The Great Gatsby Essay
Content
Petru Maior University of Târgu Mureş
Faculty of Sciences and Letters
British and American Cultural Studies. Intercultural perspective. MA
IDEOLOGIES AND CULTURAL MOVEMENTS IN BRITISH AND AMERICAN ART
Modernism: The NEW Individual and the Avant-Garde World: towards encrypting
typologies of the SELF
American Identities: Case Study
Identities in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Lecturer: Nicolae Cristina
Student: Dosa Zsuzsanna
SAAPIC, I
2014
Modernism was the most influential literary movement in the first half of the
twentieth century across England and America. Among major works written in this
period we can mention The Waste Land (1922), by T. S. Eliot, Ulysses (1922), by
James Joyce, and The Great Gatsby (1925), by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Representing an
unequivocal rejection of Victorian aesthetic standards, moral precepts, and literary
techniques, Modernism was initiated during the opening decade of the century, a time
of extensive experimentation in the arts. Writers of the movement embraced the
psychological theories of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung and the anthropological
relativism espoused by Sir James Frazer, and in their works the Modernists
emphasized the psychological state of a character through the use of such devices as
the interior monologue, or stream-of-consciousness narrative. In the world of art,
generally speaking, Modernism was the beginning of the distinction between ―high‖
art and ―low‖ art. In American Literature, the group of writers and thinkers known as
the Lost Generation has become synonymous with Modernism. In the wake of the
First World War, several American artists chose to live abroad as they pursued their
creative impulses. These included the intellectual Gertrude Stein, the novelists Ernest
Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, and the painter Waldo Pierce, among others. The
term itself refers to the spiritual and existential hangover left by four years of
unimaginably destructive warfare. The artists of the Lost Generation struggled to find
some meaning in the world in the wake of chaos. As with much of Modernist
literature, this was achieved by turning the mind‘s eye inward and attempting to record
the workings of consciousness. New technology and the horrifying events of both
World Wars (but specifically World War I) made many people question the future of
humanity: What was becoming of the world? Writers reacted to this question by
turning toward Modernist sentiments. Gone was the Romantic period that focused on
nature and being. Modernist fiction spoke of the inner self and consciousness. Instead
of progress, the Modernist writer saw a decline of civilization. Instead of new
technology, the Modernist writer saw cold machinery and increased capitalism, which
alienated the individual and led to loneliness. Throughout the modernist time period,
people tried to establish identity, whether it be individual or national identities. The
struggles that mirror the struggle for identity are the women‘s rights movements and
the animosity between whites and minorities. A modernist text that best emphasizes
this issue is F. Scott Fitzgerald‘s novel, The Great Gatsby.
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was
an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigmatic
writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined. He is widely regarded as one of the
greatest American writers of the 20th century. The Great Gatsby and Fitzgerald's
characters Daisy and Tom Buchanan, Myrtle, Jay Gatsby, and Nick Carraway
epitomise the Jazz Age but is has also remained timeless in its examination of man's
obsessions with and need for money, power, knowledge, and hope.
Seeking a change of scenery to spark his creativity, in 1924, Fitzgerald moved to
France, and it was there, in Valescure, that Fitzgerald wrote what would be credited as
his greatest novel, The Great Gatsby. Published in 1925, The Great Gatsby is narrated
by Nick Carraway, a Midwesterner who moves into the town of West Egg on Long
Island, next door to a mansion owned by the wealthy and mysterious Jay Gatsby. The
novel follows Nick and Gatsby's strange friendship and Gatsby's pursuit of a married
woman named Daisy, ultimately leading to his exposure as a bootlegger and his death.
With its beautiful lyricism, pitch-perfect portrayal of the Jazz Age and searching
critiques of materialism, love and the American Dream, The Great Gatsby is
considered Fitzgerald's finest work. Although the book was well-received when it was
published, it was not until the 1950s and '60s, long after Fitzgerald's death, that it
achieved its stature as the definitive portrait of the "Roaring Twenties," as well as one
of the greatest American novels ever written.
The story begins with Nick Carraway, a young man from Minnesota, who
moves to New York in the summer of 1922. He rents a house in the West Egg district,
an area populated by the new rich. Nick‘s next door neighbour is the mysterious Jay
Gatsby, who throws extravagant parties every Saturday night. Nick is not like the
other inhabitants of the area; he has education and social connections in East Egg.
