The Great Gatsby, a novel of the past
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a novel written in the past. The characters chase visions of the future that are determined by their past, which leads them to tragedy. The protagonist, Jay Gatsby, has dedicated his entire life to recapturing the perfect past with his soul mate, Daisy. Even though he believes that recreating the past is his life's goal, this leaves a tragic, heart-breaking, and disastrous ending to the novel. When Nick Carraway, the narrator, tells Gatsby that you can't repeat the past,
Gatsby replies, "Why of course you can! " this is because when he has a month of fun love with Daisy, he thinks that that can compete with the years and experiences she has shared with Tom, which was proven wrong when she admits she is also still has feelings for Tom. The effect of the exclamation mark shows the emotional outburst he has and exaggerates his excitement to win back Daisy, as it is his version of the American Dream. Gatsbys mansion is a physical symbol of his love for Daisy, he is certain that money can reconstruct his history with her.
Gatsby uses his "new money' to create a home that he thought equalled houses of "old money', which is ironic as the segregation between societies is what had taken her away from him originally. The novel is told in a linear fashion but not in chronological order, it includes many flashbacks and moments in time. Even though there is a lack of faith whether the narrator is reliable or trustworthy, it adds realism as the reader's life is also not in chronological order.
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The reason for this is because Fitzgerald uses an impressionistic arrative technique, where Nick tries to make sense of the events in the story and comments on them, which mirrors the same way we do as readers. He focuses on the past as he has in fear of the future without Gatsby. There are hints and accusations that Nick is homosexual and in love with him. Greg Olear, in an article on The Weeklings, highlights that his description of Jordan Baker in Chapter One "could be a description of a man" and "the word 'small breasted' which de-emphasizes the golfer's feminine attributes.
This could explain why he fixates on the past and idealises it. Technology plays a big role in the novel in ending huge opportunities and futures, especially with Tom's marriage and love affair. The tension created in the novel when his house phone rings is vast as even though we are not told who is calling, the reader knows it is Tom's lover. This may be the reason that Daisy feels obliged to have an affair as she is rebelling against Tom. Another example of technology is Gatsbys yellow car which kills Myrtle.
The description of her death is xtremely vivid to create an image in the reader's brain, "her left breast was swinging loose like a flap. " The significance of the symbol of her "left breast" is femininity and motherhood. It is being ripped off her body as she dies; translating that her femininity led to her death or that it had been taken away from her because of her lower class birth. The Lost Generation involves a group of writers, including Fitzgerald, who during the First World War and the Great Depression moved to France, Paris, for its inexpensive cost of living.
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