The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald - Book Report/Review Example

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby is a remarkable piece of literature by the American literary exponent F. Scott Fitzgerald.The Great Gatsby was first published in the year of 1925. This novel is often fondly referred as ‘The Great American Novel’, both by the readers and the critics. It is the author’s first novel that deals with the essence of life with a great profundity. There are total nine chapters in this book and each of them carries the unique style of the author in them. The novel opens with the narrator Nick Carraway, a 29-year-old young man from the state of Minnesota, who shifts to New York in the year of 1922 to learn elaborately about bond business. He chooses an apartment in the area of West Egg district that is a part of Long Island. This area comprises of newly rich people, who have lots of wealth but may be they are not so much, culturally elevated. Unlike this populace, the narrator is a student of Yale and belongs from East Egg, an area of upper class or aristocrats and fashionable people. Nick’s neighbor is Jay Gatsby, who stays in a gigantic mansion, and is a quite mysterious person. The novel gets its title from the name of this man. Every weekend night Gatsby throws a big party, which is always an extravagant one. The narrator, in the very opening of the novel puts forward his nature as an open book. He says that he has a great power of listening to others personal accounts, and has a deep courage to endure them all. Not always, that the people who unfolded their grievances to him were his familiar folks, but even many unknown people could open up their hearts to its content to Nick. He claims that, it was a profound height of decency, which actually barred him from stopping anyone, who wanted to share a deep mourning with him. However, after a certain point of time, he realizes that his endurance of listening to the accounts of other people has a limit. Therefore, he decides to stop this approach, especially as he moves to West Egg. Only Jay Gatsby was an exception to the narrator’s resolution. He found Gatsby to be an extremely unusual and exceptional man. In the meantime, besides his life in West Egg and his encounters with his new neighbors, Nick also speaks of his old friends, Tom and Daisy. They invite him at a dinner. There Nick meets Jordan Baker, with whom he later gets into a romantic relationship. Nick comes to know from Jordan that Tom has an extra marital affair with a woman called Myrtle. Tom takes Nick one day to another apartment in New York City, which he maintains for his affair. There after a garish party Myrtle taunts Tom about his relationship with Daisy. Tom consequently, after an intense argument ends up breaking Myrtle’s nose. However, his mysterious neighbor Gatsby invites Nick in his mansion on one weekend, in the great party. Nick brings Jordan too in this soiree. Jordan speaks with Gatsby and eventually comes to know about his deep admiration about Daisy. The book reveals that Gatsby throws these parties only as an effort to impress Daisy. However, in the course of time, Daisy comes to know about it and a love relationship sprouts between the two. Tom gradually comes to know about the relationship of Gatsby and Daisy and becomes furious on Gatsby. He even scornfully sends Daisy back with Gatsby, just to prove that Gatsby can make no harm to Tom. However, Myrtle is killed accidentally by Gatsby’s car. Gatsby takes the blame on himself. Tom reports to Myrtle’s husband George, that Gatsby’s car killed Myrtle. George leaps to this idea that Gatsby must be the lover of his wife. Consequently, he rushes to Gatsby’s house and kills him at pool, thereafter he lethally shoots himself too. Nick arranges a little funeral ceremony for Gatsby. Nick puts an end to his connection with Jordan. Thereafter Nick shifts to Midwest, in order to get over the morbidity and disgust he acquired from the life in West Egg. Nick feels a strong detest for the emptiness of people around Gatsby’s life, which also take Nick into their circle eventually. The difference is just that, Nick could break that chain, and live a separate life far from there. The moral decay of the people almost haunts him. Nick expresses in his realization that Gatsby’s desire of Daisy was tainted with the show of money and deceit. This leads to the idea that, the American vision of pleasure and uniqueness has crumbled into the mere pursuit of capital. It is only Gatsby’s capability, to turn his dreams into reality, which makes him “great.” Nick reflects that the epoch of dream— both Gatsby and American dream have ended. In this novel, the author has portrayed the period of 1920s as an era of degenerating and crumbled societal and ethical standards. This is evident from the novel’s repeated sarcasm, elaborate portrayal of insatiability, and in the vivid as well as vacant chase of pleasure. The wild revelry that led to debauched parties and savage jazz music, that is symbolize in The Great Gatsby by the wealthy festivities, that Gatsby initiated on every night of the Saturdays, actually epitomized the dishonesty of the American dream, because the uncontrolled craving for wealth and sensory pleasure gradually replaced the nobler goals. While World War I finished in the year of 1918, the young generation of Americans who fought the war, became deeply disheartened, as the brutal massacre which they faced- made social ethics of the early twentieth century America, appear like oppressive and empty, with a big exhibition of hypocrisy. The increase in stock market in the post World War I era- led to an unexpected, constant raise in the wealth of the nation. It resulted in a pristine materialism. People started spending and consuming at exceptional levels. Not only sheer and elaborate exhibition of wealth, but also discrimination between the social positions were prominent, even among the people who had almost same amount of material grandeur. This is prominent in this novel, when the author describes the difference between the East Egg and the West Egg. The author also in his elaborate description of his familial origin shows the importance of breeding that aristocracy or the pride that ‘blue blood’ infests in a person, “My family have been prominent, well- to- do people in this Middle Western city for three generations. … We are descended from the Dukes of Buccleuch…” (Fitzgerald, 7). Fitzgerald explores the critical human minds in the backdrop of complex and polygamous relationships in this novel. Tom Buchanan himself is an adulterous person, but he reacts furiously to the issue of his wife Daisy’s affair with Jay Gatsby. His opinion about marriage and extra marital affairs is somewhat cynic, “Now a days people begin by sneering at a family life and family institutions and next they’ll throw everything overboard and have intermarriage between black and white” (Fitzgerald, 105). His deep-seated hypocrisy is prominent in this speech. On the other hand, Daisy is an opportunist-spoilt brat who is always keen in staying in the centre of attention of all. She is the one whose crazy driving kills Myrtle, but she selfishly escapes and takes the shelter of his rich husband, when Gatsby takes the responsibility of the accident and faces the dire consequences. The use of symbolism has been unique in this novel. A green light here in this novel, portrays a strange thread of hope in Gatsby’s life. There is a green light in the dock of Daisy’s East Egg house, that is hardly visible from the West Egg place of Gatsby, but that is a constant hope to Gatsby signifying a fresh future to Gatsby, which he wants to spend with Daisy. Gatsby also mentions about it to Daisy, “You always have a green light that burns all night at the end of your dock” (Fitzgerald, 76). The green light, according to the author also represents the generalized ideal about new America. Another remarkable symbol in this novel is the Valley of Ashes. It is an area between the West Egg and East Egg. It epitomizes the decadence in the contemporary social scenario of America. It also symbolizes the plight of the needy and deprived people. All the motifs and symbols point out the uniqueness and the exclusiveness of the novel and push the reader to be closely adhered to it. Works Cited Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. USA: NuVision Publications, LLC. 2008. Read More