Nick is acquainted with Jordan Baker, a professional golf player, by his cousin Daisy
and her husband Tom Buchanan and falls in love with her. He also learns some facts
about his cousin‘s marriage: Tom is having an affair with Myrtle, George Wilson‘s
wife. Not long after this, Nick travels to New York with Tom and Myrtle, where
Myrtle taunts Tom about his marriage and ends up with a broken nose. As time passes
Nick receives an invitation from Gatsby to attend one of his gigantic parties. Here he
meets Gatsby and learns more about him from Jordan. Gatsby knows Daisy since 1917
and he is deeply in love with her. These extravagant parties are meant to impress
Daisy. Gatsby wants Nick to organise a reunion with Daisy but he is afraid that she
will refuse if she knows that he is still in love with her. Nick invites Daisy for a tea at
his house without mentioning that Gatsby is going to be there too. The two re-establish
the connection and begin an affair. After a short time, Tom grows suspicion of his
wife‘s relationship with Gatsby. At a lunch Tom realizes that Gatsby is in love with
her and confront him at the Plaza Hotel. Even though Tom himself is involved in an
extra-marital relationship, he is outraged by the thought that his wife is unfaithful to
him. He confesses to Daisy that Gatsby is a criminal – his assets are made of illegal
activities. Tom sends Daisy back to East Egg with Gatsby. When Nick, Jordan and
Tom are driving through the valley of ashes they discover that Gatsby‘s car has struck
and killed Myrtle, Tom‘s lover. They rush back to Long Island, where Nick finds out
that Daisy was the driver, but Gatsby intends on taking the blame. The next day, Tom
tells George that Gatsby was the driver. George makes a connection and thinks that
Gatsby was her lover and shoots him dead in his mansion‘s swimming pool then
commits suicide. Nick arranges a small funeral for Gatsby, few of his former friends
attend then moves back to the Midwest to escape the disgust he feels for these people
and for the emptiness and the moral decay of life. Nick reflects that just as Gatsby‘s
dream of Daisy was corrupted and dishonest so is the American Dream – disintegrated
in the mere pursuit of wealth.
A Marxist approach to The Great Gatsby might be concerned with the
representations of social class, and the ways in which power and wealth are attained
and retained by the characters. Looking at the novel as a whole, it is seen to depict
mostly the very wealthy members of society, who do not work and spend much of
their time at leisure, for instance Tom, Daisy and Gatsby. There are some minor
characters who are less wealthy, and a smaller number of servants and workers who
are glimpsed working in the novel. Tom and Daisy never work, and Tom is said to be
extraordinarily rich. He was a footballer, but having retired from this at a very young
age, is now ‗restless‘ and diverts himself with acquiring commodities, reading racist
texts and his many affairs.
Nick is one of the less wealthy characters, and works in the stock exchange, but is still
financially secure as his family is economically stable enough to support him in his
work. Nick‘s occupation as a ‗bond man‘ is never described in detail; it involves
trading in debt, which was a growing aspect of the economy, enabling the boom in
consumer spending which supported the growth in manufacture. This was a new type
of stock trading at the time and Nick has to learn about it himself.
Gatsby is introduced at the height of his power and success, and is associated purely
with pleasure and extravagantly expensive pursuits such as throwing parties, driving
luxury cars and going out in a hydroplane. However, we see hints of Gatsby‘s work, in
the secretive phone calls and references to gangster activity, and it becomes clear that
his wealth is based on criminality.
The American Dream is disintegrated when the darker aspects of the American
economy are embodied in the figures of Gatsby, Wolfsheim and the menacing,
shadowy voices of Slagle and other callers. Bootlegging, fixing sporting events and
cheating are clear examples of a social and economic system which is unfairly
organised to privilege some people over others. Gatsby also seems to use a network of
contacts in order to escape justice, as he presents a ‗white card‘ to the policeman when
caught speeding.
Socially aspirational, Gatsby hides his origins, concocting elaborate stories to pretend
he has a higher status. This highlights the distinctions made in American society
between ‗old money‘ (inherited wealth, based on a long family tradition of wealth) and
the ‗newly rich‘ such as Dan Cody and Gatsby (each becomes a millionaire in a short
space of time). Tom and Mr Sloane, in Chapter 6, clearly recognise the subtle social
distinction, while Gatsby does not, leaving him excluded from their supper party.
