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Gatsby essay for Rocco's fat ass. (Click to select text)
The Greatest Modernist Writer After the death and destruction of World War One, people and the world had changed. People no longer conformed to the traditional ways but rebelled and sought out new idea and ways of doing things, this rebellion also flowed into literature. Authors stopped writing in the traditional fashions and because they were no longer restricted in their writings they began to write about new themes such as sex, inner city life, and real life problems. Also authors began to use uncertainty, disjointedness, and disillusionment in their stories as content in their stories to convey the feeling of the time. To break away from the typical way of writing, authors now omitted expositions, transitions, explanations, and resolutions, and thus the modernist era was born. Though out this era there were many great writers such as Hemingway, E.E. Cummings, and T.S. Elliot, but Fitzgerald was on of the best, (American Literature 6 ). In the novel The Great Gatsby he uses all of the techniques of modernist writing to make the reader go back in time to the 1920’s and experience what life and people were like. In the novel The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald uses uncertainty, disjointedness, and disillusionment for the content of his story. The reason why he is a master of modernist writing is because he not only makes his characters uncertain, disjointed, and disillusioned, but he also makes the reader feel that was. He gives the reader a taste of what it was like back in the 1920’s and he does this through the content of his novel. At the opening of the novel the reader is introduced to the narrator, although they will not find out who the narrator is until a later time. The narrator begins to talk about a character named Gatsby. “ Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction- Gatsby who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn”, (Gatsby 6). “No- Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive in sorrows and short-winded elation of men”, (Gatsby 6). After reading these excerpts about Gatsby the reader becomes confused and uncertain of who Gatsby is. The reader at this point has no idea of who Gatsby is, but they do know that something envelops and preys on him. The reader is further made uncertain about Gatsby when the narrator, who they now knows is Nick Carraway, is invited over Gatsby’s house for one of his huge house parties, (Gatsby 45). At this party he hears people speculate about Gatsby. He hears that Gatsby might have been a spy for the Germans in World War One and also hears that Gatsby might have killed a man, (Gatsby 48). Nick along with the reader is now even more uncertain about who Gatsby is. Fitzgerald utilizes uncertainty to make the reader unsure about what to expect in the future of the novel. He also used disjointedness to show how people of the 1920’s didn’t feel apart of anything and had no structure in their lives, (American Literature 6 ) The Great Gatsby main theme is how money corrupts people. All of the rich character, with the exception of Gatsby, inherited their money, while Gatsby had to earn his. He was a bootlegger and that’s how he gained his wealth. “A lot of there newly rich people are just big bootleggers, you know”, (114). This makes Gatsby disjointed from all the other people, the “old money”, because he is “new money”. This is a strong technique Fitzgerald uses. It shows how people of the time changed after the war. They no longer felt apart of society, (American Literature 6 ). The third part of modernist content that Fitzgerald used was disillusionment. Nick is the most disillusioned character in the novel. He arriver in New York thinking that the rich are better than average people. He believes that because they have a large abundance of money that they have no reason to be corrupt or evil, (Gatsby 10-16). As the book progress Nick begins to know who the rich people really are and his views change. He begins to see how corrupted, self-centered, and how irresponsible the rich can be. “ Everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever know”, (Gatsby 64). “I know. I’ve been everywhere and seen everything and done everything… sophisticated- God, I’m sophisticated!”, (Gatsby 22). “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 the kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess the had made”, (Gatsby 188). Nicks view went from thinking of these people as people with high morals to thinking of them as greedy and fake. When Gatsby died not one of his so-called friends would go to his funeral. Nick tired desperately to get someone to go but no one would. “I’ll get someone for you”, (Gatsby 172). Not only is Nick disillusioned but so is Gatsby. He believes that he can change the past and change the last five years so the he could make Daisy his. “Can’t repeat the past? Why of course you can”, (Gatsby 116). Fitzgerald uses disillusionment very well in this novel. He make Nick disillusioned and therefore since Nick narrates the story, the reader becomes disillusioned. Through the content of the novel the reader becomes Nick and has the same views and feelings as him. Along with other