THE GREAT GATSBY

The story reflects the early period of 19. Century after

world war 1. It shows us how American society lost itself
in the era of rise of materialism.
Gatsby:
He is established as a dreamer who is charming, gracious
and a bit mysterious. He has an extraordinary life style
which mesmerizes everyone around the city. In fact; he
comes from a poor family but he acts like he is from high
class. After meeting Daisy, we realize that everything he
did in his life is for the single purpose of winning Daisy
back. He lives in a castle in which he organises wild
parties on attempting to impress Daisy. By being so
focused on his dream of Daisy, Gatsby moves further and
further into a fantasy world. His unability to deal with the
reality sets him outside the norm and eventualy, holding
on dreams leads him to his death. There are many
corrupted aspects in daisys character but gatsby is not
aware of them.
To get daisys approval, he has to prove his ideal self, his
trustworthness. Because daisy is the golden girl of his
dreams. He is so influenced by daisys life so he cannot
realize the real face of daisy.
Daisy:
She is merely a selfish, shallow and in fact, hurtful
woman. At the beginning she is like an angel on earth but
as the story continues more of Daisy is revealed. She
becomes less of an ideal. In real life Daisy isnt all the way
Gatsby remembers but he is blinded by his dream about
daisy. She is acting as if she were happy when she is with
Tom but she complains about her problems when she is
with friends. She accepts her husbands betrayal. She
chooses Tom because Tom is an ideal wealthy-born
husband. Daisry is symbolised the identity of what gatsby
aims to reach in society. Although daisy seems to found
love in her reunion with gatsby, closer examination reveals

that this is not all the case. Having an affair with gatsby
would motivate her as she knows that Tom had many
affairs and she is affected by gatsbys wealth she also
abandons gatsby in his funeral. Daisy is reflected as a
mean character in many parts of the novel. We cannot
perceive her as a strong woman. She has an associagion
with materialism. There is purity, innocence in her body
but she cannot resist on wealthy and luxurious life. She is
in the role of unhappy woman. But when she is with tom
she seems like an happy wife.
Tom:
He has a great deal of money, he was seen as a hero when
he was in collague. He always got what he wanted. He has
a job a child a wife and a good place in the society. He has
everything which gatsby aims to get. Tom is a kind of man
who is bored in his own life. He seeks new excitement. He
cheats on his wife daisy. This is a refreshment for him.
Myrtle:
She belongs to a lower class, the working class. She makes
use of tom because of his social class. In their relationship
she looks like an expert on spendjng toms money. She
tries to jmitate daisy in personality, gestures and
appearance. She tries to replace her. She tries to change by
using tom.
Nick Carraway
The novels narrator. But he is not the protagonist or the
msin character. He is the only character who changes
substantially from the storys beginning to the end. Nick,
although he initially seems loke he is outside the action, he
slowly moves to ghe forefront, he becomes an important
vehicle to the messages of the novel. He has the
personality which other characters do not have. His sense
of right and wrong helps him to elevate above the others.
Throughout the story, nick grows from a man dreaming of
fortune to a man who knows well misery of fortune is all
about.

He is the moral center of the book. He is the illuminator of

the book. Everything is given from his perspective and his
understanding. At first he criticises gatsby but later on he
shows gatsby as a good and superior man. It shows that
nick is a man of contradictions. We cannot be sure about
his narration and we should be careful while reading the
story. About the form of novel, its very significant that the
novel is written as a retrospect. He narrates the story 2
years after the events. He tries to give an objective gaze
and tries to seperate himself from other characters. Thats
why he tells the story 2 years later. He belongs to the
luxury class but there is something different in his identity.
He is wealthy but he wants to stand on his own feet and he
doesnt want to make use of his familys money. This is a
rejection of identity. He seperates himself from his past.
He rejects customs, traditions of his own family. He
ecperiances war maybe this has shaped his perception and
his attitute towards life. He doesnt want to use money like
gatsby, he wants to establish his own business. Although
noone is aware of corrupted aspects of their lifex, nick
perceives the reality. He is aware of everything. Nick
realizes that daisy is not a person that he suppose. since
Her voice is full of money and he destroys men arohnd
her, he seperates himself from daisy.
Eckleburg. The eyes:
e eyes represent the eyes of God....the faded point of eyes
can be seen as symbolizing the extent to which humanity
has lost its connection to God....After the world war 1
people adored money and wealth. Traditions, moral value,
convrntion were lost.There is a capitalist society, the
sipiritual values are lost. People lose their links with
religion and god. The advertisement considered as god
means that money takes place in everything. Even god is
in a capitalist society. The eyes symbolizes the world in
which humanity has lost their connection with god. It is
related to the death of god. And also death of religion,
corruptio of ths society. It symbolizes the corrupted side