Nick‘s comments would require consideration in a Marxist reading of the text:
The truth was that Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from
his Platonic conception of himself. He was a son of God—a phrase
which, if it means anything, means just that—and he must be about His
Father‘s business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty.
So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year old boy
would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the
end. (p 46)
Though the parallel between Gatsby and Jesus is not an important motif in The Great
Gatsby, it is nonetheless a suggestive comparison, as Gatsby transforms himself into
the ideal that he envisioned for himself (a ―Platonic conception of himself‖) as a
youngster and remains committed to that ideal, despite the obstacles that society
presents to the fulfilment of his dream (public identity – Gatsby was perceived as a
man with great ambition often mysterious due to his acts). Such a blasphemous
claiming of Jesus‘ words from the New Testament in Luke (2:49 ‗Why were you
searching for me?' he asked. 'Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house?')
establish Gatsby as having great ambition, if not delusions of grandeur. The ‗business‘
appears, however, to be very worldly and ‗vulgar‘, a reference to the pursuit of money
– the total opposite of Christ‘s teaching in Luke 6:20-21: ‘20.Looking at his disciples,
he said: 'Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. 21.Blessed
are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for
you will laugh.‘
Fitzgerald was probably influenced in drawing this parallel by a nineteenth-century
book by Ernest Renan entitled The Life of Jesus. This book presents Jesus as a figure
who essentially decided to make himself the son of God, then brought himself to ruin
by refusing to recognize the reality that denied his self-conception. Renan describes a
Jesus who is ―faithful to his self-created dream but scornful of the factual truth that
finally crushes him and his dream‖—a very appropriate description of Gatsby.
Gatsby himself represents America, his dream the American Dream, and his
death the inevitable failure of that ideal; this can lead directly into a Marxist
exploration of the text, using the American Dream as a starting point for examining
the motivations and outcomes of each character. Nick expresses this in his use of
words such as ‗gorgeous‘, ‗thrilling‘ and ‗lovely‘. His description of Daisy‘s voice is a
very good example of this, and it is only revealed towards the end of the novel that her
voice is ‗full of money‘ and that this is the true source of her attractiveness. The
glamour of the novel exerts a powerful force to obscure the reality of this society, and
this must be attributed to the use of Nick as a narrator, a character who is morally
ambivalent to the extent that he is quite complicit in the cover-up surrounding the
deaths of Myrtle and Gatsby. Gatsby‘s thrive for Daisy can be illustrated through Jay
Z‘s song entitled American Dreaming which emphasizes the pursuit of love, crossing
all the boundaries a fate can hold:
Dreamed of you this morning
Then came the dawn, and I thought
you were here with me
If you could only see
How much I love you
That's all that's all that's all baby
Oh no, I'll never give up on you
I never felt that before
But there's always....
That's all that's all...
…
Oh no, I'll never give up on you
I never felt that before
It's just american dreamin'
Oh no, I'll never give up on you
I never felt that before
It's just american dreamin'
Oh no, I'll never give up on you
I never felt that before
American dreamin'
But there's always....
That's all that's all... (Jay Z, American Dreaming)
Jay Gatsby‘s parties in West Egg with East Eggers combine both ―old money‖ and
―new money‖ to expose a regional identity crisis as Gatsby does not identify himself
as a member of either Egg‘s. As for the question of national identity, the four locations
act as microcosms of nations themselves. The Eggs and New York City are revealed to
be beautiful on the outside, but moral disaster areas as one digs deeper (the image of
the extravagant parties Nick used to see from his house at Gatsby‘s mansion are put in
contrast with the small funeral that is organised for Gatsby at the end of the novel).
The novel on the whole critiques the state of all national identity, including that of the
United States. Most may have seemed successful at that time as they were recovering
from WWI, but deep down, they lacked significant moral values and social coherence.
Works cited
Calinescu Matei, Five Faces of Modernity. DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS DURHAM 1987
Fitzgerald F.Scott The Great Gatsby. The Macmillan Press LTD. 1992. Print.
Huskey Chase, The Identity Crisis of the Modernist Era. Web. ELF 2009 (Vol. 1)
Rudnick Lois P, Smith Judith E., Rubin Rachel Lee, American Identities: An
Introductory Textbook. Blackwell Publishing LTD. 2006. Print.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xaJb_hieJY – Jay Z, American Dream
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_c5AnDlJRw – scene with Jay and Daisy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reGrV8AamXg – scene with Nick and Jordan talking
about Jay
http://www.lexilogos.com/document/renan/life_jesus.htm
http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/
Faculty of Sciences and Letters
British and American Cultural Studies. Intercultural perspective. MA
IDEOLOGIES AND CULTURAL MOVEMENTS IN BRITISH AND AMERICAN ART
Modernism: The NEW Individual and the Avant-Garde World: towards encrypting
typologies of the SELF
American Identities: Case Study
Identities in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Lecturer: Nicolae Cristina
Student: Dosa Zsuzsanna
SAAPIC, I
2014
Modernism was the most influential literary movement in the first half of the
twentieth century across England and America. Among major works written in this
period we can mention The Waste Land (1922), by T. S. Eliot, Ulysses (1922), by
James Joyce, and The Great Gatsby (1925), by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Representing an
unequivocal rejection of Victorian aesthetic standards, moral precepts, and literary
techniques, Modernism was initiated during the opening decade of the century, a time
of extensive experimentation in the arts. Writers of the movement embraced the
psychological theories of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung and the anthropological
relativism espoused by Sir James Frazer, and in their works the Modernists
emphasized the psychological state of a character through the use of such devices as
the interior monologue, or stream-of-consciousness narrative. In the world of art,
generally speaking, Modernism was the beginning of the distinction between ―high‖
art and ―low‖ art. In American Literature, the group of writers and thinkers known as
the Lost Generation has become synonymous with Modernism. In the wake of the
First World War, several American artists chose to live abroad as they pursued their
creative impulses. These included the intellectual Gertrude Stein, the novelists Ernest
Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, and the painter Waldo Pierce, among others. The
term itself refers to the spiritual and existential hangover left by four years of
unimaginably destructive warfare. The artists of the Lost Generation struggled to find
some meaning in the world in the wake of chaos. As with much of Modernist
literature, this was achieved by turning the mind‘s eye inward and attempting to record
the workings of consciousness. New technology and the horrifying events of both
World Wars (but specifically World War I) made many people question the future of
humanity: What was becoming of the world? Writers reacted to this question by
turning toward Modernist sentiments. Gone was the Romantic period that focused on
nature and being. Modernist fiction spoke of the inner self and consciousness. Instead
of progress, the Modernist writer saw a decline of civilization. Instead of new
technology, the Modernist writer saw cold machinery and increased capitalism, which
alienated the individual and led to loneliness. Throughout the modernist time period,
people tried to establish identity, whether it be individual or national identities. The
struggles that mirror the struggle for identity are the women‘s rights movements and
the animosity between whites and minorities. A modernist text that best emphasizes
this issue is F. Scott Fitzgerald‘s novel, The Great Gatsby.
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was
an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigmatic
writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined. He is widely regarded as one of the
greatest American writers of the 20th century. The Great Gatsby and Fitzgerald's
characters Daisy and Tom Buchanan, Myrtle, Jay Gatsby, and Nick Carraway
epitomise the Jazz Age but is has also remained timeless in its examination of man's
obsessions with and need for money, power, knowledge, and hope.
Seeking a change of scenery to spark his creativity, in 1924, Fitzgerald moved to
France, and it was there, in Valescure, that Fitzgerald wrote what would be credited as
his greatest novel, The Great Gatsby. Published in 1925, The Great Gatsby is narrated
by Nick Carraway, a Midwesterner who moves into the town of West Egg on Long
Island, next door to a mansion owned by the wealthy and mysterious Jay Gatsby. The
novel follows Nick and Gatsby's strange friendship and Gatsby's pursuit of a married
woman named Daisy, ultimately leading to his exposure as a bootlegger and his death.
With its beautiful lyricism, pitch-perfect portrayal of the Jazz Age and searching
critiques of materialism, love and the American Dream, The Great Gatsby is
considered Fitzgerald's finest work. Although the book was well-received when it was
published, it was not until the 1950s and '60s, long after Fitzgerald's death, that it
achieved its stature as the definitive portrait of the "Roaring Twenties," as well as one
of the greatest American novels ever written.
The story begins with Nick Carraway, a young man from Minnesota, who
moves to New York in the summer of 1922. He rents a house in the West Egg district,
an area populated by the new rich. Nick‘s next door neighbour is the mysterious Jay
Gatsby, who throws extravagant parties every Saturday night. Nick is not like the
other inhabitants of the area; he has education and social connections in East Egg.
