The Great Gatsby

Bekah Dahlman

Professor Roche

English 104W

24 July 2015

The Great Gatsby

In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald utilizes many universal themes to make a classic novel, explaining the life in 1920’s. In the novel, well-off citizens live everyday without care, celebrate every weekend by getting drunk and overall just live a reckless lifestyle. The way these people live is represented in the novel by Fitzgerald, who emphasizes the life of Nick Carrway, a single stockbroker living in New York, and shows us the world of the rich through his point of view. “Significant writers in the Twenties were above all dedicated to the imposing task of pointing out the error of living in terms of obsolete values—however useful those values might have been in the past (Trask 3).” Through Carrway’s eyes, he uses different styles of satire to describe these characters throughout the text. Satire is seen, as humor, irony, exaggeration, and use of sarcasm to criticize other people’s actions and lighten the situation in this book. “Satire” is defined as the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues (dictionary.com). The Great Gatsby creates elements of satire within the narrative by using sarcasm, humor and irony.

The use of sarcasm plays a big part in the novel when Fitzgerald presents sarcasm to display humor. “Sarcasm” is defined as the use of irony to mock or convey contempt (dictionary.com). The Great Gatsby demonstrates sarcasm through the character Gatsby, the wealthy protagonist who he possessed a “Platonic conception of himself. He was a son of God.” As a son of God—Gods boy—he must be about His Father’s business (Fitzgerald 98 )”. David Trask notes, “What was that business? It was ‘the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty’ “ (Trask 1). Not only Carraway, but also his wealthy cousin Daisy and her husband Tom are used to portray sarcasm. When Daisy feels happy and safe with Jay Gatsby, the novels central figure Nick comments, “’Then they sauntered over to my house and sat on the steps for half an hour, while at her request I remained watchfully in the garden.” and than Daisy explains “In case there’s a fire or a flood… ‘or any act of God’” (107). Daisy does not really mean any act of God or a fire; she really wants Nick to watch out for Tom so he does not catch Daisy and Gatsby, who are having an affair. She says this to taunt Tom even though he is not at the party. On the other hand, later on when Tom does finally arrive at the party he does not like the people that he and Daisy are sitting with and asks to go sit with other people. To this, Daisy says, “’Go Ahead, … and if you want to take down any addresses here’s my little gold pencil’” (108). Daisy is basically giving Tom permission to talk to other women just as she is now free to talk to Gatsby. Tom does not have any intention to talk to any other women due to his connection with Myrtle, but the comment is meant to taunt Tom for how he treats Daisy.

Another example of sarcasm is seen with Jordan Baker, Nick’s girlfriend. She uses a great amount of sarcasm to get a rise out of people, especially Nick. When Jordan and Nick are having a conversation about driving, Nick is honest about calling Jordan a rotten driver. In response Nick states:

“You’re a rotten driver,”… “Either you ought to be more careful , or you oughtn’t to drive at all.” Jordan replies “I am careful’ ‘No you’re not’ ‘Well, other people are,’ she said lightly. ‘What’s that got to do with it?’ ‘They’ll keep out of my way’ she insisted. ‘It takes two to make an accident.’” (58)

 Jordan always enjoys using sarcasm with Nick to make him angry and she usually succeeds. Nick later states that this event is the main reason for eventual breakup later in the novel. The way she uses sarcasm to taunt and make fun of Nick shows that it is used quite often in the novel as a form of satire. Sarcasm is one of the main elements of satire as it is a way to bring humor into a situation, taunt someone, and make fun of them without them always knowing. Having the element of sarcasm brings light to situations in the novel and shows that it is a satire.

Secondly, exaggeration is used throughout the novel. “Exaggeration” is defined as a statement that represents something as better or worse than it really is (dictrionary.com). When Tom takes Nick to meet his mistress Myrtle, he talks about George Wilson, who is Myrtle’s husband. He states, “Wilson? He think she goes to see her sister in New York. He’s so dumb he doesn’t know he’s alive” (26). This is an example of exaggeration because someone cannot be so unintelligent that they do not know they are alive. Tom says this about Wilson because it is so obvious to everyone else that Myrtle is cheating on George except to George himself. He exaggerates the fact that he is dumb and cannot see it for himself. Another example of exaggeration comes when Nick first meets Gatsby in chapter three. Nick comments on his smile and states “It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it that you may come across four or five times in life” (48). Instead of stating the Gatsby had a nice smile, Fitzgerald goes into great detail to exaggerate how Gatsby’s smile made people feel. “Both Gatsby and Tom Buchanan, Daisy's husband, possessed wealth. Gatsby at least used his wealth to seek out beauty and claim it for himself. Buchanan the lecher lacked any larger goals. In the end, Daisy chooses to remain with Buchanan, and Gatsby is murdered by the deranged husband of Myrtle Wilson, Buchanan's mistress, who had been accidentally run down and killed by Daisy. Buchanan serves as Gatsby's executioner; he allows George Wilson to believe that Gatsby had killed Myrtle (Trask 2)”. He is very fond of winning people over so the way he is depicted in Nick's description of him is a perfect example of exaggeration.