the great gatsby thesis

How to Write a Thesis Statement for "The Great Gatsby"

Shelia odak.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel “The Great Gatsby” is a classic of American fiction and a staple in the literature classroom. The tragic story of Jay Gatsby plays out against the opulence of the 1920s. The text offers a range of subjects from which to create a thesis statement, including the book’s symbolism, the pursuit of the American dream, the clash of social classes and even the novel’s title. By learning why these ideas are important components of the book and understanding the purpose of a thesis statement, you can create the foundation for a successful essay.

Know that a thesis statement announces the topic and viewpoint of your paper in a succinct, direct manner. Place it at the end of the introduction in a single sentence.

Understand the meaning and purpose behind the book's symbolism. Concentrate on the purpose of the symbolism, not just one or two examples. If, for instance, several of the novel’s symbols deal with problems of materialism, determine why Fitzgerald would want to highlight materialism in his novel.

Know how the book deals with the American dream, through the character of Gatsby or the other characters in the novel. As above, determine how Fitzgerald feels the American dream through the imagery he employs.

Understand Fitzgerald's point of view about the various social classes that the characters in the novel represent. To narrow the topic, choose to write about how Fitzgerald deals with one class.

Decide what is meant by the novel’s title, "The Great Gatsby," and tailor your thesis statement around the adjective “great.” Be sure to consider if the title is ironic.

• The thesis can alert you when you go off track during the writing process: If anything in the body of your paper does not support the thesis, it should be deleted.

About the Author

Shelia Odak has over 10 years writing and editing experience for consumer and trade publications including "Radio/TV Interview Report." She has worked for over nine years in education and holds a Ph.D. from Georgia State University. Odak writes on a range of topics including education, literature and frugal living.

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — The Great Gatsby — Thesis Statement For The Great Gatsby

Thesis Statement for The Great Gatsby

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Fitzgerald, F. Scott. 'The Great Gatsby.' Scribner, 1925.

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Book Guides

Need to write about a theme for a Great Gatsby assignment or just curious about what exactly a theme is? Not sure where to start? Learn here what a theme is, what the main themes in The Great Gatsby are, and what the best tips for writing about themes for your English/Language Arts class essays are.

We will also link to our specific articles on each theme so you can learn even more in-depth about themes central to Gatsby .

What Is a Theme? Why Should You Care?

First things first: what exactly is a theme? In literature, a theme is a central topic a book deals with. This central topic is revealed through plot events, the actions and dialogue of the characters, and even the narrator's tone. Themes can be very broad, like love, money, or death, or more specific, like people versus technology, racial discrimination, or the American Dream.

In short, a book's theme can usually answer the question, "what's the point of this book?". They're the "so what?" of literary analysis. Also, note that books can definitely have more than one major theme —in Gatsby we identify seven!

Knowing a book's major theme(s) is crucial to writing essays, since many assignments want you to connect your argument to a book's theme. For example, you might be asked to write an essay about a prompt like this: "How does the life of Jay Gatsby exemplify (or deconstruct) the idea of the American Dream?" This prompt has you connect specific details in Jay Gatsby's life to the larger theme of the American Dream. This is why many teachers love theme essays: because they encourage you to connect small details to big ideas!

Furthermore, the AP English Literature test always has an essay question that has you analyze some aspect of a book and then "compare it to the theme of the work as a whole." (If you want specific examples you can access the last 15 years of AP English Literature free response questions here , using your College Board account.) So this skill won't just help you in your English classes, it will also help you pass the AP English Literature test if you're taking it!

So keep reading to learn about the major themes in Gatsby and how they are revealed in the book, and also to get links to our in-depth articles about each theme.

Overview of Key Themes in The Great Gatsby

Before we introduce our seven main themes, we'll briefly describe how the story and characters suggest the major Great Gatsby themes. Remember that the story is set in the 1920s, a period when America's economy was booming, and takes place in New York: specifically the wealthy Long Island towns of West Egg and East Egg, as well as Manhattan and Queens.

As you should know from the book ( check out our summary if you're still hazy on the details!), The Great Gatsby tells the story of James Gatz , a poor farm boy who manages to reinvent himself as the fabulously rich Jay Gatsby, only to be killed after an attempt to win over his old love Daisy Buchanan . Daisy is married to Tom Buchanan , and they're both from old money, causing them to look down Gatsby's newly rich crowd (and for Tom to look down at Gatsby himself).

