Great gatsby

• The Great Gatsby is one of the most widely studied American novels of all time
• The Great Gatsby


  A sober examination of the American dream, revealing the dark underbelly of the rags to riches aspiration
• Jay Gatsby


  • The legendary protagonist who embodies timeless desires that are fundamentally human like the pursuit of love, the drive for economic success, and the hunger for social prestige
• Gatsby exposes a key paradox of human behavior, namely that we often pine up to things that we can't have, often precisely because we cannot have them</b>
• The Great Gatsby was published in 1925 and encapsulates the flamboyant and hedonistic zeitgeist of the so-called flapper era of the 1920s
• The 1920s followed right on the heels of World War I, exposing the fragility of human existence and alerting Americans to its then status as the world's supreme power
• The tremendous wealth accrued from America's industrial revolution in the 19th century led to a "devil may care, carpe diem, live today die tomorrow" approach to living
• The 1920s party would all come tumbling down in 1929 with the onset of the Great Depression
• Jay Gatsby doesn't actually partake in much of the hedonistic activities, he merely facilitates them and stands aside to observe
• Gatsby's likability sets the groundwork for pathos so that readers are ready to empathize with an otherwise deeply flawed character
• Gatsby


  The incarnation of many a victim who had embraced the social decay in pursuit of misguided dreams
• Gatsby doesn't know what he truly wants, as he is more enamored with Daisy's house and the associations of wealth than with Daisy the person
• Gatsby invests all his hard-earned resources into impressing Daisy without realizing that everything he does stands in opposition to what Daisy represents - inherited wealth
• Daisy's tears at Gatsby's display of wealth are not a poetic expression of his devotion, but a sign that she sees through his desperation and knows none of this will get her to leave Tom
• Gatsby cannot understand that for Daisy, love and marriage are separate concepts, and matrimony is about resources, not romance
• Gatsby is left dumbfounded by Daisy's use of the adverb "too" in "I loved you too", as he fundamentally misunderstands love and marriage
• The juxtaposition of the intimate vignette of Tom and Daisy's marriage against Gatsby's lonely, delusional vigil outside their home crystallizes Gatsby's tragic misunderstanding