The Great Gatsby
Publication Date: April 10, 1925
Publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons
Format: Paperback
Pages: 180
SUMMARY:
Take a journey back into the ever-jubilant era of the roaring 20's with Fitzgerald's acclaimed novel, The Great Gatsby. The mirage of wealth and luxury are exploited as Fitzgerald writes a tragic love story that counterbalances the freedom to hope and dream with the impending weight of reality. The Great Gatsby centers around the enterprising spirit of Jay Gatsby, as he pursues the giddy, yet frivolous, Daisy Bucannon. Narrated by the expressive Nick Carroway, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is a tale that reprimands the outcome of destruction with a constant vision of hope.
REVIEW:
My overall review for The Great Gatsby is three and a half stars out of five. I found Fitzgerald's novel to be breathtakingly beautiful in its finest moments, yet cynically imposing in others. The Great Gatsby is a classic piece of American literature that contains a crucially exquisite moral which deserves to be learned for generations to come.
WRITING STYLE:
F. Scott Fitzgerald's diction was, in short, beautiful. The prose used in the The Great Gatsby was the most cherished element, in my opinion. Fitzgerald does a beautiful job of creating atmospheric dispositions in his traumatic story line, along with cleverly intertwining each and every character's life's with each other. The words chosen in the composition of The Great Gatsby will be hauntingly remembered as the popularity of the novel continues to prosper for centuries to come.
CHARACTERS:
The carelessly free lifestyles of Fitzgerald's characters were an unexpected disadvantage in my reading experience. I found Daisy's flighty attitude towards her fellow peers to be incommodious. Her seemingly care-free attitude became increasingly disbelieving at certain times in the novel; as well as her selfishly inclined interest to herself. The character of Jay Gatsby created a mixture of emotions in my mind. Gatsby had a bounty of redeeming qualities in the novel; but his delusional grasp of reality was wonderfully frustrating. The disinterested personality of Jordan Baker was a disappointment. Jordan never fully captured my attention as a thought-provoking character, and transfigured into white noise as the novel prospered. The character of Nick Carroway connected with my mindset on a personal level. I appreciated Nick's abounding level of patience with his colleagues, as well as his confining attitude to those around him. Fitzgerald wrote Nick to be a very sensible character who acted as a loyal friend to those who needed him most; a characteristic I could attend to.
PLOT:
Fitzgerald wrote one of the most complicated plot lines in the history of literature. The reader experiences the heart-warming re-encounter between Daisy and Gatsby as the two rekindled their long lost love for each other; as well as the tragic conclusion to the novel's end. I felt that the plot was fairly well paced. All of the events succeeded each other nicely in a chronological fashion; giving the audience a careful glimpse into Gatsby's past and his present. The Great Gatsby consistently delivered a far-fetched dream of impossibility with the relentless longing for a re-created past.
SETTING:
The rich, innovative atmosphere of the 1920's was a refreshing characteristic to the novel. I thoroughly enjoyed reading a story line that took place in a century long before my own; and felt that Fitzgerald did a beautiful job of transpiring the wistful, dream-like exosphere of the 1920's into his novel.
CONCLUSION:
The Great Gatsby is a beautifully dangerous love story that calls into question the price of hope. Fitzgerald's tragedy is a classic that will surely be remembered for generations come. As The Great Gatsby continues to be taught over the course of many decades, countless readers will gaze upon the tragedy of Jay Gatsby; and call into question the prosperous reality of their American Dream.
