Extra Credit Lit Analysis

The Great Gatsby

 

1.The Great Gatsby is focused around Nick Carraway, a young man from Minnesota, who moves to New York in the summer of 1922. He finds himself in West Egg, an area that is populated by the rich. Nick Carraway's neighbor is Jay Gatsby, a rich, highly mysterious man, who throws lavish over the top parties every weekend. Nick gets invited to one of Gatsby's parties, and through Nick's newfound love interest, Jordan, Nick is able to learn a bit about Gatsby. He founds out Gatsby is madly in love with a woman named Daisy, who he has not spoken to in years. Daisy happens to be Nick's cousin and married to a man name Tom. Regardless of this marriage, Gatsby and Daisy start a love affair. Things turn awry when Tom confronts Gatsby. This confrontation leads to a distressed Daisy taking Gatsby's car and driving off. In the midst of all this chaos Daisy ends up hitting and killing a woman named Myrtle. Myrtle's husband thinking Gatsby was driving the car ends up shooting Gatsby and killing him. Nick throws a funeral for Gatsby where there is little attendance. Nick then ends up cutting off all relationships he has in West Egg and returns to the Midwest.

 

2. The theme of the novel The Great Gatsby the destruction of the American Dream. These characters were after wealth rather than happiness. Being so consumed by money and social status eventually led to the corruption of the true American Dream. This corruption not only destroyed the American Dream, but also destroyed relationships, like that of Gatsby and Daisy.

 

3. The author's tone in The Great Gatsby is cynical.

-"This was untrue. I am not even faintly like a rose."

-"They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made..."

-"I shook hands with him; it seemed silly not to, for I felt suddenly as though I were talking to a child."

 

4. The author used similes, imagery, symbolism, allusion, and foreshadowing in order to convey the theme and tone.

Simile: Similes occur regularly throughout this novel

-"In his blue garden men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars."

Imagery: The author is very detailed when describing the world that Nick has entered.

An example of imagery is the constant use of the color green throughout the novel

Symbolism: The green light at Daisy's house represented the unattainable for Gatsby

-"A single green light, minute and faraway, that might have been the end of a dock..."

Allusion: There are numerous references throughout the entire work to literature, such as the John L Stoddard Lectures, and Hopalong Cassidy.

Foreshadowing: Throughout the entire novel the author foreshadows the demise of Gatsby

-"He snatched the book from me and placed it hastily on its shelf muttering that if one brick was removed the whole library was liable to collapse.”