|
Life, like The great Gatsby Imagine that you live in the nineteen twenties,
and that you are a very wealthy man that lives by himself in a manchine, on a
lake and who throws parties every weekend. This is just the beginning of how to
explain the way Jay Gatsby lived his life. This novel, by F. Scott, Fitzgerald
is one that is very deep in thought. Fitzgerald releases little clues along the
way of the novel that will be crusual to understand the ending. For instance, he
makes the blue coupe a very important clue, as well as the Dr. T. J. Eckleburg
eyes on the billboard that Mr. Wilson (the gas station attendant ) refers to as
the eyes of god. There are also other little things that relate to the reason of
gatsby’s death. The main character’s of this novel each have their part to do
with the ending, Nick Caraway is probably the main character of this novel, as
he comes down from New Jersey to new York to visit his cousin Daisy, who is
married to Tom Buchannan. These are some of the incidents that are included in
the novel as you will read further I will relate some issues of the novel, as
well as other critics have included their views on The Great Gatsby. F. Scott,
Fitsgerald was an American short story writer and novelist famous for his
depictions of the Jazz Age(the 1920’s), his most brilliant novel work being The
Great Gatsby(1925).
He was born in St. Paul, Minnesota on sept. 24, 1896 and
died in Hollywood, California on December 21, 1940. His private life, with his
wife, Zelda, in both America and France, became almost as celebrated as his
novels. Fitsgerald was the only son of an aristocrat father, who was the author
of the star spangle banner. Fitzgerald spent most of time with his wife, latter
in their relationship they moved to france where he began to write his most
brilliant novel, The Great Gatsby. All of his divided nature is in this novel,
the native midwestener afir with the possibilities of every Americans dream in
OLSON 2 it’s hero, Jay Gatsby, and the compassionate princeton gentlemen in it’s
narrator, Nick Carraway. The Great Gatsby is the most profoundly American novel
of it’s time (Houghton). Fitzgerald had an intensely romantic imagination, what
he once called “a heightened sensitivity to the promises of life,” and he rushed
into experience determined to realize those promises. Latter on in Fitzgeralds
life, he started to drink very heavily and became very unhappy. In 1930 his wife
had a mental breakdown and in 1932 another, from which she never recovered. With
it’s failure and his despair over Zelda, Fitzgerald was close to becoming an
incurable alcoholic. He surpassed becoming an alcoholic though, and moved out
west to become a Hollywood screenwriter were he met his new wife Sheilah Graham,
but he never forgot about Zelda and his daughter Scotti. (Johnson, 384). The
Great Gatsby is an excellent review on how fitzgerald preceived his life to be,
in the same sense that he also was very wealthy. Gatsby, in this novel is the
mistiries wealthy man that lives in the big house across the lake from Tom and
Daisy Buchanann. There would always be some type of party going on at his house,
but for some reason he never attended to them, he would always watch from his
window. Nick Caraway is Daisy’s cousin who comes to visit, Nick needs a place to
stay, so he finds an ad for a guest cottage that Mr. Jay Gatsby owns.
After Nick
has moved in Jay and Nick become pretty close friends. Jordan has always
wondered who The Great Gatsby was, so she uses Nick to find out more about him.
As the story goes on, there are some odd things that Fitsgerald relates to the
story as important things. These important things make you really think about
what it means to the story. The Automobile in The Great Gatsby is a very big
topic for the conclution of the story. What we have in The Great Gatsby is a
creative manipulation of the automobile as symbol and image to accomplish a
variety of ends (O’Meara, 74). O’Meara goes on to say that when Fitzgerald
accentuates mechanism and minimizes aesthetics, he depersonalizes vehicles and
underscores the OLSON 3 behavior of their drivers. The existing criticism on
automobiles in The Great Gatsby usually centers on one or the other of these two
functions.(O’Meara, 75). The result of the car is that it ends up killing
Myrtle. Kenneth and Irving Saposnik discuss the automobile imagery from a
technological standpoint. Knodt asserts that all of the novel symbol’s of
technology - automobiles, trains, and telephones are connected with destruction
and evil (Saposnik, 131). I believe in this theory, that vehicles are a result
evil in almost every movie. In this case the evil is the Blue Coupe sedan that
ends up killing Myrtle. The other thing that sticks out to me is the billboard
that has the two eyes on it with glasses. This board is referred to Mr. Wilson
as the eyes of god, he believes that they can see everything and when the car
ends up killing his wife Myrtle, he tells people that god saw what happened. A
footnote for the line in Andrew Turnnbull’s edition of The Letters of F. Scott
Fitzgerald(1963)describes the dust jacket as showing “two huge eyes, intended to
be those of Daisy Fay, brooding over New York City, and this had been Fitsgerald
‘s inspiration for the eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg”(Turnbull, 166). The brief
exegesis examines the imagery of cats and dogs in Scott Fitzgerald’s jazz age
novel, The Great Gatsby. Toward the end of the novel, Nick Caraway refers to the
hot summer days on Long Island as “dog-days”(Kehul, 118). John Kehul goes on to
mention that many of the characters in the novel are portrayed in canine terms.
They cynically, in the sense of the Greek root kynikos, meaning “dog-like.”
Their ‘bites,” particularly in relationship to the main character, Gatsby,
become worse then their “barks.” In contrast to this canine element, Gatsby has
a “heightened sensitivity”(120). In The Great Gatsby I did notice a lot of the
characters mentioning dogs or phrasing one another as “you old dog you,”. Myrtle
mentions to Tom (the man she is having an affair with) that she would like a
dog. I believe that Fitzgerald resembles these dogs as a symbol of affection.
Canine imagery first appears in chapter one, when Nick casually tells the reader
that he once owned a dog. He lists his possessions: an old dodge, a finish woman
OLSON 4 who cooks and cleans for him, and his dog. “I had a dog--at least I had
him a few days until he ran away(124). Almost forty years after the book was
written, Ernest dust jacket and I remember being embarrassed by the violence,
bad taste and slippery look of it. It looked like the book jacket for a book of
bad science fiction. Scott told me not to be put of by it, that it had to with a
billboard along the highway in Long Island that was important in the story. He
said that he liked the jacket, but now how didn’t like it. I took it offto read
the book (feast 176). According to Hemmingway, the cover of the book only “had
to do with” the billboard and had already fallen out of favor with the
author(179). I believe that the cover of The Great Gatsby is a unique one, in a
way that people really would believe things like that if they never had any type
of religion background or were just messed up in the head. As I was explaining
earlier in the paper about all the characters, I was mentioning things about
Nick Carraway.
Nick Carraway is also the narrator of the novel, he is probably
they most sufficient character in the novel, meaning that he is always relaying
information to others rather than getting involved in the mischief. What I mean
is, that, the affairs between Tom and Myrtle, and Daisy and Gatsby. Nick knows
just about everything about everyone and he is the newest person in town. I
think that Fitzgerald put like this because, Nick had no other meaning to the
story if he didn’t get involved with the secrets that were going on. Near the
end though, Nick is clueless as to what is going on with Myrtle and Tom until
the night of the accident when Myrtle runs out in front of the speeding yellow
cadilac. Myrtle had thought that Tom was driving the car, and so she dashed in
front of it because she wanted to leave with Tom and get away from her husband
that was not to rich or smart like Tom was. In The Great Gatsby, the fact that
the billboard is only mentioned once or twice in the film, but it so crucial to
how the result of the ending is. Fitzgerald is trying to point out that this
billboard is the point were OLSON 5 everything takes place, like, the eyes
looking down on the two cars going to party and that they are always looking at
Mr. Wilson. When Mr. Wilson’s wife (Myrtle) dies he is shock and is looking for
answers to what happened.
As O’Meara points out earlier, cars are a means of
destruction and evil. In two cases this is true. One, being that big yellow cadilac killed Myrtle and two, the fact Tom is using his car as a medium of
exchange for Mr. Wilson’s wife and free gas. Mr. Wilson does not relize the fact
that his wife is cheating on him with Tom, the man he wants the car from. In all
conclusion to The Great Gatsby, many little things in the novel were substantial
to how the ending was to be. Fitzgerald had really related the billboard of Dr.
T. J. Eckleburg that looked like owl eyes and referred to a the eyes of god by
Mr. Wilson when he talking to Tom. The other thing that sets the tone of this
novel is the car. this was the murder weapon that killed Myrtle and was
recognized by Mr. Wilson as the car that Jay Gatsby was driving that night,
which was result of the death of Mr. Jay Gatsby by no other than the man that
looked at the “owl eyes “ all day outside his gas station. Well the fact of
living in the nineteen twenties and being a millionaire and throwing parties
every weekend doesn’t sound that bad, I just wouldn’t want to be The Great
Gatsby
|
