Francis Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby literary anlysis

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940)

From The Great Gatsby (1925) chapter III

This text is an extract from The Great Gatsby, which is a satire written by Francis Scott Fitzgerald in 1925, so just after the first World War. Francis Scott Fitzgerald with Ernest Hemingway was one of the best known members of “The Lost Generation” which was constituted of American writers who were disillusioned with American society after the first World War. This period is called the Roaring Twenties or the Jazz Age and is associated with affluence, consumption and prosperity. At the time, America was considered as the land of opportunities. The plot of the story is about Jay Gatsby’s identity and the achievement of the American Dream and also as we can see at the end of the book its failure.

The book is constituted of nine chapters and this extract is situated at the beginning of the third chapter. The scene takes place in Gatsby’s house. The narrator, Nick Carraway, who is Gatsby’s neighbor is invited for the first time in one of his parties and describes it. Nevertheless he has not met him yet but this meeting will take place later in this chapter.

. . .

View the whole essay, without interruption

Moreover, the car was also a symbol of freedom, glamour, wealth and social statue which is in fact all what Gatsby embodies. This device makes the story more lively and agitated. His affluence is also underlined by the repetition of the determinant “his” for example in line 2 “in his blue gardens”, line 4 “his guests” and “his raft”, line 5 “his beach” and “his two-motor boats” and so on. The first device is the iterative aspect. She is a golf player and has lost her last tournament. mode and tone

This extract is a fiction written in prose since it reports information to the reader. Indeed when Nick Carraway is searching for him line 80, nobody knows him or knows who he is “As soon as I arrived I made an attempt to find my host, but the two or three people of whom I asked his whereabouts stared at me in such an amazed way, and denied so vehemently any knowledge of his movements.

There is also a consonance line 44 with “laughter is easier” and an assonance in /u:/ line 1 “neighbour’s house through” and there is an isocolon line 32-33 “a whole pitful of oboes and trombones and viols and cornets and piccolos, and low and high drums”. Indeed the tone used is very light, amused and subjective. At first, the house and what is happening in the house is described from Nick Carraway’s house.

Then Gatsby’s wealth is also underlined by the several means of transportation, for example line 5 “two motor boats”, line 7 “his Rolls-Royce became an omnibus”, line 9 “station wagon”, line 10 “all trains”. She, with the other girls, is also the symbol of the emancipated woman of the Roaring Twenties. As far as the narrator is concerned, he is describing Gatsby’s parties with admiration and a kind of fascination by using very positive adjectives such as line 24 “glistening”. Indeed her thoughts and feelings are not expressed.

Approximate Word count = 2482
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page double spaced)

Simply subscribe to view this paper, and 100,000 others.