of american dream. Eckleburg wears glasses on the

advertisement. He looks like a person who has problem
with his sight. So it implies that god is not on the first
place. He is not the greatest anymore. Its a symbolic
blindness. God doesnt care about people anymore.
Humiliatio of god.
Green Breast:
When we think about american dream in general, when
people first landed, they had a dream of a fresh start. Their
aim was to manipulate those lands. Green breast refers to
new world, new beginnings. Breast is where humanbeings
are first fed. Green is the color of refreshment. But green
is not the natural color of a breast. When something is
corrupted it turns into green. So the sources of
nourishment, the breast is corrupted and as a result, it is
green. It means that the new world does not satisfy and
nourish its children. It takes us to destruction of
society.people corrupted the land.
Pool:
We can perceive tne pool as presenting the ocean. Ocean is
uncontrolled. Gatsby died in a uncontolled society and he
tried to fill a place in the society, bit he could not survive.
When we look at the pool, representative ocean, we can
see the uncontrolable aspect. Gatsby is victimized by the
uncontrolable genteel society. The pool is in a shape of
circle. A circle has no beginning or ending or progress.
You always turn back to where you start. All the attempts
are useless. It also might imply that gatsby and his efforts
has no end. Many others can carry this endless cycle to the
other generations.
The red leaves in the pool take us to the end. The color of
the leaves turns into red. It symbolizes the end of the
summer and dreams and also the end of gatsbys american
dream, his romanticism and his idealism.
Daisy and Gatsby dilemma
Gatsbys success and wealth story makes him an

embodiment of american dream. After meeting daisy,

everything he did was for the single purpose of winning
daisy back. While working hard gatsby experiances a kind
of dilemma within himself. He wants to erase his past, he
rejects his family and he creates unreal stories about his
past. But at the same time, he is trying to go back to those
peaceful days with daisy. He always dreams about it even
though he is wealthy and rich man that he has never been
before. But when it comes to daist he cannot resist. He
wants to fix everythkng about his lost love and this is very
dilemmatic. It takes us to the romantic aspect of gatsby.
But that romantic aspect cannot live within a materialist
society. Romantic ideals cannot survive in that society and
therefore gatsby has to die at the end.
Daisy acts like she is happy when she is with his husband
but she complains about her problems shen she is with
friends. She accepts her husbands betrayal and many
more. Even after years she finds her lost love gatsby, she
cannot take risk to leave the wealthy life that her natural
rich husband provides for her because she finds out that
the sources of gatsbys money is unknown. It is not from
his family unlike Tom.
And even she loves gatsby, she cannot even confess that
she cannot forget him after years. She is stuck between
what her husband provides for her and gatsby.
Ideal self and real self (platonic concept of gatsby)
Getsby isnt real. Its constructed. Gats is the real one. Real
self wants to become ideal self, perfect existance of
cultivating himself. Gats becomes gatsby, constructed and
mythical self. Gatsby has no place in that society since He
has no past or wealth.
There was tendency to consuming everything and this is
reflected to the lifestyle. Besides this consuming attitute
they were consuming their traditions as well. We see that
there is a kind of transformation, a change in the american
lifestyle. There is also a distinction between fact and
fiction. Gatsbys fictional background story is the exact

