisy and Tom continued there relationship married, tom cheated many times which tells us that he wasn’t in love with her just attracted to her. The relationship becomes false when they continue to both cheat, daisy leaves tom for Gatsby but in the end, they come back together and runoff.

Throughout the great Gatsby, Nick wasn’t connected to love like the others were, but he did have a summer fling with Jordan Baker. there was not any love between the two, Nick was just attracted to Jordan ” extended full length” body, her looks and charm. There was no chance of nick being in a relationship with her as she was a rich woman and he was poor. As much as Nick is attracted to Jordan it was clear that it was only a short term relationship and not long.

Language features

“His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy’s white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed like a flower and the incarnation was complete.”

In this passage nick states ” At his lips’ touch she blossomed like a flower and the incarnation was complete.”, at this time he is trying to get across how this kiss has been a long-awaited dream for Gatsby. Gatsby and Daisy kiss for the first time in many years and Gatsby’s dreams all of a sudden becomes reality. Fitzgerald describes daisy as a flower as it says “ she blossomed like a flower” this gives us the impression the kiss somehow made there connection stronger again was potentially the perfect kiss. He used this simile to increase the readers understanding to comparing daisy to a flower it shows he wants to get across to the readers that it wasn’t a dull moment it was pure, perfect and passionate. Nick uses the word “blossomed” to describe how daisy reacted to the kiss, this made us readers think that the one kiss Daisy and Gatsby shared, made daisy fall in love with him again instantly.

 “The truth was that Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself. He was a son of God—a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that—and he must be about His Father’s business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty. So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end.”

In this passage, Nick uses a comparison between Gatsby and Jesus Christ to illuminate gatsby creation of his own identity, ” He was a son of God”, as Gatsby turns himself into the ideal man that he envisioned for himself as a youngster and remains committed to that ideal, despite the obstacles that society presents to the fulfilment of his dream.

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past”

Nick states this when he is concluding the novel. At this time he is reflecting on Gatsbys life and his obsession with the past. This is a metaphor. It compares humans relationship with time to boats moving against the current. it suggests that as oats resists the current to move in the direction of there choice, humans often resist the passage of time. They hold onto the past even when time moves them further away. Gatsby holds onto his relationship with daisy from 5 years earlier, building his entire life around it. The expectation that this is unrealistic is communicated via this metaphor because, like the current, time moves forward, preventing Gatsby (and anyone) from truely recreating the past, therefore making his effort ” ceasless” .

Allusions

1. In chapter one of the Great Gatsby, when Nick comes to meet Tom Buchanan. Tom comes across to us as supercilious and arrogant. As Nick says “You make me feel uncivilised, daisy” his words are taken up in an unexpected way by tom who breaks out violently. “Civilization’s going to pieces,…I’ve gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things.  Have you read The Rise Of The Coloured Empire by this man Goddard?”. The rise of the coloured empire was written by Lothrop Goddard, it’s assumed that the collapse of the white empire and colonialism, because of the increase in population in black people. Tom happens to misinterpret Goddard’s book because Goddard did not advocate a white race bid for world domination that Tom believes in. Instead Goddard’s questions the white men’s rights to invade other countries and impose its will upon other people.

2. David Belasco was an American theatrical producer, director and playwright. He was well known in the 1920s for creating very realistic sets In chapter three of the Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald includes the reference of Gatsby, as Belasco to suggest that Gatsby life is like a theatrical production and is an especially well-crafted illusion or show, Owl eyes in suggesting that Gatsby at any moment could put on quite a show. However owl eyes were saying this while drunk, he may be telling a truthful tale after all of the potential lies readers have read throughout the beginning of the chapter. His allusion is also used when owl eyes state that Gatsby’s library is just like one of Belasco’s sets as it was full of what looked like real, valuable books. It is really ironic that owl eyes bring up the fact that Gatsby life is a show and identifies the theatricality and artificiality of Gatsby’s life without realizing it. The gatsby that is presents himself to the audience is not the real gatsby, he has adopted a new identity and affectations such as “old sport” to convey a image of wealth and academic sucesess.

3. Fitzgerald uses the platonic conception as a allusion in the great Gatsby as he uses this concept in a way of characterising the very embodiment of jay Gatsby and his present self. Nick explains this allusion and shows the idea that nick thinks Gatsby invented himself, which in a way is true. Nick states ” Jay gatsby sprang from his platonic conception of himself”. Plato was a Greek philosopher who, among many other things, was concerned with the real world versus the ideal world. So when Nick says this, he means that in a sense, Jay Gatsby invented himself.Jay Gatsby was not happy with being a poor man who came from an uneducated family so he decided to reinvent himself to an ideal lifestyle which suited himself. Nick suggests that Gatsby has modelled the ideal version of himself and is striving to live up to the fantasy that he has created in his mind since he was a young boy. Gatsby really wanted to live up to that American dream so changed himself in a wealthy man by making connections with powerful people who could get him there. Despite him cheating his way to wealth he was so close to completing that American dream but need daisy to put the cherry on top.

Ideas

How Does Fitzgerald present the idea of the American dream to us:

Fitzgerald uses a lot of literary devices to present the American dream such as motif, one motif is geography as represented by East and West Egg. East egg being the old money which has been given or passed down from there family, and west egg is the new rich which are those you have made their own money in ways that are illegal. Fitzgerald also uses a lot of symbols to represent various aspects of the American Dream. An important symbol that Fitzgerald uses in The Great Gatsby to present the American dream is the colour green, Nick states “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us.”. the green light relates to the American dream as the colour green symbolises hope and dreams, more specifically the American dream. The American dream was what everyone worked towards but really from the reader’s point of view its just a myth, as everyone regardless of race, social status, gender etc can achieve success if they work hard enough. east Eggers ( the elite group) were given the dream as they didn’t have to work for there power and wealth it was passed down from there families. As for west eggers, they are the “new rich” Fitzgerald describes them to be “just a bunch of bootleggers”, they represent the corruption of the American dream, it drives them to cheat. the new yorkers believe that anything is possible and people go there to attempt to achieve this American dream, it allows people to experience the illusion of the American dream. The valley of ashes is the false nature of the dream, the characters in this setting constantly work hard but don’t achieve success, the American dream always fails for these characters over and over again.

How does fitzgerald present the idea of inevitability of time

Fitzgerald presents the idea of the inevitability of time through symbols such as water. he uses this to show the distance between Gatsby and Daisy. Also, the rain is pouring when Gatsby and Daisy meet for the first time in 5 years. A lot has happened in this time. The rain stops and fades to dew as they become comfortable with each other again. It begins again after Gatsby has shown his house. ” If it wasn’t for the mist, we could see your home across the bay,” said Gatsby, “ you always have a green light that burns all night at the end of your dock”… possibly it occurred to him that the colossal significance of that light vanished forever. Compared to the great distance that had separated him from Daisy it had seemed very near to her … as close as a star to the moon. What water symbolises is time. Time will always move forward. Life will move with it, regardless of how much we want to go back or stand still. water is also involved with Gatsby death, as Gatsby is swimming in his pool for the first time this summer, George Wilson that is thirsty to get revenge walks up to the pool and shoots Gatsby dead. ” the touch of a cluster of leaves revolved it slowly, tracing, like the leg of transit, a thin red circle in the water” because Gatsby dies in the water, his death is a sort of baptism. in a way he is cleansed of all his wrongdoings throughout his life and is relieved of all his stress. As Gatsby’s time in the world ends it happens to be in the water.