"The Great Gatsby"

Paper Summary:

An analysis of the character of Jay Gatsby and how he signifies the true American. The writer claims that the reader has to be American to fully appreciate the novel. Gatsby symbolizes the follower of the American Dream - how he became a millionaire without being born rich.

From the Paper:

"In writing The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald intended to create in the title character a uniquely American figure, one whose relationship to love, wealth and success was complex and shot-through with irony. Despite the fact that Jay Gatsby is certainly flawed, he is in the end a character for whom we feel great sympathy, in no small part because we (as American readers) can understand the psychological balancing act that Gatsby attempts and in the end fails to maintain. The skill with which Fitzgerald limned his characters helps us feel that we understand the ardent desire that Gatsby feels towards becoming successful and rich, even as we also understand that such desires can only lead to disaster. We know from almost the beginning of the novella that Gatsby is making a series of increasingly bad decisions, and yet we do not "cannot" condemn him. For we can, if we are being honest with ourselves, understand the desire to be successful, to make a name for ourselves, not to be a nothing. And for Americans, in our New World, that desire to make a name for ourselves is almost inevitably based in the ability to become a person of substance to indulge in the green of money in which Gatsby swathes himself in throughout his tales. We see in Jay Gatsby a cautionary tale of the path that any of us might find ourselves taking."

More papers on "The Great Gatsby":

• Book Review # 36769 : "The Great Gatsby" and 1920s Lifestyle"
• Analytical Essay # 117531 : "A Contemporary Review of "The Great Gatsby"
• Book Review # 33819 : "The Great Gatsby" and Materialism"
• Book Review # 126306 : "'The Great Gatsby' and the American Dream"

APA Citation:

MLA Citation: