The Great Gatsby by F. Scotts Fitzgerald is an intricately patterned piece of literature. It bears no comforting message about the simplicity of life, but more so establishes the ironies of life’s tribulations. It is fashioned around money, land ownership, financial success, and the misconception of love; all things that can be explained through Karl Marx’s economic theory Marxism. Marxism will help illustrate a sub theory on commodities that can be found littered all throughout The Great Gatsby. In this book we do not see complexity written for the sack of complexity, we see it written in a stylish, symbolic, culturally functional way for its time. Illustrating the creative mind of F. Scotts Fitzgerald we see through flashbacks a chronological reconstruction of events; Jay Gatsby’s rise and fall that the reader is responsible for interpreting. At the beginning of the story we are introduced to Nick, the narrator, who tells the whole story of how Jay Gatsby a self-made American wealthy success story falls in love with Daisy, the one who got away. We learn of all the riches Gatsby acquires and his thought process that he can win Daisy’s love with money. We start to realize Gatsby’s failure to develop through specially picked settings, styles, and symbolism that Fitzgerald carefully wove together to create the ultimate paralysis of Jay Gatsby.
The Great Gatsby is set in the roaring 1920s from April to November of 1922. It takes place in what they considered Long Island New York to be at that time the “Valley of Ashes”. Here everyone lived in accordance with their social status. Gatsby lived in a “palace” in West Egg (the part of Long Island that housed those of the newly rich status), Tom, a friend of Gatsby’s, lived in his “Georgian Colonial” of East Egg (the part of Long Island that housed those of established wealth), and Nick lived in his Bungalow next to Gatsby. But they were all following the sophisticated money trail of America's high-class society. In Marxism philosophy, this can be considered the motivation to gain economic power and separate the social statuses into a “Super Structure” where the rich get richer and the poor stay poor. Thus we see commodities in The Great Gatsby. Those would be the items that are valued on their monetary value rather than what they contribute. The more commodities a person owns the higher their social status. In The Great Gatsby, we see this in the Mansion Gatsby owns, the marble swimming pool he never uses, the forty-acre lawn for guests he entertains, and the abundance of food and drink everyone but him partakes in. This can also be seen in the $350,000 string of pearls tom gives to his wife-to-be.
In this time period, we also had jazz music that was at the center of the souls of most individuals and the music that was played at many of the memorable evenings on the terrace of Gatsby’s estate. Gatsby did not only provide the setting for these memorable events he provided the bootleg booze for them as well. Gatsby was a part of the bad parts of the 1920’s just as well as the good and he played his cards mysteriously close to his vest when it came to revealing his financial successes. Given these settings, we see the paralysis of this one location that is torn apart by the two social classes of West Eggers and East Eggers. Then within those confines, we are confined again to the sweltering summer heat that only empties the soul from life. Emptying it till it is dry and brittle, till the summer sun bleaches its color and paralysis’s its freedom. Gatsby became caught up in this heat rising with the spring flowers and dying among the fallen leaves of autumns end.
F. Scotts Fitzgerald has a layered style of writing that lends itself well to The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald didn’t just regurgitate Gatsby through a drunken epiphany; he spent years perfecting the incredible man of Jay Gatsby. He poised Gatsby with social class and created him to be a character with typical human personality traits such as a relatable ignorance-of-love quality. This style of writing lent to the stagnation Gatsby was in. Actually, it is quite conceivable that Fitzgerald felt a little stagnation in writing The Great Gatsby and therefore turned his emotion into Gatsby’s, it is said that Gatsby is a literary representation of Fitzgerald himself. Gatsby was a true romantic dreamer and even though we are being narrated to by Nick, we feel what Gatsby feels. Fitzgerald seemed to create Gatsby to exude the characteristics and style of a typical American explorer dreaming of conquering the world in the 1920s. He gave Gatsby a materialistic ideal with the adolescent faith to try and win Daisy with granger. With all these characteristics in place, Fitzgerald knew he created a mood. He gave Gatsby a poetic dialect and placed him in the right lighting and the most descriptive settings with all the grey under and overtones one could imagine. Gatsby was stuck in a beautiful montage of a dream world he created for himself and stylishly kept himself there day in and day out.