Nick is acquainted with Jordan Baker, a professional golf player, by his cousin Daisy
and her husband Tom Buchanan and falls in love with her. He also learns some facts
about his cousin‘s marriage: Tom is having an affair with Myrtle, George Wilson‘s
wife. Not long after this, Nick travels to New York with Tom and Myrtle, where
Myrtle taunts Tom about his marriage and ends up with a broken nose. As time passes
Nick receives an invitation from Gatsby to attend one of his gigantic parties. Here he
meets Gatsby and learns more about him from Jordan. Gatsby knows Daisy since 1917
and he is deeply in love with her. These extravagant parties are meant to impress
Daisy. Gatsby wants Nick to organise a reunion with Daisy but he is afraid that she
will refuse if she knows that he is still in love with her. Nick invites Daisy for a tea at
his house without mentioning that Gatsby is going to be there too. The two re-establish
the connection and begin an affair. After a short time, Tom grows suspicion of his
wife‘s relationship with Gatsby. At a lunch Tom realizes that Gatsby is in love with
her and confront him at the Plaza Hotel. Even though Tom himself is involved in an
extra-marital relationship, he is outraged by the thought that his wife is unfaithful to
him. He confesses to Daisy that Gatsby is a criminal – his assets are made of illegal
activities. Tom sends Daisy back to East Egg with Gatsby. When Nick, Jordan and
Tom are driving through the valley of ashes they discover that Gatsby‘s car has struck
and killed Myrtle, Tom‘s lover. They rush back to Long Island, where Nick finds out
that Daisy was the driver, but Gatsby intends on taking the blame. The next day, Tom
tells George that Gatsby was the driver. George makes a connection and thinks that
Gatsby was her lover and shoots him dead in his mansion‘s swimming pool then
commits suicide. Nick arranges a small funeral for Gatsby, few of his former friends
attend then moves back to the Midwest to escape the disgust he feels for these people
and for the emptiness and the moral decay of life. Nick reflects that just as Gatsby‘s
dream of Daisy was corrupted and dishonest so is the American Dream – disintegrated
in the mere pursuit of wealth.
A Marxist approach to The Great Gatsby might be concerned with the
representations of social class, and the ways in which power and wealth are attained
and retained by the characters. Looking at the novel as a whole, it is seen to depict
mostly the very wealthy members of society, who do not work and spend much of
their time at leisure, for instance Tom, Daisy and Gatsby. There are some minor
characters who are less wealthy, and a smaller number of servants and workers who
are glimpsed working in the novel. Tom and Daisy never work, and Tom is said to be
extraordinarily rich. He was a footballer, but having retired from this at a very young
age, is now ‗restless‘ and diverts himself with acquiring commodities, reading racist
texts and his many affairs.
Nick is one of the less wealthy characters, and works in the stock exchange, but is still
financially secure as his family is economically stable enough to support him in his
work. Nick‘s occupation as a ‗bond man‘ is never described in detail; it involves
trading in debt, which was a growing aspect of the economy, enabling the boom in
consumer spending which supported the growth in manufacture. This was a new type
of stock trading at the time and Nick has to learn about it himself.
Gatsby is introduced at the height of his power and success, and is associated purely
with pleasure and extravagantly expensive pursuits such as throwing parties, driving
luxury cars and going out in a hydroplane. However, we see hints of Gatsby‘s work, in
the secretive phone calls and references to gangster activity, and it becomes clear that
his wealth is based on criminality.
The American Dream is disintegrated when the darker aspects of the American
economy are embodied in the figures of Gatsby, Wolfsheim and the menacing,
shadowy voices of Slagle and other callers. Bootlegging, fixing sporting events and
cheating are clear examples of a social and economic system which is unfairly
organised to privilege some people over others. Gatsby also seems to use a network of
contacts in order to escape justice, as he presents a ‗white card‘ to the policeman when
caught speeding.
Socially aspirational, Gatsby hides his origins, concocting elaborate stories to pretend
he has a higher status. This highlights the distinctions made in American society
between ‗old money‘ (inherited wealth, based on a long family tradition of wealth) and
the ‗newly rich‘ such as Dan Cody and Gatsby (each becomes a millionaire in a short
space of time). Tom and Mr Sloane, in Chapter 6, clearly recognise the subtle social
distinction, while Gatsby does not, leaving him excluded from their supper party.
Nick‘s comments would require consideration in a Marxist reading of the text:
The truth was that Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from
his Platonic conception of himself. He was a son of God—a phrase
which, if it means anything, means just that—and he must be about His
Father‘s business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty.
