The analysis of the novel “Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The analysis of the novel “Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald

First of all I’d like to represent some information about the author of the novel. The destiny and literary career of F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940), one of the outstanding identities in the history of American literature of the twentieth century is sophisticated and dramatically complicated. He was one of the representatives of the romanticism of the American literature. American critics refused to admit the socially based ground of critical nature in his works that reflected the deep-going dramatic mood after the First World War. F. Scott Fitzgerald passed through a diversity of tribulations in his life and experienced the ambiguity of life that ranged from solemn feelings of acceptance of his first novel “This side of paradise” (1920) to abusive glimpses of indifference and even the deliberate diminution of values of the rank of his other worth-reading and real life based works. Among the other Fitzgerald’s most renowned and acknowledged novels are such works as “Flappers and Philosophers” (1920), “The Crack-up” (1936), “Tales of the Jazz Age” (1922), “All the Sad Young Men” (1926), “The Beautiful and the Damned” (1922) and many others. F. Scott Fitzgerald was one of the best known writers of “The Lost Generation” period. This is a term that described the people of the 1920s who refused American post World War I values. Among the other popular writers of “The lost Generation” are Ernest Hemingway, Sherwood Anderson, Kay Boyle, Hart Crane, Ford Maddox Ford and the others. “The Lost Generation” defines a sense of moral loss and aimlessness which are disclosed in literature of the 1920s. After the First World War a lot of ideas and values seemed to be destroyed, lots of good people died or were physically and mentally wounded, their faith in virtue and morality that gave them hope were no longer valid. That’s why they were called “The Lost Generation”. Writers of “The lost generation” criticized American culture and society and their books touched upon such problems as self-exile, spiritual alienation and indulgence. Fitzgerald’s novel “The Great Gatsby” shows the young generation of the 1920s and shows the ambiguity of the world with illusion of happiness that hides loneliness behind the fake hilarity.  The novel “The Great Gatsby” that is under discussion was written in 1925 and it is implied to be the greatest and highly regarded novel of the writer. But unfortunately, only a few critics and writers of that time estimated the real value of this novel, which reveals in an unusually frugal narrative manner the tragedy of the crack-up of the “American dream”. This is an complex and undercover novel that touches the ambiguous essence of the “American dream” drama, which dates back to its historical background with the spirit of liberty and independence within on the one hand, and material prosperity and rugged individualism on the other hand. F. Scott Fitzgerald was one of those foremost writers who deeply understood and perceived the rate of treachery, hypocrisy and immorality of the society on the whole with their perpetual ideals of equality and boundless freedom – the core establishment of the “American dream”. Fitzgerald was brought up in the family of juxtaposed values where the old puritan faith was connected with “American dream” trust according to which theory the central values were emphasis on achievement and success and prosperity was the highlighted core. That’s the reason why the world of wealth was both fascinating and repulsive for him. Almost all his life F. Scott Fitzgerald was devoted to writing articles for popular magazines and complied with demands and requests of the public and industry of entertainment that supported mad illusions of the “Jazz Age” lifestyle. The tragedy of his craft simultaneously includes and reflects the conflict of lifespan, the narrative reality with rough edges was implicated in his dream, bursting it from the inside. It caused the fusion of romantic dreams and realistic sobriety of his novels, intertwined in between.

