Most people know that The Great Gatsby is considered the great American novel. This is so for many reasons. One could be that it so vividly depicts the time period in which it is placed possibly better than any other novel from U.S. literature. Fitzgerald does such a good job depicting the character’s traits and personalities that it is almost impossible to put the book down. At least for me. I am going to give a general overview of the Great Gatsby and talk about why it is so important to America and specifically this time period in American history.
This piece is about Jay Gatsby, but it will mainly focus on the nuances that made his character special in history and literature. Gatsby is a very mysterious character at the beginning of the novel, but as the book goes along, more continues to be revealed about his character and in many instances what the reader learns contradicts what they may have thought. At the beginning of the book, the reader is lead to believe that Gatsby is from a high social class and that he is accepted by his peers, but that turns out to be far from the truth.
One reason that this book is so important to American society is because of the American dream that one can climb the ranks of the social latter in the country throughout their life. This is what the main character in the book tries to do, but as he rises up the latter in terms of wealth, he notices that he is still not quite on the same level as the other members of his new found class. Jay Gatsby, does this, but he realizes that even though he is now financially on the same level as the members of the upper class, he is not accepted mainly because he was not born as one of them.
In fact, the other of his new class suspect that he obtained his wealth from doing illegal activities perhaps dealing with drugs. This is the first part of the book where his character is made mysterious because it is unclear how he has come about receiving his riches.
Gatsby lives in what is called the West Egg which is looked down upon by members of the East Egg as being a place where people are less classy and like to flaunt their wealth, even though they may have less of it than the members of the East Egg. Gatsby is also rumored to be related to the hated German ruled during World War I named Kaiser Wilhelm.
Gatsby is also depicted as someone who strives to be known as he has extravagant parties, but seems to barely know the people who are there. They are just there as a status symbol for him. They come because he provides their food and drink.
Gatsby is also accused of having a fake English accent which he puts on because he believes it makes him seem more upper class material.
When Nick first meets Gatsby, his character is mysterious and he claims to come from a very rich family from the west coast and to have tone to Oxford after he received many awards from fighting in the Great War.
One of the first friends of Gatsby that Nick meets is Meyer Wolfsheim who is known to be a criminal and is expected to be behind the fixing of the 1919 World Series in which members of the Chicago White Sox were compensated for throwing the game. This team later became known as the Black Sox.
One thing of note that a lot of people may not have noticed that further illustrated the idea that Gatsby only lived in his lavish house with the lavish decorations because he believed that would make people think more fondly of him were the author’s comments on the books. He states that the books on the shelves had not been torn. Fitzgerald is trying to illustrate that Gatsby bought all of these classics so that people would think he was part of the upper-educated class, but he had not actually read them. This refers to back when the pages of books were attached together and one had to cut them apart as they read, thus making it obvious for a passer by to whether the books had actually been read.
When Gatsby gives a tour of his house to Daisy, his new love interest, the reader can notice that all of the house is extravagantly laid out except for his bedroom. Showing that he does not care for the luxuries of life himself, he just likes to be known as someone who has them.
When Nick learns of Gatsby’s past, it is much different than he was originally told. He was born James Gatz in North Dakota, but changed his name at 17.
An interesting part of Gatsby’s love for Daisy is that he thinks she is perfect and does not see any of her flaws. His love becomes almost a worship process for Daisy as he expects her to divorce her husband just to come with him.
After his reunion with Daisy, it becomes evident that the only reason he was throwing the parties was to woo her or someone who knew her to come.
Daisy falls out of love with Gatsby after Tom reveals to her that most of Gatsby’s money was done by doing illegal things. This throws everything that Daisy thought of out the window because Gatsby’s wealth was an obvious reason for her departure from Tom.
Gatsby allows his love for Daisy to overcome him in the last scenes as he decides to stay after Myrtle is killed to protect Daisy even though it eventually leads to his death.
It seemed obvious by that point that Daisy and Gatsby were not going to end up together, but he was so infatuated with her that he could not fathom leaving her in this position.
When Nick puts together Gatsby’s funeral almost no one shows up, illustrating once again that the people were only attending his parties to party.
