The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald
The novel opens as Nick Carraway moves to New York, right next door to Gatsby. Gatsby is rich and extravagant, throwing huge parties that are known by everyone. It turns out that his parties are only to impress Daisy Buchaanan, a woman he was once in love with, who lives across the lake from his house. Daisy happens to be Nick's cousin, and Nick brings Daisy over to Gatsby's house for tea. They quickly rekindle their relationship and begin having an affair, as Daisy is a married woman, although she doesn't know that her husband is also having an affair in the city with a woman named Myrtle. One day Gatsby looks at Daisy with so much passion that Tom realizes what is going on and gets angry, forcing everyone to go to New York to a hotel. At the hotel, all of the secrets come out, and Tom says that Gatsby is a criminal. Daisy comes to the conclusion that she needs to stay with Tom. Tom has Gatsby drive Daisy home, and on the way, Daisy drives and hits Myrtle. Myrtle's husband believes Gatsby killed his wife, and so kills him and then himself. Nick moves away to remove himself from the whole situation.
The theme is the corruption of the American dream. What used to be about happiness, success, invention, and curiosity is now solely controlled by money and greed. The characters want instant pleasure without work, and are willing to give up what is truly important in order to find what they believe will make them happy. Gatsby, for example, believes Daisy is his dream, when in reality she is nothing special, and leads to his ultimate demise.
The tone of the novel changes, as it is told in first person point of view. At some points Nick is very bitter about Gatsby and what is going on, where other times he is happy and admiring all that is going on.
- 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.
-Gatsby, pale as death, with his hands plunged like weights in his coat pockets, was standing in a puddle of water glaring tragically into my eyes
-There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams--not through her own fault but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything.
The story is told in first person, which allows the reader insight into the narrator's mind. You see Nick's personal ideas and what he draws about the characters. You see him realize that the American dream has changed in New York, which is the theme.
-He wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy. His life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was.
There is no clear climax in the plot. This adds to the confusion of the time period, and how everything was falling apart. Things didn't go as expected, and their dreams were fading. They were wealthy, but that didn't matter.
Fitzgerald uses a lot of imagery in his writing, including similes and metaphors. He is very descriptive to give the reader a clear picture of what the characters are going through.
-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 for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete.
-Daisy and Jordan lay upon an enormous couch, like silver idols weighing down their own white dresses against the singing breeze of the fans.
The tone is always very personal, showing the tragedy that is unfolding for the characters.
-With every word she was drawing further and further into herself, so he gave that up, and only the dead dream fought on as the afternoon slipped away, trying to touch what was no longer tangible, struggling unhappily, undespairingly, toward that lost voice across the room.
-He wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy. His life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was.
-All right... 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.
Symbolism is also used in the novel. The green light across the dock symbolizes Daisy and the life she used to have with Gatsby before everything got so complicated.
-a single green light, minute and faraway, that might have been the end of a dock.
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