The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

“The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.”The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a classic American novel. The story is told by Nick as he shares his point on view of the people around him and of course, about the mystifying Gatsby. Gatsby, like the country, is young. Gatsby’s past mysterious, his stories don’t match up and the reasons he has done everything so far is unclear. Nick uncovers the truth, or at least what we think is the truth, of the man.I guess if you are reading this you want to know if it is a good book to read. Before I start discussing the novel and analyzing it, I will start by answering this. I have heard many people who have enjoyed this book, it is even being made into a movie but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.


The book is quite short and easy to follow most of the time. I say most because there were times that scenes skipped around too much and when Nick decided to tell things out of order, of course this made it sometimes confusing and I had to re read a few paragraphs. While the book is quite short the actual story was very slow and nothing much happened for the first 100 pages. Then, all of the sudden it seems that the genre almost changes and Gatsby turns into a bad man, mixed in with very bad business. (Spoilers!!) I wouldn’t have expected Gatsby to be murdered from the first part of the book. While, I find it good to have a turn of events in a story, this book was too inconsistent and just crossed the line; it was as if there were two writers instead of just Fitzgerald.

The sudden changes and the fact we didn’t know that Nick’s acquaintances were capable of illegal activity may have been because the story was told through Nick. Nick had been trying, subconsciously, to erase everything that was immoral, dishonest and “ unclean” from the story. Nick was in a way the tidier, he had an almost obsession/compulsion to clean up after everyone. We a first introduced to this when Nick is at Myrtle’s house and he feels inclined to clean Mr. McKee’s cheeks as Mr. McKee fell asleep. This is only a small gesture, and seemed almost insignificant at the start of the novel. However, this may have altered quite a deal of the story telling. People had tried to warn Nick of Gastby, however Nick quickly found a way to omit all of the stories and told us the history that Gatsby had given himself, to clear up any ‘misconceptions’ before he went on with the book. Nick knew that Gatsby was lying however he wanted to believe it because he didn’t like knowing that someone was lying all the time, it was his way of cleaning up Gatsby for the readers. Nick even wrote of Daisy and Gatsby’s novel as romantic and poetic however we later find out through Gatsby’s own story telling that at the beginning he was rough and didn’t even want to love her, he lied to her and thought he was just having fun. The problem is that we don’t know how much of the story has been omitted by Nick so that the story seems neater.

The Great Gatsby is a novel on the American dream. However, instead of fantasizing and creating a good image of the dream, Fitzgerald is critical of it. The dream is deemed as something that just brings down society. Instead of bringing up ambitious people, it creates greed hungry men who focus on what they don’t have yet and do everything and anything to climb the social and economical ladder. Nick is quite a moral character and dislikes Gatsby. Gatsby is quite the opposite of Nick, he only cares about money and showing. Gatsby also has very low morals, as shown by the fact that his money came from illegal trades and business, such as selling over the counter alcohol. Nick is very critical of this post war American upper class that seems so superficial and immoral. They may say they have succeeded in the “American dream” but how have they reached it? Are they any better off than before? They have money and the house/clothes/cars to show this but are they any happier? Gatsby’s parties were often described as boring (when people were sober) and everyone was arguing with their spouses. Gatsby reached made his fortune illegally and yet he was never happy, he never got what he truly wanted, Daisy. In Gatsby’s funeral nearly no one went, only one of the guests that used to attend Gatsby’s party actually went.

This book also focuses on reminiscing about the past and dreams that have never come true. Sometimes things are better in our heads and thoughts than they actually are. Gatsby never joined his parties, he stood to the side and watched everyone. Nick himself did this too. He used to say he followed girls in the streets and imagined a romance with them, but he never actually talked to any of them. However, one thing Gatsby doesn’t understand is that we can’t ever relive the past. No matter how much we try to simulate the events, we can never get back what we had. We must live in the present and enjoy the things that come to us and they are here. I think a quote that sums this up is one by Heraclitus, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.”  Gatsby doesn’t understand this and does everything to get back Daisy and to get back exactly the same love. However, she is already married and has lived many years without him. Although she still loves him, Daisy cannot give up everything to go back to how things were. Gatsby had imagined their reunion for so long that he had made it bigger than life, he believed that everything would be good as long as they met and they would return to how they left things off.

Although, my blog post is so long I still wouldn’t recommend it to someone. I guess it would be good to read in class or to use as an example in essays. But even so I find that the book didn’t do much for me. Most of what I wrote came from an introduction (I read the book as published by Penguin) Tony Tanner from 1990. It his introduction that I really am recommending not the actual book.