The novel “The Great Gatsby” begins with the representing Nick Carraway. He is one of the most important heroes of the novel. This novel is represented through his memories about the events happened in the past. Nick’s family had been well-to-do people in the Middle West. He participated in the World War I. After it he had been learning the bond business and lived at West Egg. Mr. Gatsby was his neighbour. Nick’s second cousin Daisy and her husband Tom Buchanan lived at East Egg. In Daisy’s house Nick met Jordan Baker, Daisy’s friend. Daisy had a romance with Jay Gatsby when she was 18. But they did not merry because Jay was too poor to take care of a family. He left. She married Tom Buchanan. The next April Daisy had her child. Gatsby loved Daisy, he had become a wealthy man by that time having a desire to return her back. He asked Nick to invite Daisy to tea to meet her. The meeting was arranged. Daisy was fascinated with the luxury of Gatsby’s mansion. Tom had a mistress Myrtle Wilson. They dated in apartment in New York. Nick was invited to Gatsby’s party where there were “new rich” people. Nick and Jordan were looking for Gatsby and they sat at the table with a man who appeared to be Gatsby. Once Gatsby told lie that he was the son of some wealthy people in the Middle West, but his real name was James Gatz. His parents were unsuccessful farm people. Mr. Wolfsheim was Gatsby’s friend and a person he dealt with. He was a gambler. When Jay visited Daisy’s house Tom suspected his wife and Mr. Gatsby of having some affair. The company went to town. Tom and Jay had a row. Gatsby told Tom that Daisy didn’t love him. On their way back they knew that Myrtle had died in a car accident. Daisy was driving and ran over Myrtle. Mr. Wilson had discovered that Myrtle had a lover, but he thought that Jay killed his wife and was her lover. Then Mr. Gatsby was shot by Mr. Wilson. Then Wilson shot himself. Despite of the fact that Mr. Gatsby had a lot of known people who came to him to have fun, only Nick and Mr. Gatz, Jay’s father came to the funeral.

This novel is about Jay Gatz who was from poor farm family in the Middle West and who couldn’t marry a girl whom he loved. He believed that being wealthy person he could bring her back. But having become wealthy in dishonest way he didn’t even achieve his aim but died being unnecessary and forgotten.

The novel is told from the first person singular. The narrator is Nick Carraway who is not only the passive observer but the active participant in all the events. What is more important these events influence him greatly. In the beginning of the novel he didn’t try to analyze and judge human nature, behavior but at the end he has his own opinion about people.

In this novel I can observe three time lines. First of all this is the past time; we know about the past of the main heroes of the novel thanks to it: about Nick Carraway, James Gatsby, Daisy and Tom Buchanan, Miss Baker. There is also present time where the main events happen.  And in the very beginning of the novel we see that Nick told about his experience, thoughts and emotions that he had   after the events that had happened in the novel so we may say that this novel is written as Nick’s memories together with his personal attitude to all happened. I suppose that Nick’s attitude is author’s attitude very often.

The novel is logically divided into some parts: introductory part, plot, climax, and denouement.

In the introductory part, this is chapter one, we have the possibility to know about main heroes of the novel: Nick Carraway, Daisy and Tom Buchanan and Miss Baker. Besides, we have the first mention f Gatsby in Nick’s thinking about human nature.

In the plot we observe the chain of events that leads us to climax. Nick is in Daisy’s and Tom’s house. It occurs to be that under the mask of good happy family there are people who don’t understand each other, don’t trust each other. Tom has a mistress Myrtle Wilson and his wife Daisy knows about it. Nick gets acquainted with Jay Gatsby who told him about his love to Daisy which he held through all his life. Gatsby hoped that this material prosperity would help him to bring Daisy back. Gatsby met Daisy with the help of Nick and their meetings became often. Tom suspected that Daisy had relations with Gatsby.

In the climax Gatsby and Tom had a row in which Gatsby said to Tom that Daisy had never loved him. But Daisy didn’t agree to leave Tom. On their way home Daisy driving Gatsby’s car killed Myrtle Wilson.

In the denouement Mr. Wilson shot Gatsby and himself thinking that Gatsby was his wife’s lover who had killed her. Mr. Wilson wanted to …. After his death Gatsby was along again like during his life. Despite of the fact that Mr. Gatsby had a lot of known people who came to him to have fun, only Nick and Mr. Gatz, Jay’s father came to the funeral.

