<<The Great Gatsby>>Book review - Essay Example

Task: Great Gatsby In American literature, The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald remain the most brilliant literary works that depicts with clarity the vanity of the American Dream in the 1920s. Written in 1925, the novel is located in West Egg, a fictional town near Long Island where characters aspire to live a good life. The book revolves around the protagonist called Jay Gatsby, a former soldier turned millionaire now obsessed with a woman he loved before. Gatsby has an immense passion for Daisy Buchanan, a beautiful woman addicted to parties and fast life that characterized the Jazz Age when people lived lavishly and beyond their means.

The story is narrated from Nick Carraway’s point of view, himself a World War 1 veteran and a Yale graduate who has found a job as a bond salesman in New York (Fitzgerald 5). He moves to West Egg where main events usually happen and is surprised to learn that his neighbor, Gatsby lives alone in a towering mansion. Additionally, this mysterious millionaire is addicted to hosting extravagant parties frequented people eager to have fun and satisfy their empty lives. The above statement shows the book’s quality of being a window of viewing America’s vanity in reaching unattainable goal within a lifetime.

Gatsby’s fate equally indicates the larger socio-economic factors that afflict society when the government and other relevant authorities fail to help its citizens achieve their life goals. Fitzgerald makes attempts to expose societal ills; a quality that the book manages especially when it doubts the source of the protagonist’s wealth. One day, Carraway decides to visit another close neighbor on the other side of bay called East Egg to find a taste of life in this area. His visit of Tom and Daisy Buchanan heralds a new revelation because he discovers that attended the university with Daisy’s husband years back at Yale.

He is also fortunate to get hooked up with Jordan Baker, a young golfer eager to start a romantic relationship with anyone to keep on attending parties at Gatsby’s mansion. Baker, however, is interested in revealing more to his new boyfriend. She confesses to Nick that Tom is having a secret affair with a woman in New York City at an industrial dumping ground near West Egg. Myrtle Wilson, Tom’s mistress, resides in the valley of ashes and Tom is keen to hide the affair from Daisy who is ever suspicious that something is wrong.

By having an extramarital affair, Tom Buchanan embodies the current trends in contemporary society where couples cheat on one another without control resulting to increased divorces and unhappy families. The writer, therefore, reveals the disconnectedness of upholding moral values and virtues to respect the institution of marriage. This is apparent in the Hollywood industry where actors and actresses chase after the fast life only to end up with broken relationships lacking meaningful direction.

Eventually, through the summer, Nick receives an invitation to attend many of Gatsby’s parties at his mansion. The narrator is surprised to find Jordan Baker enjoying herself at the party and later they meet Gatsby. Nick observes that their host is a young man, but surprisingly aloof and detached in spite of the fun around. Gatsby, on the other hand, rightly recognizes Nick as a former member of their division during the war (Fitzgerald 36). It is through Jordan that the narrator discovers that Gatsby had a romantic affair with Daisy back in 1917 and is obsessed to win her back.

This transforms Gatsby into a vain character who spends most his times watching the green light found at the end of the dock away from his mansion wishing to win back Daisy. The protagonist’s vanity is a continued dialogue that the book continues to elaborate to attempt to comprehend the ravages of the First World War and how it affected its veterans. Today, this is notable in Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who usually commit suicide because of depression or when they discover that their formers lovers married others during their period in service as seen with Gatsby’s obsession with Daisy Buchanan.

However, Gatsby fails to tell Daisy about his feelings openly during the reunion, but a small affair emerges. Tom grows suspicious especially on the day Gatsby visits them and Daisy looks uncomfortable in the presence of the former soldier. Outrageously, he compels everyone to drive to New York City where they have a fierce confrontation with Gatsby at the Plaza Hotel. To prove his love for Daisy, he asks the two to drive together in his car back to East Egg. Consequently, things spiral out control as Daisy knocks Myrtle when over speeding, but Gatsby takes the blame only to be killed by Myrtle’s husband.

The moral emptiness of the lead character’s life reaches its climax when he dies and none except Nick Carraway attends his funeral. Work Cited Fitzgerald, Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York, NY: SAGE. 2003. Print.