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F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby
Set in a wealthy neighbourhood near New York in the 1920's - a time of economic prosperity and
organized crime in the US - 'The Great Gatsby' describes a quite unrestrained materialism and
lack of morality. Through Gatsby's neighbour, Nick, we are introduced to Gatsby himself; a very
wealthy man without a known past and seemingly also without a family, Gatsby hosts parties for
the well-off of the New York area. Through their common friends and later through a direct
relationship with Mr. Gatsby, Nick is given hints about Gatsby's past and the origin of his
fortune: Gatsby, it seems, is not related to the Habsburgs, but rather involved with organized
crime.
More defining for Gatsby's character, however, is his fondness of Daisy, one of Gatsby and Nick's
common friends. The elsehow quite impressive man suddenly becomes childish and helpless in her
presence - it turns out that everything Gatby ever did was done in order to impress Daisy, that
Daisy has, in fact, been the meaning of this life. It is probably in the light of this humane
aspect of Gatsby's character - this quite genuine and honest way of being - that Nick comes to
consider Gatsby a close friend: initially, Nick mentions how Gatsby "represented everything for
which I have an unaffected scorn", but by the end of the novel, Nick tells Gatsby that he is "worth
the whole damn bunch [of their common friends] put together". It is in this group of common friends
that morality and sense has decayed into nothing: even their concentration is "pathetic", as it is
noted of Tom when he retells one of this books, but Gatsby is different.
Two symbols in the novel underlines Gatsby's superiority over his friends. The first is his library,
in which a drunk guest is amazed to find that every single book is "real", implying not only his
intellectual superiority, but also his honesty. The second is the green light on Daisy's dock -
which Gatsby can see from his dock - symbolizing Gatsby's "extraordinary gift for hope
[and] romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person".
Another character has been left alone as well: Dr. T.J. Eckleburg. The original Dr. Eckleburg is
dead, but a billboard with his advertisement has been left to fade in the sun. Quite godlike, Dr.
Eckleburg seems to me to a remainder to the reader that each character has a finite time on Earth
with people who will forget them; that "we beat on, boats against the current, borne back
ceaselessly into the past"; to before we were born, before anybody knew us.
Overall, like Hamsun's 'Pan' (1894), 'The Great Gatsby' describes an outsider in a group of
prominent people. Like Glahn, Gatsby has fallen outside his natural milieu and his social
strangeness is embodied particularly in his problematic relationship to women. The novel is therefore
one about love and loneliness as much as consumerism and modern society; one about each person as
much as one about people.
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Set in a wealthy neighbourhood near New York in the 1920's - a time of economic prosperity and
organized crime in the US - 'The Great Gatsby' describes a quite unrestrained materialism and
lack of morality. Through Gatsby's neighbour, Nick, we are introduced to Gatsby himself; a very
wealthy man without a known past and seemingly also without a family, Gatsby hosts parties for
the well-off of the New York area. Through their common friends and later through a direct
relationship with Mr. Gatsby, Nick is given hints about Gatsby's past and the origin of his
fortune: Gatsby, it seems, is not related to the Habsburgs, but rather involved with organized
crime.
More defining for Gatsby's character, however, is his fondness of Daisy, one of Gatsby and Nick's
common friends. The elsehow quite impressive man suddenly becomes childish and helpless in her
presence - it turns out that everything Gatby ever did was done in order to impress Daisy, that
Daisy has, in fact, been the meaning of this life. It is probably in the light of this humane
aspect of Gatsby's character - this quite genuine and honest way of being - that Nick comes to
consider Gatsby a close friend: initially, Nick mentions how Gatsby "represented everything for
which I have an unaffected scorn", but by the end of the novel, Nick tells Gatsby that he is "worth
the whole damn bunch [of their common friends] put together". It is in this group of common friends
that morality and sense has decayed into nothing: even their concentration is "pathetic", as it is
noted of Tom when he retells one of this books, but Gatsby is different.
Two symbols in the novel underlines Gatsby's superiority over his friends. The first is his library,
in which a drunk guest is amazed to find that every single book is "real", implying not only his
intellectual superiority, but also his honesty. The second is the green light on Daisy's dock -
which Gatsby can see from his dock - symbolizing Gatsby's "extraordinary gift for hope
[and] romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person".
Another character has been left alone as well: Dr. T.J. Eckleburg. The original Dr. Eckleburg is
dead, but a billboard with his advertisement has been left to fade in the sun. Quite godlike, Dr.
Eckleburg seems to me to a remainder to the reader that each character has a finite time on Earth
with people who will forget them; that "we beat on, boats against the current, borne back
ceaselessly into the past"; to before we were born, before anybody knew us.
Overall, like Hamsun's 'Pan' (1894), 'The Great Gatsby' describes an outsider in a group of
prominent people. Like Glahn, Gatsby has fallen outside his natural milieu and his social
strangeness is embodied particularly in his problematic relationship to women. The novel is therefore
one about love and loneliness as much as consumerism and modern society; one about each person as
much as one about people.