Talking about the main characters of the novel I can notice that most of them were the typical representatives of people of “Jazz Era”. Most of them are wealthy people thanks to the inheritance, for example Tom and Daisy Buckanan; others just tried to be close to such people, for instance, Jordan Baker (Daisy’s friend), Myrtle Wilson (Tom’s mistress) and her sister. They have never thought about how to earn money, and never had serious difficulties in their lives. All they did was spending their money, visiting parties and communicating with the same people. The personal qualities of a man had no importance for them. As an example I can give Nick’s words about people who came to Gatsby’s parties “Benny McClenahan arrived always with four girls. They were never quite the same ones in physical person, but they were so identical one with another that it inevitably seemed they had been there before”. The author uses polysyndeton giving their names: “I have forgotten their names – Jaqueline, I think, or else Consuela, or Gloria or Judy or June, and their last names were either the melodious names of flowers and months or the sterner ones of the great American capitalists whose cousins, if pressed, they would confess themselves to be”. It was enough to have a lot of money and famous wealthy ancestors to be “a good man” and suit to the society. They told lies and discussed very silly topics. For example when Tom together with his mistress Myrtle invited Nick to their apartment in New York, Myrtle and her sister discussed Myrtle’s pedicure and dress: “I had a woman up here last week to look at my feet, and when she gave me the bill you’d of thought  she had my appendicitis out”; “It’s just a crazy old … I just slip it on sometimes when I don’t care what I look like”.

Tom Buchanan is one of the main representatives of that society. Such epithets as “a sturdy straw-haired man, hard mouth, shining arrogant eyes, enormous power, enormous leverage, a cruel body, a gruff husky tenor” characterize his appearance. His appearance together with his physical strength excuses his character of a very power-loving man. Everybody should act as he wants. The author uses simile to show it “Tom Buchanan compelled me from the room as though he were moving a checker to another square”. There is also an irony here to emphasize how strong Tom was. For him as for many people of that society it is very important to know the ancestors of a wealthy person to judge him; he didn’t know anything about Gatsby and called him “Mr. Nobody from Nowhere” unfolding periphrasis. It is interesting to trace his attitude to women. Having a wife who had given a birth a child to him he had a mistress only because it was fashionable to have a mistress among men of that society and it is boring to be with only one woman. Women were thought to be like things belonging to a particular man. These are Tom’s words: “I may be old-fashioned in my ideas, but women run around too much these days to suit me”. Talking about women’s mind he said: “They meet all kinds of crazy fish” using metaphor.

When the author describes Daisy, Tom’s wife, he very often describes her face as a part of her appearance and laugh as her most common behavior using epithets: “sad and lovely face, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth; her sweet exciting laugh, an absurd charming little laugh. This creates the image of thoughtless silly woman; all that she possesses is her appearance; she laughs because she doesn’t know what to say. I think that this is her mask for that “party” called her life. She called herself “pretty cynical about everything” the author uses oxymoron. When she was 18 she sincerely loved a young lieutenant James Gats the author unfolds simile to prove it “she blossomed for him like a flower”. However she could not be with him because needed a wealthy man to merry. Her family demanded it. Before her wedding her friend Jordan saw her “as drunk as a monkey”. Her reputation was of no importance for her at that time. But gradually she understood that people in her society were not free, they played written roles. She said to Nick about her little daughter: “And I hope she’ll be a fool – that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool” (the author uses paradox). When she met Gatsby again she was another person. The author uses metaphor describing her: “Her voice is full of money”.  Temporarily she remembered her feelings and author says using paradox: “I knew that except for the thirty minutes she’d been alone with Gatsby she wasn’t having a good time” (speaking about Gatsby’s party where she had been with her husband). At the end when she had a choice to stay with Tom or leave him and be with Gatsby she could not trust her feelings and decided to keep everything at its place, even though she might regret about it.

The character that gave name to this novel James Gatsby is one of the main characters of it. First of all I want to pay attention at the title of the novel. Why is Gatsby called “great”? To my mind the author uses irony here and calls Gatsby “great” not only because of his great material prosperity but for his personal characteristics and sincere feelings that he possessed and that singled him out among other representatives of that society.