modernist writers, Fitzgerald makes use of non-traditional techniques in the form of The Great Gatsby. He omitted the exposition, clear transitions, explanations, and resolutions. With these omitted the reader must do more than just simply read the novel. They must step back and really analyze what Fitzgerald is saying, because it is not always in plan view. Often times the reader will have to go back and read a sentence two or three times to get its full meaning. Fitzgerald does this because he wants the reader to use their own minds to fill in the missing pieces, (American literature 6 ). For example when Gatsby is shot Fitzgerald doesn’t just say the he was shot and killed. He says, “The chauffeur… heard shots. The chauffeur, butler, gardener and I, hurried down to the pool. …The touch of a cluster of leaves revolved it slowly, tracing, like the leg of a compass, a thin red circle in the water”, (Gatsby 170). The reader must read very carefully and be very observant to figure out that Gatsby has been shot. In the start of The Great Gatsby there is no exposition. The novel simply begins with the narrator telling the reader something that his dad told him. It is not until the reader is in the middle of the first chapter that they find out who the narrator is, (Gatsby 14). The setting is 1923 in New York City, (Gatsby 9) and there is no plot or a conflict presented. Fitzgerald has a lack of exposition to make the reader even more uncertain. To further more confuse the reader and make them more uncertain, Fitzgerald does not put in any clear transitions in the novel either. With the lack of transitions, Fitzgerald makes the reader draw their own conclusions. With every chapter there is no smooth transition from the one that preceded it. For example, the end of chapter two ends with, “Then I was lying half asleep in the cold lower level of the Pennsylvania Station, staring at the morning “Tribune” and waiting for the four o’clock train” (Gatsby 42). Then the start of chapter three begins with, “There was music from my neighbor’s house through the summer nights”, (Gatsby 43). The story goes from Nick at a train station to hearing music at his house. There is never any explanation of how Nick got home or anything that he might have done between chapters. This makes the reader draw their own conclusions, but also makes them uncertain about what happened. With the omission of transition there is also the omission of explanation. Fitzgerald leaves out explanations for the same reason that he leaves transitions, to involve the reader, (American Literature 6 ). With the same example used with transition the reader can see the lack of explanation. The story tells nothing for how nick got home or what he did. It simply jumps from one place to another without any explanation of how the character got there, (Gatsby 42, 43). Along with the lack of exposition, transitions, and explanations, Fitzgerald also incorporates the lack to resolution. At the end to the novel the read never finds out what happens to most of the characters with the exception of Myrtle Wilson, Gatsby, and Mr. Wilson, (Gatsby 144, 172). The reader knows that after being disgusted with the corruption of the East, Nick moves back to the Mid-west, (Gatsby 185). Daisy, Tom, and Meyer Wolfshiem all go to Chicago, (174, 176), but this is all that the novel gives about how these characters ended up. Nothing as to what happened to them or how they lived the rest of their lives, the novel just ends, (Gatsby 189). Because there is no exact closure to the novel this leaves open predictions for the reader to make with their own knowledge. Foreshadowing and symbolism are two immense modernist themes that Fitzgerald utilizes in this novel. In chapter one Nick foreshadows that something will happen to Gatsby. “No- Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive in sorrows and short-winded elation of men”, (Gatsby 6). Also Myrtle foreshadows her own death, “You can’t live forever”, (Gatsby 40). Along with foreshadowing there are many symbols. At the end of Daisy’s dock there is a green light. At the end of chapter one Nick sees Gatsby reaching from this green light. The green light here represents Gatsby’s longing for Daisy, (Gatsby 26). Colors have a great deal of symbolism in this novel, especially the color white. From white steps, (Gatsby 188), to Daisy’s white dress, (Gatsby 17), to the “white race”, (Gatsby 18). Fitzgerald uses white to symbolize beauty, cleanliness, wealth, innocence, and also laziness. Another great symbol is the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckelburg. His eyes look over the valley of ashes and symbolize God. God looks down on the valley of ashes with sadness because it was put there because of the rich but is where the poor live. Since Fitzgerald uses the form and content so well in The Great Gatsby, that is why he is known as the master of the modernist writers. He not only created a novel but he also created a time machine. A person can pick up The Great Gatsby and travel back in time to the 1920’s. When they read the descriptions of the sights, smell and taste they can see, smell, and taste what Fitzgerald is describing. This is why he is the greatest modernist writer.
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