I want to introduce you to, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The book is set in the “Roaring Twenties” as it takes place in the summer of 1922. It is the height of the jazz age as society is dissolves into the Great Depression. The protagonist is Jay Gatsby and narrated by Nick Carraway. The story is about jay’s love for a woman, Daisy Buchanan. And it is about Jay’ Gatsby’s will to achieve greatness as he perceives it. He is a driven by money and power. He was a man with a vision to succeed in life. As a child, Jay Gatsby grew up on a farm. He saw his parents as nothing but farmers.
Gatsby knew exactly what he didn’t want to be and that was like his parents. They were people who were content with who they were. Gatsby, on the other hand, was the exact opposite. He wanted to move on. Jay Gatsby wanted to be someone special, someone with prestige and someone definitely with money. Gatsby developed a self improvement plan to help him flourish as a young man. His plan detailed dumbbell exercises, studying electricity, practicing elocution and studying needed inventions. Even his parents knew he was driven. His father said: “Jimmy was bound to get ahead.
He always had some resolve like this or something. Do you notice what he’s got about improving his mind? He was always great for that”. The structured drive let Gatsby prevail in his endeavors. However, there are some things people just can’t get away from. James Gatsby desperately wanted to achieve success in life. However, it is difficult to flourish with a background like Gatsby’s. So to escape his past, he changed his name at the age of 17 from James Gats to Jay Gatsby. Nonetheless, changing his name only did so much for him. Gatsby ended up living a life of lies because of his hidden identity.
Nobody really knew Gatsby. So in the absence of people’s knowledge, they conjured up rumors. “One time he killed a man who found out he was a nephew of von Hindenburg and second to the devil”. The rising action is Gatsby is meeting the young lady named Daisy. Daisy was very beautiful and came from a wealthy background. Nonetheless, Daisy’s background was the one thing preventing them from marriage. Gatsby lacked the financial support to marry Daisy. He loved her with all his heart and desperately wanted to win her back. This was just another driving factor in the life of Jay Gatsby.
He wanted her more than anything in the world, even more than money. However, money was a necessity if he desired to marry daisy. The climax is Gatsby over a period of five years it takes him to obtain the wealth he needed to win back Daisy. He also wanted to put himself in a position where she could notice his fortunes without him forcing them upon her. So Gatsby purchased an exquisite house directly across the bay from Daisy’s. He would do anything to regain the love of Daisy, even use people. The falling action is Gatsby winning Daisy back, but not the way he intended. She had already been married and couldn’t get divorced.
So in the end, his goal was never completely reached. If only Gatsby could have been sure of this before he died. He could have died happy knowing that his dream had come true or that his dream was a thing in the past and was never again to be relived. This is not the book that I would have chosen for my book report by my Dad made me pick it because he read it when he was a freshman in high School. I hope that I can remember it as well as he does when I get older. It was a good book with a lot of symbolism that I really did not understand, I would recommend it as a book to read, and maybe I will rent the movie soon.
My favorite part is when Nick, Jordan, and Tom drive through the valley of ashes, however, they discover that Gatsby’s car has struck and killed Myrtle, Tom’s lover. They rush back to Long Island, where Nick learns from Gatsby that Daisy was driving the car when it struck Myrtle, but that Gatsby intends to take the blame. My least favorite part is when George, who has leapt to the conclusion that the driver of the car that killed Myrtle must have been her lover, finds Gatsby in the pool at his mansion and shoots him dead. He then fatally shoots himself.