Meanwhile, Tom is having an affair with Myrtle Wilson , the wife of mechanic George Wilson . Through the Wilsons, we see the struggles of the working class in dismal Queens , NY. As if they didn't already have it hard enough, Myrtle is killed in a hit-and-run accident (caused by Daisy Buchanan), and George, who's manipulated by Tom to believe that Jay Gatsby was both his wife's lover and her murderer, ends up shooting Gatsby and then himself.

The whole story is told by Nick Carraway , a second cousin of Daisy's and classmate of Tom's who moves in next to Gatsby's mansion and eventually befriends Jay -- and then comes to deeply admire him, despite or perhaps because of Jay's fervent desire to repeat his past with Daisy. The tragic chain of events at the novel's climax, along with the fact that both the Buchanans can easily retreat from the damage they caused, causes Nick to become disillusioned with life in New York and retreat back to his hometown in the Midwest.

Aside from having a very unhappy ending, the novel might just ruin swimming pools for you as well.

The fact that the major characters come from three distinct class backgrounds (working class, newly rich, and old money) suggests that class is a major theme. But the rampant materialism and the sheer amount of money spent by Gatsby himself is a huge issue and its own theme. Related to money and class, the fact that both Gatsby and the Wilsons strive to improve their positions in American society, only to end up dead, also suggests that the American Dream -- and specifically its hollowness -- is a key theme in the book as well.

But there are other themes at play here, too. Every major character is involved in at least one romantic relationship , revealing that they are all driven by love, sex, and desire -- a major theme. Also, the rampant bad behavior (crime, cheating, and finally murder) and lack of real justice makes ethics and morality a key theme. Death also looms large over the novel's plot, alongside the threat of failure.

And finally, a strong undercurrent to all of these themes is identity itself: can James Gatz really become Jay Gatsby, or was he doomed from the start? Can someone who is not from old money ever blend in with that crowd? Could Gatsby really aspire to repeat his past with Daisy, or is that past self gone forever?

In short, just by looking at the novel's plot, characters, and ending, we can already get a strong sense of Gatsby's major themes. Let's now look at each of those themes one by one (and be sure to check out the links to our full theme breakdowns!).

The 7 Major Great Gatsby Themes

Money and Materialism : Everyone in the novel is money-obsessed, whether they were born with money (Tom, Daisy, Jordan, and Nick to a lesser extent), whether they made a fortune (Gatsby), or whether they're eager for more (Myrtle and George). So why are the characters so materialistic? How does their materialism affect their choices? Get a guide to each of the characters' material motivations and how they shape the novel.

Society and Class: Building on the money and materialism theme, the novel draws clear distinctions between the kind of money you have: old money (inherited) or new money (earned). And there is also a clear difference between the lifestyles of the wealthy, who live on Long Island and commute freely to Manhattan, and the working class people stuck in between, mired in Queens. By the end of the novel, our main characters who are not old money (Gatsby, Myrtle, and George) are all dead, while the inherited-money club is still alive. What does this say about class in Gatsby? Why is their society so rigidly classist? Learn more about the various social classes in Gatsby and how they affect the novel's outcome.

The American Dream : The American Dream is the idea anyone can make it in America (e.g. gain fame, fortune, and success) through enough hard work and determination. So is Jay Gatsby an example of the dream? Or does his involvement in crime suggest the Dream isn't actually real? And where does this leave the Wilsons, who are also eager to improve their lot in life but don't make it out of the novel alive? Finally, do the closing pages of the novel endorse the American Dream or write it off as a fantasy? Learn what the American Dream is and how the novel sometimes believes in it, and sometimes sees it as a reckless fantasy.

Love, Desire, and Relationships : All of the major characters are driven by love, desire, or both, but only Tom and Daisy's marriage lasts out of the novel's five major relationships and affairs. So is love an inherently unstable force? Or do the characters just experience it in the wrong way? Get an in-depth guide to each of Gatsby's major relationships.

Death and Failure: Nick narrates Gatsby two years after the events in question, and since he's obviously aware of the tragedy awaiting not only Gatsby but Myrtle and George as well, the novel has a sad, reflective, even mournful tone. Is the novel saying that ambition is inherently dangerous (especially in a classist society like 1920s America), or is it more concerned with the danger of Gatsby's intense desire to reclaim the past? Explore those questions here.

Morality and Ethics: The novel is full of bad behavior: lying, cheating, physical abuse, crime, and finally murder. Yet none of the characters ever answer to the law, and God is only mentioned as an exclamation, or briefly projected onto an advertisement . Does the novel push for the need to fix this lack of morality, or does it accept it as the normal state of affairs in the "wild, wild East"?

The Mutability of Identity: Mutability just means "subject to change," so this theme is about how changeable (or not!) personal identity is. Do people really change? Or are our past selves always with us? And how would this shape our desire to reclaim parts of our past? Gatsby wants to have it both ways: to change himself from James Gatz into the sophisticated, wealthy Jay Gatsby, but also to preserve his past with Daisy. Does he fail because it's impossible to change? Because it's impossible to repeat the past? Or both?

How to Write About The Great Gatsby Themes

So now that you know about the major themes of The Great Gatsby , how can you go about writing about them? First up: look closely at your prompt.

Sometimes an essay prompt will come right out and ask you to write about a theme , for example "is The American Dream in Gatsby alive or dead?" or "Write about the relationships in Gatsby. What is the novel saying about the nature of love and desire?" For those essays, you will obviously be writing about one of the novel's major themes. But even though those prompts have big-picture questions, make sure to find small supporting details to help make your argument.

For example, if you're discussing the American Dream and arguing it's dead in the novel, don't just make that claim and be done with it. Instead, you can explore Gatsby's past as James Gatz, George Wilson's exhausted complacency, and Myrtle's treatment at the hands of Tom as examples of how the American Dream is treated in the novel. Obviously those examples are far from exhaustive, but hopefully you get the idea: find smaller details to support the larger argument.

On the other hand, many essay prompts about Gatsby will look like a question about something specific, like a character or symbol:

• Explore Tom and Daisy as people who 'retreat into their money.'
• What does the green light at the end of Daisy's dock represent? How does its meaning change throughout the novel?
• Show how Fitzgerald uses clothing (and the changing of costumes) to tell the reader more about the characters and/or express theme(s).

These prompts are actually a chance for you to take that detailed analysis and connect it to one of the larger themes—in other words, even though the prompt doesn't state it explicitly, you should still be connecting those more focused topics to one of the big-picture themes.

For example, if you talk about Tom and Daisy Buchanan, you will definitely end up talking about society and class. If you talk about the green light, you will end up talking about dreams and goals, specifically the American Dream. And if you discuss clothing to talk about the characters, you will definitely touch on money and materialism, as well as society and class (like how Gatsby's pink suit makes him stand out as new money to Tom Buchanan, or how Myrtle adopts a different dress to play at being wealthy and sophisticated).

In short, for these more specific prompts, you start from the ground (small details and observations) and build up to discussing the larger themes, even if the prompt doesn't say to do so explicitly!

What's Next?

Now you're an expert on themes, but what about symbols? If you need to write about the important symbols in The Great Gatsby, check out our symbols overview for a complete guide.

Want a full analysis of Jay Gatsby and his backstory? Not sure how his story connects with the American Dream? Get the details here .

Want to go back to square one? Get started with Chapter 1 of our Great Gatsby plot summary.

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The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

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The Great Gatsby review – a literary classic becomes a Broadway dud

The Broadway Theatre, New York

F Scott Fitzgerald’s novel makes an underwhelming transfer to the stage in a bombastic yet misfiring new production

The musical currently playing at the Broadway Theatre, twirling drunkenly in 1920s opulence, is The Great Gatsby.

Though, perhaps, the latest revival of F Scott Fitzgerald’s novel should be renamed The Gimmicky Gatsby. An attempt to evoke awe through hyper-extended dance intervals and flaccid sets, this remount prioritizes a good time over any purposeful recreation of the American classic.

This Gatsby, directed by Marc Bruni, still follows veteran Nick Carraway (Noah J Ricketts) as he moves near Long Island, New York, to chase the post-Great War high. It’s a chance to “misbehave” as the musical’s punchy opening number lays bare with music by Jason Howland.

Nick happens upon the Gatsby (a talented Jeremy Jordan), who has his sights set on Daisy (Eva Noblezada), his unrequited love. But Daisy is already married to Tom (John Zdrojeski), a hot-tempered brute drowning in old money.

The production splashes in excess, but of the Las Vegas residency kind. Golden-lacquered set pieces and a dizzying projection screen recreate the Gatsby mansion (and a bevy of other locations). The “nouveau riche” mansion isn’t as opulent or lush as one might imagine, feeling closer in spirit to a mega-church.

The book by Kait Kerrigan swings for laughs, which begin to thin by the musical’s second act. “Who knew Manhattan was so expensive,” Carraway says, slapstick-style. Kerrigan is also more interested in the Gatsby-Daisy love story than any rigorous analysis of class or the American dream, with songs bookending the colliding romances.

Nathan Tysen’s lyrics are mostly expositional, trying to fill gaps in the story. Gatsby’s ballad For Her about building his wealth to inevitably net Daisy doesn’t evoke love so much as justification.

All of Howland’s songs, a cascading list featuring the brassy fixtures of 20s jazz, are sung beautifully by Gatsby’s talented cast. Noblezada, fresh off a starring role in Hadestown, is a delicate Daisy, bringing powerhouse vocals when describing her commitment to marriage in For Better or Worse. But ultimately, much of Howland’s music melts together, not quite framing emotional hilltops.

Choreography by Dominique Kelley is apt, capturing the era’s giddy nature with the occasional Charleston. Missteps in story and direction would be more or less fine if the show itself was entertaining. But it’s only tepidly so.

Kerrigan’s book tries to capture all of Gatsby with a thudding recall. There’s the billboard featuring spectacles, the infamous Green Light, and, of course, the old v new money divide. There’s also a pointed underlining of Gatsby’s tango with the black market, set to a matrix-style, trench coat dance number titled Shady. But it all never quite blends together.

Under Bruni’s direction, Kerrigan jerks us through a rotary of locations and corresponding plot events, often leaving dead air as characters zoom away in their on-stage sports cars.

Hyper-fixation on the love story also doesn’t work in a world where Gatsby’s central characters are underdeveloped and rife with cliches. Kerrigan’s Gatsby punctuates every sentence with an “old sport”, a grating tagline.

Tom is an abusive antagonist through and through. But moments of his physical violence toward Daisy and his mistress Myrtle (Sara Chase) are sped through due to issues in Bruni’s pacing. When Myrtle’s nose is broken by Tom in a seedy uptown apartment, humor immediately plops in, a tonal bust.

Of course, the flatness of these characters could signal towards their glibness in Scott’s original text. They are vapidly bourgeois after all. But this revival doesn’t seem to be in on the joke, attempting to carve out a genuine spark and interest in Nick and Jordan (Samantha Pauly plays an old money golfer who waves off marriage). We know so little about either of them, it’s hard to truly care when their relationship veers off-course.

As the musical wraps with a flurry of the novel’s best quotes and the inevitable lesson that the rich are callous and horrible, it’s clear this Gatsby attempts to throw it all at the wall, indulge in more of everything.

Too bad none of it quite sticks.

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THE GREAT GATSBY

Two hours and 30 minutes, with one intermission. At the Broadway Theatre, 53rd Street and Broadway.

Forget East Egg and West Egg. The creators of the new musical “The Great Gatsby,” which opened Thursday night on Broadway, have laid an egg.

This song-and-dance version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s enduring 1925 novel about, among other things, American excess in the aftermath of World War I is excessive all right. 

The gaudy barrage of clone ballads by composer Jason Howland and lyricist Nathan Tysen (“Paradise Square”), indiscriminately handed out to any character who wants one, blare like a foghorn on the Long Island Sound.

And the attractive art deco sets by Paul Tate dePoo III are so opulent and oversize that I had a flashback to watching “King Kong” in the very same theater six years ago.

But now, a monkey isn’t captive — your favorite novel is.

Inferior “Gatsby,” directed bigly by Marc Bruni, is a hodgepodge of many other shows that came before it.

During an impressive all-company tap number called “La Dee Dah With You,” the show briefly ventures into “Anything Goes” Land. Many other bombastic songs have the volume, if not the tunefulness, of gothic musicals like “The Secret Garden” or “Jekyll & Hyde.”

What “The Great Gatsby” almost never brings to mind, though, is “The Great Gatsby.” 

The musical, a patchwork quilt of discordant styles that belongs in a box, becomes the latest in a long line of adaptations of this beloved novel to mess up a story that’s far more satisfying to read and imagine. It completely misses its intoxicating atmosphere, meaning and layered characters.

One of the rare smart decisions of the night is the casting of Noah J. Ricketts as our man Nick Carraway, a modest Midwesterner who moves to a Long Island cottage in “new money” West Egg. 

The actor has a pretty voice and a naturally easygoing persona that contrasts with the cartoonish East Coast impressions on display that are akin to what Katharine Hepburn might have behaved like as a chauffeur.

Nick’s cousin Daisy (power-singer Eva Noblezada) is married to Tom Buchanan (John Zdrojeski), and they live, in artificial bliss, across the water in upper-crust East Egg. 

Awful Tom is having an indiscreet affair with Myrtle (Sara Chase), the wife of garage owner George Wilson (Paul Whitty). A knowing Daisy sings a lilting number in the garden about her rocky marriage called “For Better or Worse.” 

“Worse?!” I thought.

Nick’s greatest object of fascination is the mysterious, loud-party-throwing inhabitant of the mansion next door to his house. That’s Jay Gatsby, who just so happens to be Daisy’s old flame that still longs for her.

As the enigmatic title character, Jeremy Jordan, when in song, sounds like a million bucks, even in walloping numbers such as “For Her” and “Past Is Catching Up to Me.” 

When he speaks, however, one must adjust for inflation. The actor cakes on an ill-advised mid-Atlantic accent that boggles the ears. Rather than contribute magnetism and mystique, the shaky brogue turns a literary icon into a weirdo.

During a scene in which he reunites with Daisy, a dumb ditty called “Only Tea,” the musical suddenly about-faces into a cheesy farce. 

An army of servants arrive with trays and floral arrangements as though they’re about to start singing “Be Our Guest.” Nick and Daisy’s acidic pal Jordan Baker (a detached Samantha Pauly) do cute bits in unison. Gatsby attempts to hide from Daisy behind a small tree branch to get a laugh.

The multiple personalties pile on a song later when we’re suddenly tossed into an absurdly passionate love story as the pair sings a drippy duet called, oy, “My Green Light.”

The second act, thankfully, finds a more consistent and appropriate tone. One would hope so, as there are several deaths in quick succession.

Early on, that aforementioned tap dancing, choreographed by Dominique Kelley, is thrilling, even if it’s a short-lived distraction from the many, many head-scratchers.

For instance, an inordinate amount of time and music are given to Myrtle and George, who are turned into a much sadder Adelaide and Nathan Detroit. Expensively staged, Myrtle’s fate is unintentionally funny.

There’s also too much of sleazy criminal Meyer Wolfsheim (Eric Anderson), who gets a jazzy back-from-intermission song called “Shady” that could have been cut. Why not focus on enriching the main characters before giving everybody else their five throwaway minutes?

Theater and film rarely know what to do with “Gatsby.” They often decide, as this musical sometimes does, to focus on the escape to sexy speakeasies with flappers.

But the best version I’ve seen was Elevator Repair Service’s “Gatz” downtown. Every single word of the novel was read out loud over several breezy hours by actors wearing nothing more than office garb. Audiences were entranced, not by schlocky love songs but the unadorned words of a great American novel.

Last year, New York got an immersive “Gatsby” experience that quickly closed. This summer, another musical take by Florence Welch will premiere at the American Repertory Theater in Massachusetts. 

The quality of the Florence & the Machine singer’s adaptation remains to be seen. But, even though Fitzgerald’s book is in the public domain, let’s cool it on giving so many “Gatsby’s” the green light.

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89 The Great Gatsby : Best Topics and Examples

Looking for some creative titles for The Great Gatsby essay? There are many themes to explore about this novel. We offer you The Great Gatsby essay examples about symbolism, character analysis, the style of the novel, and many other topics.

📙 The Great Gatsby – Essay Writing Tips

🏆 the great gatsby essay titles – top 15, 🍸 catchy essay topics for the great gatsby, ❓ great gatsby essay questions, 🎁 other the great gatsby essay titles.

The Great Gatsby, the masterpiece written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, will help you dive into the Roaring Twenties’ wealth atmosphere. This is a story of a millionaire Jay Gatsby and his passion for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan

Your professor may ask you to analyze topics such as decadence, money, American Dream, or symbolism in your The Great Gatsby Essay. But what if you have no idea what to write? Well, below, you can find some tips and essay samples that you may use to compose your papers

Tip #1. Analyze symbolism in The Great Gatsby

First, let’s define what symbolism is. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, symbolism is “practice of using symbols, especially by investing things with a symbolic meaning or by expressing the invisible or intangible using visible or sensuous representations.” The Great Gatsby story is full of symbols. And here are just two examples of them:

• The eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg painted on a billboard in the Valley of Ashes. You can find a lot of The Great Gatsby essay samples that draw the conclusion that Eckleburg represents God. However, let’s ask a few more questions. Why do these eyes have no mouth or arms, or legs? Does this mean that Eckleburg can only watch people transgressions without any ability to punish them as a God-like entity? Does this billboard mean anything?
• Use of color in Fitzgerald’s story. If you carefully read the novel, you might notice the use of a few colors throughout the book. They are green, gray, gold, and yellow. Think, what do these colors can symbolize and represent these ideas in your paper.

Tip #2. Think about point of view in The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby is written in the first-person point of view. Nick Carraway, one of the main characters, tells us about the life and thoughts of Gatsby. In your writing, you can imagine how different the novel would be if it were told in the third-person point of view.

You also can provide some examples if the story was told from Gatsby’s perspective.

Tip #3. Assess how the book relates to the American Dream

If you look through the vast majority The Great Gatsby essay titles, you can find out plenty of samples that address the validity of high society or the social class divide. Gatsby had achieved the American Dream by building his wealth. However, he’s still not satisfied with the shallowness of the upper class and wants something more.

In your paper, you can argue why does one can never attain the American Dream, and why dreamers always want more.

Tip #4. Analyze the characters and their relations

Fitzgerald put each character into the novel for a particular reason. And your job is to analyze what they represent and why they are in the story. For example, Tom represents evil, while Daisy represents innocence. Another aspect you should examine is relationships between Daisy and Gatsby, Tom and Daisy, Nick and Gatsby.

Tip #5. Examine the tone of the novel

When we talk about the tone of the story, we mean how the author describes the events and characters. In your paper, decide what the tone of the novel is and analyze how it affects the readers’ attitude to characters and events.

Now, check The Great Gatsby essay examples below and use the acquired ideas to write your own paper!

