Gatsby

After reading “The Great Gatsby” and viewing the film version “G”, I found many big differences. These differences were contrasted against a generally parallel storyline, save from a few scenes. The characters were completely different along with the setting and era. At first I had a hard time wrapping my mind around the vast difference, but I eventually came to realize that this was an interesting way to look at the story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I enjoyed both versions of the classic novel.

In analyzing the differences we first notice that the Roaring Twenties become present day. The movie opens with a blood stained man walking down the beach in the Hamptons. The Hamptons resemble East Egg of Long Island. This opening scene is foreshadowing. When it is over the film goes back to the beginning of the book. Summer “G” is portraying Jay Gatsby. He is a music producer for rappers and rhythm and blues singers.

The Great Gatsby takes place in the 1920’s in New York City. It takes place in two different regions, West Egg and East Egg. The West Egg is where Gatsby and Nick live. This part of Long Island is the side where the less fashionable people live. The East Egg section is where the old money lives. The Valley of the Ashes is a desolate wasteland where the Wilsons live. New York City as a whole was a place where anything goes and bootleggers made money quickly.

Nick Carraway is the narrator, a young Mid-western man who graduated from Yale and fought in World War I. He moves to New York to learn the bond business. He rents a house next to Gatsby’s mansion in West Egg. Tom and Daisy Buchanan live in East Egg. Daisy is Nick’s cousin and Tom was in the same senior society at Yale. They invite Nick to dinner at their mansion, and he meets a young woman golfer named Jordan Baker. Daisy is trying to hook Nick up with Jordan. We find out here during dinner that Tom has a woman on the side. This woman’s name is Myrtle Wilson who lives in the Valley of the Ashes. Tom takes Nick to meet the Wilsons. Myrtle starts talking about Daisy and Tom breaks her nose.

Gatsby knows Daisy from school and they had a fling. Now he wants Daisy back and asks Nick to set up a date between the two. He buys a house in West Egg across the bay from Daisy’s. He spends countless nights out by the water staring at a green light that resembles his hope. Gatsby and Daisy meet for the first time in five years, and he tries to impress her with his wealth. Tom, Daisy, Gatsby and Nick go into the city where the truth is revealed about Gatsby and Daisy. They go home together in a yellow Rolls Royce. On the way home they run over Myrtle. Gatsby takes the blame for it even though Daisy was really driving. George Wilson comes out and shoots Gatsby and then himself.

G is the movie made in accordance with the novel. It is fast paced and different. Yet the story still is in general the same. As noted at the beginning of the paper, it is now present day and we are set in the Hamptons. The story follows a love triangle with self-made music mogul Summer G, his old college flame Sky Hightower, and her constantly