So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year old boy
would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the
end. (p 46)
Though the parallel between Gatsby and Jesus is not an important motif in The Great
Gatsby, it is nonetheless a suggestive comparison, as Gatsby transforms himself into
the ideal that he envisioned for himself (a ―Platonic conception of himself‖) as a
youngster and remains committed to that ideal, despite the obstacles that society
presents to the fulfilment of his dream (public identity – Gatsby was perceived as a
man with great ambition often mysterious due to his acts). Such a blasphemous
claiming of Jesus‘ words from the New Testament in Luke (2:49 ‗Why were you
searching for me?' he asked. 'Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house?')
establish Gatsby as having great ambition, if not delusions of grandeur. The ‗business‘
appears, however, to be very worldly and ‗vulgar‘, a reference to the pursuit of money
– the total opposite of Christ‘s teaching in Luke 6:20-21: ‘20.Looking at his disciples,
he said: 'Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. 21.Blessed
are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for
you will laugh.‘
Fitzgerald was probably influenced in drawing this parallel by a nineteenth-century
book by Ernest Renan entitled The Life of Jesus. This book presents Jesus as a figure
who essentially decided to make himself the son of God, then brought himself to ruin
by refusing to recognize the reality that denied his self-conception. Renan describes a
Jesus who is ―faithful to his self-created dream but scornful of the factual truth that
finally crushes him and his dream‖—a very appropriate description of Gatsby.
Gatsby himself represents America, his dream the American Dream, and his
death the inevitable failure of that ideal; this can lead directly into a Marxist
exploration of the text, using the American Dream as a starting point for examining
the motivations and outcomes of each character. Nick expresses this in his use of
words such as ‗gorgeous‘, ‗thrilling‘ and ‗lovely‘. His description of Daisy‘s voice is a
very good example of this, and it is only revealed towards the end of the novel that her
voice is ‗full of money‘ and that this is the true source of her attractiveness. The
glamour of the novel exerts a powerful force to obscure the reality of this society, and
this must be attributed to the use of Nick as a narrator, a character who is morally
ambivalent to the extent that he is quite complicit in the cover-up surrounding the
deaths of Myrtle and Gatsby. Gatsby‘s thrive for Daisy can be illustrated through Jay
Z‘s song entitled American Dreaming which emphasizes the pursuit of love, crossing
all the boundaries a fate can hold:
Dreamed of you this morning
Then came the dawn, and I thought
you were here with me
If you could only see
How much I love you
That's all that's all that's all baby
Oh no, I'll never give up on you
I never felt that before
But there's always....
That's all that's all...
…
Oh no, I'll never give up on you
I never felt that before
It's just american dreamin'
Oh no, I'll never give up on you
I never felt that before
It's just american dreamin'
Oh no, I'll never give up on you
I never felt that before
American dreamin'
But there's always....
That's all that's all... (Jay Z, American Dreaming)
Jay Gatsby‘s parties in West Egg with East Eggers combine both ―old money‖ and
―new money‖ to expose a regional identity crisis as Gatsby does not identify himself
as a member of either Egg‘s. As for the question of national identity, the four locations
act as microcosms of nations themselves. The Eggs and New York City are revealed to
be beautiful on the outside, but moral disaster areas as one digs deeper (the image of
the extravagant parties Nick used to see from his house at Gatsby‘s mansion are put in
contrast with the small funeral that is organised for Gatsby at the end of the novel).
The novel on the whole critiques the state of all national identity, including that of the
United States. Most may have seemed successful at that time as they were recovering
from WWI, but deep down, they lacked significant moral values and social coherence.
Works cited
Calinescu Matei, Five Faces of Modernity. DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS DURHAM 1987
Fitzgerald F.Scott The Great Gatsby. The Macmillan Press LTD. 1992. Print.
Huskey Chase, The Identity Crisis of the Modernist Era. Web. ELF 2009 (Vol. 1)
Rudnick Lois P, Smith Judith E., Rubin Rachel Lee, American Identities: An
Introductory Textbook. Blackwell Publishing LTD. 2006. Print.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xaJb_hieJY – Jay Z, American Dream
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_c5AnDlJRw – scene with Jay and Daisy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reGrV8AamXg – scene with Nick and Jordan talking
about Jay
http://www.lexilogos.com/document/renan/life_jesus.htm
http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/
