After realizing the shallowness of his beloved Jordan, he finds the strength to eventually break up their relationship, while Gatsby continues his relationship with Daisy-trying to live the false dream he had created in his head. However, unlike Gatsby, Nick can resist the temptations and dark sides. Nick and Gatsby share many traits: courage, dignity, and sincere benevolence. Nick’s story unfolds together with that of Jay Gatsby: for example, he falls in love with Jordan while telling how Jay fell for Daisy. The fact that he narrates the story defines its tone-despite showing both sides of the “lost generation”, the book still reads in a positive and pleasant way. Nick is the personification of human kindness, the beauty of a man’s soul, honesty, and internal courage. The two opposite aspects of his personality that live side by side in Gatsby’s character are represented by the people he surrounds himself by. Throughout the whole book, Gatsby’s image remains a bit blurry and undefined, partly because his story is told through the eyes of another person – Nick Carraway. The fact that his image of her doesn’t hold true portrays the key message of the book – a civilization whose morals can be manipulated by the desire for material goods cannot be humane, nor happy.
Daisy is the dream, but also is the death of Gatsby. He spends a lot of time looking for past ideals and dreams, which in reality turn out to be lost and phony. But at the same time, he is the product of his consumerist society he defines his worth by the tribute other people pay to him.įitzgerald devotes the most attention to the first aspect of Jay’s personality – his romantic side. He lives with the fantasy of being together with his beloved, Daisy. Gatsby is a romantic man, a dreamer who enjoys beauty and kindness.
This man represents the collective image of a society where everybody can pick traits that they can relate to. Who is Jay Gatsby? Is he a mystery, a fraud, a murderer, a rich man, or a poor man? He is all of those things to some extent, and at the same time he is none of those things. After reading the book the reader is able to understand that what people want deep inside are not material goods, but emotional ones – sincere, reciprocal, and eternal love.
Similarly, for Jay Gatsby, the achievement of the American dream turned out to be a devastating life tragedy – his way towards the top of the societal ladder, despite the fame and wealth it brought him, led to disappointment and loss. In his writing career, Fitzgerald has seen everything – from admiration and acclaim for his first novel “This Side of Paradise” in 1920, to destructive indifference and cruel critique for a number of his other works. The life path of the protagonist of this book, Jay Gatsby, slightly resembles Fitzgerald himself. It was written in 1925 – the time of Dry Law, gangster wars, impressive parties, and spectacular lifestyles. “The Great Gatsby” is the most well-known of his novels. While those eccentric and lavish times are gone now, readers can still enjoy the heritage of his books that bring about the spirit of freedom, joy, and selfishness. The author himself was the child of the golden period, known as the “Jazz Age”. Francis Scott Fitzgerald is the American writer that managed to describe the richness and carelessness of the 1920s in the USA in bright colors.
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