sample of ideal self. He tries to change everything about

him to impress daisy. But the reality is opposite of what he
shows to daisy.
When we look at the house of gatsby, it is constructed in
the imitation of a lifestyle. He uses his house to show off.
It also shows us that gatsby character is not real, its an
imitation.
He creates an ideal self which takes us to the platonic
conception of ideal existance. According to plato, there is
an ideal existence and there is also an imperfect reflectio
of that ideal existence. Gatsby just creates an ideal
existence both for himself and daisy. To get daisys
approval, he should prove his ideal identity. And he is so
influenced by daisys lifestyle that he cannot even realizes
her real face.
Class changing is so strong desire that we can observe it in
gatsby, myrtle. Although gatsby has much money, he
cannot rePlace tom. And when we look at tom, he is rich
and ideal husband but he is not satisfied. He pretends to be
bappy but he seeks refreshment, new excitement. He
cheats on daisy with myrtle. It shows that he disguises
himself behind his ideal self.
Money defines the structure of the society so people try to
change their status with the help of money.so its normal
for myrtle to imitate daisy.she tries to behave herself by
her relationship with tom. She tries to be like daisy
because this is what society forces people to do, be the
ideal, not yourself. When we look at daisy, she complains
about her problems with her husband when she is sigh
friends but she acts like she is happy with her marriage
because she is not brave enough to run away with gatsby.
She shows herself unhappy in the society but in fact she is
in the comfort zone of possesion. She is just a role
player.she cannot live the life she wants to. She obeys her
husband. She always pretends like she is happy.
Coming to jordan, she is an independent woman. She

seperates herself from the other dependent female

characters. But at the beginning of the novel she is
reflected just like daisy, ready to manipulate men. She is
also champion. She has a sportive side. But there is a trick
in her championship.she is not a real champion. This takes
us to the another perspective of identity, because sport is
significant occupation aming the society. She is a
represemtative character. We can say that she manipulates
the expectation of the society. She is an another archetype
of female character.
:.....American Society, american dream, corruption and
consuming....
There was a tendency to consume everything and this is
reflected to the lifestyle. Besides this they were also
consuming their traditions. So we see that there was a kind
of transformation, a change in american lifestyle. Also
there is a lack of spirituak dimension. When there is a lack
of morality in the society, we see that other values replace
the spiritual values. For example, people no more believe
in god. They lost their faith.american society became a
money structured society. Money shaped their socioeconomic positions within society. We can call it the
consumer tendency of human nature. The society which
lost all its values, traditions can be seen as a result of
making a great deal of alcochol. Because of using too
much alcochol, there was loss of values, immorality and as
a result it was decided that buying and selling alcochol
was restricted or prohibited in most of the states. But this
could not put an end to this situation an as a result,
smuggling started in the country. Illegal actions began,
manh gangsterx appared. These gangsters were cekebrated
as heroes in the society. This is an another reflection of
american society.
Jazz music is an another version of modernist
understanding. We can easily see the significant influence
of jazz music and it shaped a general aura. We observe
innovations in the nature of jazz music.

When we look at the period of industrialization in america,

we also perceive that automobiles, aeroplanes and many
tools were there to be used. This may seem like a lifestyle
but in fact were losing cintact and values in their life.
There is a distinction between reality and imagination,
fact and fiction. We see that there is a class conciousness
within the characters. There are different classes within the
society and characters should be paid according to their
status. Money defines the sutructure of the society so
people try to change their status.

Romantic novel
Looking to the novel the society of that era is criticised.
The life style of gatsby, the buchanans are criticised. The
intention of the writer is to criticise. Besides this we also
perceive that there are romantic implicatikns witnin the
novel. When we look at gatsby, we see that he has a
romantic idendity as he does not live in reality. He creates
a world of illusion for fimself and he believes it. This can
be seen as a romantic aspect of the novel. And this novel
can be seen as romance.
EAST AND WEST DISTINCIONS geographical
seperations
Wesrern area takes us to the very first peopld who came
there to make fortune. But also there was an innocent
understsnding of those western people. It was told that
west was not corrupted people were considered as close to
nature.
East was associated with industrialization. It was the urban
center. Within the urban centers we can talk about
disintegration of people and values. As a result we can see
the decline of values. West was more close to its past
history and values whereas east was seperated from its
traditions and history. This is what seperates these two
areas. There is west egg and east egg distinction. The

vision if western and eastern parts of america can be seen

in this urban center. Nick and gatsby live in the west egg
whereas the buchanans love in east egg. The division