"The Great Gatsby" Essay

Essay by tunzy44High School, 11th gradeA-, May 2006

download word file, 6 pages 3.0

F .Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" is a story of a group of "friends" who live on two separate islands in Long Island, New York. The main characters are, Nick Carraway who is also the narrator, Jay Gatsby, Tom Buchanan, Daisy Buchanan, Jordan Baker, and Myrtle Wilson. The story takes place in the 1920's in Long Island, New York as well as New York City. It is said to be "an exclusive literary group of fictional masterworks forming the American literary collection, which define... the American myth of identity and experience." It is also said by Professor Daniel S .Burt that this is a novel that is based on a "series of lies." The Great Gatsby is both a great American piece of literature and a series of detailed lies. The American experience is about the "American Dream." Which is how you are perceived by your peers, therefore you can achieve the American experience while stringing together a group of lies.

F Scott Fitzgerald does this while telling a story of a group of people whose live were so involved with one another that it put them all against each other driving them to do some very outrageous things.

Jay Gatsby or James Gatz as he used to be known is a prime example of someone in the novel who is "living the American dream" although he is living a lie. On page 69 he says to Nick "I am the son of some wealthy people in the mid-west-all dead now.....educated at Oxford because all of my ancestors have been educated there. It is a family tradition." Although when Gatsby was asked later by Nick on page 70 where in the mid-west he was from Gatsby replied "San Francisco." This is one instance in the novel where Gatsby, who...