The Great Gatsby :: essays research papers

THE GREAT GATSBY This novel is about the American dream or rather the dreams of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s. In the novel The Great Gastby notes on the careless and moral deteariation of the twenties. It is clear that fitzgerald has made a relation with his and Gatsby’s life. This can be seen in many different ways such as fitzgerald attended Yale college for a wile then went off to be in the army. In The Great Gatsby the character Gatsby went to Oxford then left to go to the army. Also Fitzgerald wanted to become a football player and I think that tom was another character by Fitzgerald that he wanted to be like. For tom was a big x football player who was rich. Fitzgerald as a boy dreamed of becoming a football hero. Football was also one of Fitzgerald's earliest attractions at Princeton University. Fitzgerald tried out for the Princeton freshman team but was cut within the first week. As a successful professional Fitzgerald translated his love of the game into two Saturday Evening Pos t stories. This novel is filled with multiple themes but the predominate one focuses on the death of the American Dream. This can be explained by how Gatsby came to get his fortune. Through his dealings with organized crime he didn't hold to the American Dream guidelines. Nick also suggests this with the manner in which he talks about all the rich characters in the story. The immoral people have all the money. The thought of repeating the past. Gatsby's whole being since going off to war is devoted to getting back together with Daisy and have things be the way they were before he left. That's why Gatsby got a house like the one Daisy used to live in right across the bay from where she lives. He expresses this desire by reaching towards the green light on her porch early in the book. The last paragraph, So we beat on, boats against the current, born back ceaselessly into the past reinforces this. Fitzgerald was in his twenty's when he wrote this novel and since he went to Princeton he was considered a spokesman for his generation. He wrote about the immorality that was besieging the 1920's. Organized crime ran rampant, people were partying all the time, and affairs were common play. The last of which Fitzgerald portrays well in this novel. Ernest Hemingway Fitzgerald's friend and literary rival once commented that "poor Scott Fitzgerald" was "wrecked" by his "romantic awe" of the rich.