Symbolic meanings pour from the pages of The Great Gatsby especially in reference to Gatsby himself. They are integrated so well into the text that they seem to flow freely adding dimension to the text rather than weighing it down. Marxism’s commodities can also be seen as the texts rich symbols that help create Gatsby’s paralysis to money and love with his love of money. Gatsby himself can stand amidst a roomful of party invites and still stand alone. Gatsby has made such a habitual life pattern of keeping people around himself at all times that he has secluded himself. He stands as a silent among a faded timetable of guests that appear at his parties to serve as a social class conquer rather than true friends. Its Gatsby’s parties alone that express how quickly time flies by, how discarded we can become, and how dreams can be crushed by the simplest most delicate golden white fingers. Where once a green light of opportunity stood at the end of Daisy’s dock at the end of chapter one, we see only a light bulb by the end of the story that becomes burnt out. Upon burning out it can be thrown into the heap of garbage in the “Valley of Ashes” to be broken down among modern America's manufacturing waste. Much is the way Gatsby feels as he learns of Daisy’s non-interest in West Eggs new money. Much is what he sees as the dust from the “Valley of Ashes” reaches closer and closer to Gatsby as the summer draws to an end. Fitzgerald symbolizes Gatsby’s life into an ironic depressing mess with Dr. T.J. Eckleburgs gigantic sightless eyes of God watching from above.
Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby with painstaking effort and perfectionism. He gave no room for misinterpretation just personal interpretation. He showed us through Jay Gatsby that money does not buy happiness; it buys selfishness, loneliness, and social misconception wrought with romantic dreams that never become reality. Fitzgerald draws us into the mysterious yet exciting life of Jay Gatsby and effectively plays on our emotions. Letting us feel the endless downward spiral of Gatsby’s need for Daisy and Daisy’s rejection. Letting us feel Gatsby’s paralysis of life through his self-made financial success. For Jay Gatsby sometimes succession is in the omission of defeat.
Works Cited:
The Great Gatsby is set in the roaring 1920s from April to November of 1922. It takes place in what they considered Long Island New York to be at that time the “Valley of Ashes”. Here everyone lived in accordance with their social status. Gatsby lived in a “palace” in West Egg (the part of Long Island that housed those of the newly rich status), Tom, a friend of Gatsby’s, lived in his “Georgian Colonial” of East Egg (the part of Long Island that housed those of established wealth), and Nick lived in his Bungalow next to Gatsby. But they were all following the sophisticated money trail of America's high-class society. In Marxism philosophy, this can be considered the motivation to gain economic power and separate the social statuses into a “Super Structure” where the rich get richer and the poor stay poor. Thus we see commodities in The Great Gatsby. Those would be the items that are valued on their monetary value rather than what they contribute. The more commodities a person owns the higher their social status. In The Great Gatsby, we see this in the Mansion Gatsby owns, the marble swimming pool he never uses, the forty-acre lawn for guests he entertains, and the abundance of food and drink everyone but him partakes in. This can also be seen in the $350,000 string of pearls tom gives to his wife-to-be.
In this time period, we also had jazz music that was at the center of the souls of most individuals and the music that was played at many of the memorable evenings on the terrace of Gatsby’s estate. Gatsby did not only provide the setting for these memorable events he provided the bootleg booze for them as well. Gatsby was a part of the bad parts of the 1920’s just as well as the good and he played his cards mysteriously close to his vest when it came to revealing his financial successes. Given these settings, we see the paralysis of this one location that is torn apart by the two social classes of West Eggers and East Eggers. Then within those confines, we are confined again to the sweltering summer heat that only empties the soul from life. Emptying it till it is dry and brittle, till the summer sun bleaches its color and paralysis’s its freedom. Gatsby became caught up in this heat rising with the spring flowers and dying among the fallen leaves of autumns end.
