The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby, a novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, was first published in 1925. The story, set in the North Shore of Long Island and New York City during the summer of 1922, chronicles one of the most glamorous ages of American history, the roaring twenties. The novel has seen great success. Not only has it been adapted into both a Hollywood film but a Broadway play as well. The success is due to the interesting plot, intriguing characters, and meaningful symbolism. +In this paper, I am going to analyze F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. *I will discuss the plot, main character, and symbolism.

The plot of The Great Gatsby is full of exciting and suspenseful moments. I will discuss an overview of the plot of the novel. It begins with Nick Carraway, a young man in the bond business, who moves to New York from Minnesota. He resides on the West Egg, an area of Long Island, known to be home for the new rich. Nick’s neighbor is a mysterious man named Jay Gatsby who lives in a huge mansion and throws lavish parties every Saturday night. Nick drives to the East Egg, home to the established upper class, to have dinner with his cousin Daisy and her husband Tom. There, they introduce Nick to Jordan Baker, a beautiful yet cynical young golfer that Nick begins to date. From Jordan, Nick learns that Tom is having an affair with a woman named Myrtle Wilson living in the valley of ashes, described as, “a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens, where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air.” Nick goes to New York City with Tom and Myrtle to the apartment that Tom keeps for the affair. Tom’s character is revealed when Myrtle brings up Daisy, and he punches her in the nose. Nick eventually receives an invitation to one of Gatsby’s parties. There he sees Jordan Baker, and together they meet the host, Gatsby himself. Gatsby wants to speak to Jordan alone, for he remembers her from years before. After their conversation, Nick learns that Gatsby met Daisy in Louisville before the war and is deeply in love with her. Gatsby’s lavish lifestyle and extravagant parties are only an attempt to impress Daisy. Gatsby asks Nick to arrange a reunion between himself and Daisy, but does not want Daisy to know he will be there. As Gatsby requested, Nick invited Daisy to have tea at his house, without telling her that her old love will be there. After Gatsby and Daisy were reunited, they rekindled their love and began an affair. Eventually Tom realizes that Gatsby is in love Daisy. Though Tom is having an affair, he is extremely angry that Daisy is not faithful. He confronts Gatsby in a suite at the Plaza Hotel. He tells Daisy that Gatsby’s fortune comes from bootlegging alcohol and other illegal activities by shouting, “He and this Wolfshiem bought up a lot of side-street drug stores here and in Chicago and sold grain alcohol over the counter. That’s one of his little stunts. I picked him for a bootlegger the first time I saw him and I wasn’t far wrong.” After this confrontation, Daisy decides that she is going to stay with Tom, and Tom sends Daisy home with Gatsby just to prove that Gatsby cannot hurt him or his marriage. When Nick, Jordan, and Tom drive through the valley of ashes, they discover that Gatsby’s car fatally hit Tom’s lover, Myrtle. When they return to Long Island, Nick learns from Gatsby that Daisy was driving the car when it struck Myrtle, but that Gatsby is going to take the blame. The next day, Tom tells Myrtle’s husband that Gatsby was the driver who hit his wife. George assumes Gatsby must have been her lover, and he goes to Gatsby’s mansion and kills him, then himself. Nick holds a small funeral for Gatsby. Only himself, one guest of his parties, servants, and Gatsby’s father attends. Nick ends his relationship with Jordan and moves back to the Midwest. At the end of the novel, Nick realizes that Gatsby’s dream is over stating, “He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it.”

The characters of The Great Gatsby are part of the reason this novel keeps its audience captivated. I will discuss the main character. Jay Gatsby, the protagonist who gives his name to the story, is a young man living on the West Egg, characterized by gaudy displays of wealth and brash poor taste. Fitzgerald barely reveals any information about Gatsby until fairly late in the novel. However, the audience is presented with Gatsby’s reputation, which is a subject of gossip all over New York City. When describing the amount of gossip involving Gatsby it states in the novel that, “There were whispers about him from those who had found little that it was necessary to whisper about in this world.” He is known to be an extremely wealthy man but also very mysterious. Gatsby has spectacular parties every week at his mansion with powerful guests always attending, but his source of wealth is unknown to most people. This technique keeps the audience wondering who exactly Jay Gatsby is. As the novel progresses, Gatsby’s true identity is revealed. The audience learns that Gatsby had an impoverished childhood on a North Dakota farm. Although he did attend a small college, he dropped out shortly because he was humiliated that