Gatsby’s mansion was a masterpiece of luxurious life “The one on my right was a colossal affair by any standard –  it was a factual imitation of some Hotel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool, and more that forty acres of lawn and garden. It was Gatsby’s mansion”. But the motion power that kept him going was not a pure desire to capitalize on, but it was a desire to revive his romantic relationships with Daisy and make a brand new start as he said “I’m going to fix everything just the way it was before”. When Nick told that it was impossible to repeat the past all Gatsby’s conduct appeared to prove his inclination to bring back what was lost “He looked around him wildly, as if the past were lurking here in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand”. With the help of simile the author emphasized that the past influenced both his present and his future, it made him a puppet of his own “dreams”. “He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say: “I never loved you”. This is the reason of ambiguous and bitter-sweet representation of tonality of the character and the character-sketch antithesis that supplements the plot and goes throughout the cloth of the novel. His dream of meeting up with Daisy is opposed to pragmatic reality and his bootlegger dealings. He’s living in two opposite worlds of moral differentiation. He created a legend about his family background and his wealth: “I am the son of some wealthy people in the Middle East – all dead now. I was brought up in America but educated at Oxford, because all my ancestors have been educated there for many years. It is a family tradition”, “My family all died and I came into a good deal of money”, “After that I lived like a young rajah in all the capitals of Europe – Paris, Venice, Rome – collecting jewels, chiefly rubies, hunting big game, painting a little, things for myself only and trying to forget something very sad that had happened to me long ago”. The author employed simile “I lived like a young rajah” for emotional amplification. The way Gatsby presented his legend to Nick made him doubt whether that story was true: “With an effort I managed to restrain my incredulous laughter”. The very phrases were worn so threadbare that they evoked no image except that of a turbaned “character” leaking sawdust at every pore as he pursued a tiger through the Bois de Boulogne”. The metaphor “witnessed the beginning of his career” saturates the plot of the story with brighter hues of description. Describing the romantic nature of Gatsby the author created a lyrical mood and atmosphere “He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way”. With the help of this metaphor the author accentuated that Gatsby’s dream stylized and became more and more attractive in his mind. The embarrassment he felt appeared to prove it “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 eye”. The simile “pale as death”, “with his hands plunged like weights” discloses the lyricism of the romantic atmosphere of their first meeting after five years gap. This romantic mood is presented with some glimpses of irony. Such expressions as “the living room was deserted”, “was standing in the puddle of water”, “glaring tragically” are saturated with hues of irony of situation which is exposed both verbally and emotionally throughout the plot. It was raining when Gatsby met Daisy for the first time after five years gap again “the day agreed upon was pouring rain”, “the rain cooled about half-past three to a damp mist, through which occasional thin drops swam like dew” and it was also raining when it was a day of Gatsby’s funeral “and stopped in a thick drizzle beside the gate”, “the rain poured down”. The rain is a symbolic marker that brings some glimpses of compassion and creates the pathetic and lyrical mood. At the end of the novel Gatsby was betrayed by the people who used his big-heartedness and the capacity of his hospitality, but the romantic pathos of a lonely dreamer was kept in the mood of the novel.

Jordan Baker, Daisy’s friend, is described with the help of such epithets: “a slender small-breasted girl with an erect carriage”. Also author uses simile describing her: “her chin raised a little, as if she were balancing something on it”, “all her dresses, like her sports clothes, there was a jauntiness about her movements as” if she had first learned to walk upon golf courses on clean, crisp morning”. I can make the conclusion she was in good shape and had a pleasant appearance. But another her characteristic is that she was “incurably dishonest”. The author told about her: “She wasn’t able to endure being at a disadvantage and, given this unwillingness, I suppose she had begun dealing in subterfuges when she was very young in order to keep  that cool, insolent smile turned to the world and yet satisfy the demands of her hard, jaunty body”. But at the same time the author contradicts himself using paradox: “Dishonesty in a woman is a thing you never blame deeply…” The relationships between Nick and Jordan could not exist may be because Nick called himself “I am the one of the few honest people that I have ever known”.

