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The Great Gatsby8

The Great Gatsby8 "There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired." This quote by author F. Scott Fitzgerald describes his life perfectly. Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, author of The Great Gatsby, was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, on September 24, 1896. In June 1918 Fitzgerald was assigned to Camp Sheridan, near Montgomery, Alabama. There he fell in love with a southern belle, 18 year-old Zelda Sayre, the youngest daughter of an Alabama Supreme Court judge. The Fitzgeralds went to France in the spring of 1924 seeking quietness for his work. He wrote The Great Gatsby during the summer and fall in Valescure near St. Raphael, but the marriage was damaged by Zelda's involvement with a French naval aviator. The story begins when Nick Carraway, a young man from Minnesota, moves to New York in the summer of 1922 to learn about the bond business. He rents a house in the West Egg district of Long Island, a wealthy but unfashionable area home to the new rich, a group who have made their fortunes too early to establish social connections, and who only care about displaying their wealth. Nick's next-door neighbor on West Egg is a mysterious man named Jay Gatsby, who lives in a giant Gothic mansion and throws extravagant parties every Saturday night. As the summer progresses, Nick eventually receives an invitation to one of Gatsby's legendary parties. He encounters Jordan Baker at the party, and they meet Gatsby himself, a surprisingly young man with an English accent, has a remarkable smile, and calls everyone "old sport." Gatsby asks to speak to Jordan alone, and, through Jordan, Nick later learns more about his mysterious neighbor. Gatsby tells Jordan that he knew Daisy in Louisville in 1917 and is deeply in love with her. Various literary techniques are evident in this novel. First of all, symbols are an example of a literary technique. There are many symbols located through-out The Great Gatsby. For example, situated at the end of Daisy's East Egg dock and barely visible from Gatsby's West Egg lawn, the green light represents Gatsby's hopes and dreams for the future. Gatsby associates it with Daisy, and in Chapter One reaches toward it in the darkness as a guiding light to lead him to his goal. Because Gatsby's quest for Daisy is largely associated with the American dream, the green light stands also as a symbol of the American dream. In chapter nine, Nick compares the green light to how America, rising out of the ocean, must have looked to early settlers of the new nation. Another symbol used in the book was the ?valley of ashes.? The valley of ashes between West Egg and New York City consists of a long stretch of empty land created by the dumping of industrial ashes. It represents the moral and social decay that happens because of a pursuit of wealth, as the rich care only about their own needs and wants. The valley of ashes also symbolizes the troubles of the poor. Understanding the symbols in the novel is only half the challenge, it is very important to have an idea of the roles of each main character. The title character of The Great Gatsby is a young man, around thirty years old, who rose from a poor childhood in rural North Dakota to become extremely wealthy. However, he achieved this goal by participating in organized crime, including distributing illegal alcohol and trading in stolen securities. Nick Carraway, a young man from Minnesota, travels to New York in 1922 to learn the bond business. He lives in the West Egg district of Long Island, next door to Gatsby. Nick is also Daisy's cousin, which enables him to observe and assist the love affair between Daisy and Gatsby. As a result of his relationship to these two characters, Nick is the perfect choice to narrate the novel. Partially based on Fitzgerald's wife Zelda, Daisy is a beautiful young woman from Louisville, Kentucky. She is Nick's cousin and the object of Gatsby's love. Each character plays an important responsibility to the other. On the surface, The Great Gatsby is a story of the saddened love between a man and a woman. The main theme of the novel, however, has little to do with a love story. Though all of its action takes place over a mere few months in the summer of 1922 and is set in a small area near Long Island, New York, The Great Gatsby is a largely symbolic display of America in the 1920s. One of the major topics explored in The Great Gatsby is how the newly minted millionaires of the 1920s differ from and relate to the old upper classes of the country's richest families. In the novel, West Egg and its inhabitants represent the newly rich, while East Egg and its population, especially Daisy and Tom, represent the old ways of life. Fitzgerald thinks the newly rich are lacking in social skills and taste. Gatsby, for example, lives in an enormous mansion, wears a pink suit, and drives a yellow Rolls Royce. These two different types of people gather for one large terrible crash. In conclusion, Fitzgerald portrays the 1920s as an era of declining social and moral values, which becomes obvious through that paths of each characters meaningless life. The characters become extremely confused in search of empty possessions. It is a time of deep confusion, especially for Mr. Gatsby, whose only want is to win the heart of his most beloved. Bibliography:

Word Count: 918