“ About five o’clock our procession of three cars reached the cemetery and stopped in a thick drizzle beside the gate- first a motor hearse, horribly black and wet, then Mr. Gatz and the minister and I in the limousine, and, a little later, four or five servants and the postman from West Egg in Gatsby’s wagon, all wet to the skin. As we started through the gate into the cemetery I heard a car stop and then the sound of someone splashing after us over the soggy ground. I looked around. It was the man with owl-eyed glasses whom I had found marveling over Gatsby’s books in the library one night three months before.” (Page 183)
F. Scotts Fitzgerald has a layered style of writing that lends itself well to The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald didn’t just regurgitate Gatsby through a drunken epiphany; he spent years perfecting the incredible man of Jay Gatsby. He poised Gatsby with social class and created him to be a character with typical human personality traits such as a relatable ignorance-of-love quality. This style of writing lent to the stagnation Gatsby was in. Actually, it is quite conceivable that Fitzgerald felt a little stagnation in writing The Great Gatsby and therefore turned his emotion into Gatsby’s, it is said that Gatsby is a literary representation of Fitzgerald himself. Gatsby was a true romantic dreamer and even though we are being narrated to by Nick, we feel what Gatsby feels. Fitzgerald seemed to create Gatsby to exude the characteristics and style of a typical American explorer dreaming of conquering the world in the 1920s. He gave Gatsby a materialistic ideal with the adolescent faith to try and win Daisy with granger. With all these characteristics in place, Fitzgerald knew he created a mood. He gave Gatsby a poetic dialect and placed him in the right lighting and the most descriptive settings with all the grey under and overtones one could imagine. Gatsby was stuck in a beautiful montage of a dream world he created for himself and stylishly kept himself there day in and day out.
“Already it was deep summer on roadhouse roofs and in front of wayside garages where new red gas pumps sat out in pools of light, and when I reached my estate at West Egg I ran the car under its shed and sat for a while on an abandoned grass roller in the yard. The wind had blown off, leaving a loud bright night with wings beating in the trees and a persistent organ sound as the full bellows of the earth blew the frogs full of life. The silhouette of a moving cat wavered across the moonlight and turning my head to watch it I saw that I was not alone- fifty feet away a figure had emerged from the shadow of my neighbors mansion and was standing with his hands in his pockets regarding the silver pepper of the stars. Something in his leisurely movements and the secure position of his feet upon the lawn suggested that it was Mr. Gatsby himself, come out to determine what share was his of our local heavens.” (Page 25)
Symbolic meanings pour from the pages of The Great Gatsby especially in reference to Gatsby himself. They are integrated so well into the text that they seem to flow freely adding dimension to the text rather than weighing it down. Marxism’s commodities can also be seen as the texts rich symbols that help create Gatsby’s paralysis to money and love with his love of money. Gatsby himself can stand amidst a roomful of party invites and still stand alone. Gatsby has made such a habitual life pattern of keeping people around himself at all times that he has secluded himself. He stands as a silent among a faded timetable of guests that appear at his parties to serve as a social class conquer rather than true friends. Its Gatsby’s parties alone that express how quickly time flies by, how discarded we can become, and how dreams can be crushed by the simplest most delicate golden white fingers. Where once a green light of opportunity stood at the end of Daisy’s dock at the end of chapter one, we see only a light bulb by the end of the story that becomes burnt out. Upon burning out it can be thrown into the heap of garbage in the “Valley of Ashes” to be broken down among modern America's manufacturing waste. Much is the way Gatsby feels as he learns of Daisy’s non-interest in West Eggs new money. Much is what he sees as the dust from the “Valley of Ashes” reaches closer and closer to Gatsby as the summer draws to an end. Fitzgerald symbolizes Gatsby’s life into an ironic depressing mess with Dr. T.J. Eckleburgs gigantic sightless eyes of God watching from above.
“But above the grey land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic- their retinas are one yard high. They look out of no face but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose. Evidently some wild wag of an oculist set them there to fatten his practice in the borough of Queens and then sank down himself into eternal blindness or forgot them and moved away. But his eyes, dimmed a little by many paintless days under sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping ground.” (Page 27-28)
Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby with painstaking effort and perfectionism. He gave no room for misinterpretation just personal interpretation. He showed us through Jay Gatsby that money does not buy happiness; it buys selfishness, loneliness, and social misconception wrought with romantic dreams that never become reality. Fitzgerald draws us into the mysterious yet exciting life of Jay Gatsby and effectively plays on our emotions. Letting us feel the endless downward spiral of Gatsby’s need for Daisy and Daisy’s rejection. Letting us feel Gatsby’s paralysis of life through his self-made financial success. For Jay Gatsby sometimes succession is in the omission of defeat.
Works Cited:
- The Great Gatsby, F. Scotts Fitzgerald, pages 25, 27-28, 183.
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