Nick Carraway, being the narrator and beholder of the whole story, is an active participant in all the events. The story is written in a way of his memories diary, where he described the occasions in details disclosing his emotionally-colored and emotionally-charged attitude to was had happened. I guess the life path of Nick Carraway is connected with the life path of F. Scott Fitzgerald himself, thus the reflection of the author gave way to exposure of Mr. Carraway as the narrator of the story. Nick’s family had been prominent, well-to-do people in the Middle Western city for three generations. The epithets “prominent” and “well-to-do” underline the status and material prosperity of his family. Nick graduated from New Haven in 1915 and participated in The First World War. The First World War is disclosed with amplified emotionally-colored connotation in the form of periphrasis “I participated in that delayed Teutonic migration known as the Great War.” His inclination to go East and learn the bond business is reflected in the sentence “Instead of being the warm center of the world the Middle West now seemed like the ragged edge of the universe” with the assistance of antithesis where positively charged “warm center of the world” is opposed to negatively charged “ragged edge of the universe” in a way of polar confrontation with Nick’s perception as the anchor point. Nick was rather literary in college – one year he wrote a series of very solemn and obvious editorials for the Yale News – and he was going to bring back all such things into his life and become again that most limited of all specialists, the “well-rounded man”. Such epithets as “literary” and “well-rounded” accentuate his intelligence, business inventiveness and flexibility. At the very beginning the narrator presupposes the events of the novel with the following phrases “When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction – Gatsby, who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away.” Such metaphors as “I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever”, “If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures” and simile “as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away” disclose the mood of Nick Carraway and the author himself and their attitude to occasions that are described in the novel. The emotional spectrum of epithets such as “riotous excursions “ , “privileged glimpses”, “unaffected scorn”, “unbroken series of successful gestures”, “something gorgeous”, “heightened sensitivity”, “intricate machines” enriches the story and fills it with spiritualized facets of human emotions. Nick’s vision that “conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes, but after a certain point I don’t care what it’s founded on” is disclosed through the antithesis where “the hard rock” is opposed to “the wet marshes” to emphasize the diversity of units of reasons of the human conduct. The metaphor “a sense of the fundamental decencies is parceled out unequally at birth” accentuates the inequality and discrepancy of the people of different social layers and their personal vision of morality. The theme of spiritual wealth of the inner person’s world always occupied an essential position in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s craft, because honesty, dignity and the courage within were always the core principles of assessment in the system of human values.

In some ways, Nick Carraway is the entity of these qualities and peculiar features. His identification line in the plot is in parallel development with the identification line of Gatsby, the other main character of the story, their life paths are intertwined and the following phrases underscore this similarity “He smiled understandably – much more than understandably. 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”. Nick’s image is related to the author himself, because Nick takes a narrator’s part in the story and he sees the ambiguity of Gatsby’s striving and difficulty of his nature. He was the only faithful friend who came to Gatsby’s funeral. “I tried to think about Gatsby then for a moment, but he was already too far away, and I could only remember, without resentment, that Daisy hadn’t sent a message or a flower”. Nick is not an indifferent observer of occasions, Gatsby’s life influenced his own destiny and that’s the reason why it’s of significance for Nick to understand Gatsby and his “dream”. For Nick it’s an essential item to understand his own life and find out his place in it. In comparison with Gatsby Nick made a choice not in favor of his “dream” and broke up with Jordan who appeared to show resemblance to Daisy. Vanity and egoism were prominent characteristic features of dominating majority of lookalikes from the upper class rich people and Jordan herself. This features were repulsive for Nick and he didn’t want to let her get away with it, as just as Gatsby did, who didn’t want to notice the drawbacks of his ladylove.

Understanding that main characters in the novel are revealed in a conflict we may identify the main idea. On the example of this novel the author wanted to show the phenomena of “American dream”. He describes contradictory person James Gatsby: on the one hand he is a wealthy  man, who earned his money in illegal way, on the other hand he had become wealthy to be with a girl from the upper-class.

In conclusion I would like to say that the author brilliantly revealed “Jazz Era” with its people, their behavior, and thoughts. And of course author’s  magnificent language makes us understand lonely difficult life of the main hero, a romantic hero.