“The Great Gatsby” is a novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, representing the 20’s of 20th century. The novel was released in 1925 but was accepted with mixed feelings at first and sold quite poorly. Throughout the entire life of the author, the novel did not get the proper accreditation he wanted and considered it a failure. However after his death, “The Great Gatsby” became really successful, especially during World War II, and is considered “America’s Greatest Novel”. It won many reputable awards and several movie adaptations were made, with the latest one from 2013, starring Leonardo DiCaprio. F. Scott Fitzgerald is an American writer, leaving his name in the history of literature with the novel “The Great Gatsby”. He came from upper-middle
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Scott Fitzgerald presents through the characters of Jay, Tom and Daisy the elusive phrase “The American dream” (Bewley, “Scott Fitzgerald’s criticism of America”). In it American people should ideally find happiness by wealth and materialistically satisfying their needs – a house, a car, and a family. In “The Great Gatsby” the theory of the American dream truly is shown as a torment between a golden past and a golden future by an empty present. Gatsby dreams about his past days of happiness and imagines such in a bright future. His pursuit, though occurs in a desolate time where nothing really changes. The novel somehow tries to draw the line between reality and illusions. On the one side the illusions are Tom and Daisy, and their imaginary world that want to take over the reality. Where on the other side, Gatsby is representing the opposition to those illusions in a form of a promise rather than a possession of something, a striving. In the end of the novel we see that the illusions keep existing on, finding happiness in some other place, while the reality dies and becomes forgotten. Tom and Daisy are destructive elements of the American world as their happiness foreshadows the inability of others to reach the American dream in the present. And people like Gatsby are only left with remembering the American dream living in the past and in a never existing
Scott Fitzgerald presents through the characters of Jay, Tom and Daisy the elusive phrase “The American dream” (Bewley, “Scott Fitzgerald’s criticism of America”). In it American people should ideally find happiness by wealth and materialistically satisfying their needs – a house, a car, and a family. In “The Great Gatsby” the theory of the American dream truly is shown as a torment between a golden past and a golden future by an empty present. Gatsby dreams about his past days of happiness and imagines such in a bright future. His pursuit, though occurs in a desolate time where nothing really changes. The novel somehow tries to draw the line between reality and illusions. On the one side the illusions are Tom and Daisy, and their imaginary world that want to take over the reality. Where on the other side, Gatsby is representing the opposition to those illusions in a form of a promise rather than a possession of something, a striving. In the end of the novel we see that the illusions keep existing on, finding happiness in some other place, while the reality dies and becomes forgotten. Tom and Daisy are destructive elements of the American world as their happiness foreshadows the inability of others to reach the American dream in the present. And people like Gatsby are only left with remembering the American dream living in the past and in a never existing