• Daisy Buchanan: “I Did Love Him Once, but I Loved You, Too” Another scene shows Daisy’s immoral behavior when she is in the room with Gatsby, Jordan, and Nick. This view shows Daisy’s lustful side in that she pushes Jordan to do the same and is out […]
• Tom and Gatsby: Compare and Contrast Essay In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald pays attention to the relationships between both Jay Gatsby and Tom Buchanan and Daisy Buchanan. Scott Fitzgerald’s book is mainly focused on the relationship of Daisy with Gatsby and Tom, […]
• The Clock as a Symbol in “The Great Gatsby” By incorporating metaphorical elements that allude to the fleeting nature of time, “the Great Gatsby” emphasizes the idea of the futility of life and the inescapability of the past and its mistakes.
• Analysis of the Shirt Scene in “The Great Gatsby” Film Although the shirts mean nothing to Gatsby without Daisy, the audience watches Gatsby’s facial expression display a great deal of empathy and love whenever Daisy seems distressed, especially in this scene when she begins to […]
• Nick as the Narrator in The Great Gatsby Therefore, his connection with the Gatsby’s story is that he is depended upon to serve as the mouthpiece of the older generation as he metaphorically transcends through time to retell the Great Gatsby tale accurately […]
• The Great Gatsby Reflection Paper Throughout the novel the major character Nick who was the narrator managed to bring out the main themes of the novel as well as developing other characters.
• The Great Gatsby: Analysis and Feminist Critique The feminist critique is an aspect that seeks to explore the topic of men domination in the social, economic, and political sectors.
• Silver & Gold: Color Symbolism in The Great Gatsby Although the color palette presented in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is rich, the problem of differing social status is most vividly described in the novel through the use of golden and silver colors that stand […]
• American Culture in the Novel “The Great Gatsby” In The Great Gatsby, Scott Fitzgerald documents these changes through an in-depth exploration of cultural changes such as the rise in consumerism, materialism, greed for wealth, and the culture of loosening morals in the 1920s […]
• The Great Gatsby and Winter Dreams by Scott Fitzgerald In this analysis, the researcher will try to confirm the argument that the Great Gatsby was a continuation of the Winter Dreams.
• Daisy’s Character Study in “The Great Gatsby” The argument is that the author attempts to describe her as a pure and innocent female to ensure that the reader understands the perspective of Jay, but particular aspects of her true identity are revealed […]
• Autobiographical Elements in “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The story is set during the roaring twenties, a period of significant social and cultural change, and it incorporates many of the author’s personal experiences, feelings, and perceptions of the time.
• The American Dream in The Great Gatsby After spending some time in this neighborhood, Nick finally attends Gatsby’s exuberant parties only to realize that Gatsby organizes these parties to impress Daisy, Nick’s cousin, and wife to Tom.
• The Great Gatsby All these characteristics of America during 1920 are evident and inherent in the main character, Jay Gatsby, in the novel The Great Gatsby. This is one of the themes in the novel The Great Gatsby.
• Gatsby & Nick in The Great Gatsby The Great Gatsby is a novel of vibrant characters, and paradox is one of the main themes of the book. Even though Daisy and Tom are married, Nick agrees to help Gatsby be with the […]
• Why is Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby a Satire? Another aspect of satire in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is the wealth associated with Gatsby, as the reader observes in chapter two.
• “The Great Gatsby” Film by Baz Luhrmann The Great Gatsby is a film that stars Jay Gatsby, Nick Carraway, Tom Buchanan, and the Southern Belle Daisy. The influence of the past comes out throughout the course of the film.
• Female Characters in A Streetcar Named Desire & The Great Gatsby: Comparative It can be seen in the case of Stella and Daisy wherein in their pursuit of what they think is their “ideal” love, they are, in fact, pursuing nothing more than a false ideal that […]
• Time as a Theme in The Great Gatsby The embodiment of these negative aspects comes in the form of Gatsby and his life, which in the end is seen as hollow and empty, just as the morals and values of the characters seen […]
• Women’s Role in “The Great Gatsby” by Fitzgerald Though the women in the novel are depicted as careless, treacherous, and selfish, the author uses them to underscore the power of the will to rebel against societal norms in pursuit of happiness.
• Babylon Revisited & The Great Gatsby: Motifs & Themes When he pleads his case to the guardians of Honoria, his sister-in-law Marion, and her husband, he continually evades his escapades of the past and recounts his hard work and sincerity of the present.
• ‘The Great Gatsby’ and ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ Literature Comparison Stella is a devoted wife struggling to make her marriage work, even though her husband Stanley, subjects her to a lot of pain and suffering.
• Architecture in “The Great Gatsby” by Fitzgerald From this perspective, the case of Gatsby’s mansion is a symbolic call for leaving behind the anachronistic ideas of aristocracy and embracing American ideals.
• “The Great Gatsby” by Baz Luhrmann The filmmakers never stop depicting Gatsby’s wealth and his otherness. He throws money around and he is a topic of heated debates in the society.
• Fairy Tale Traits in The Great Gatsby Basing on the several evident parameters, for instance, the character traits, the behavior of prince and princess, and gender distinctions amongst others, Fitzgerald’s masterwork stands out as a variation and sophisticated version of the fairy […]
• “The Great Gatsby”: The American Dream in the Jazz Age The Jazz Age is a period in the history of the United States of America from the end of World War I to the beginning of the Great Depression due to the remarkable popularity of […]
• “The Great Gatsby” Novel by Francis Scott Fitzgerald However, what the reader should acknowledge is that the author manages to present a wholesome and clear image of the issues and occurrences that defined the United States throughout the 1920s.
• The Dilemmas of the American Dream in The Great Gatsby The Great Gatsby is a story of a young man in the early twentieth century who seems to know what he wants in the way of that dream and what to do to achieve it.
• The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald Review Gatsby’s dream to become wealthy to gain Daisy’s attention “is simply believable and is still a common dream of the current time”. However, Gatsby is the story’s main character and is a “personification” of the […]
• Fertile Questions: “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald The two fertile questions arising from the novel are: what are political and economic impacts of the World War I? and what are the challenges faced by American students born from poor families post-World War […]
• Impressions of “The Great Gatsby” by Fitzgerald The contact between Gatsby and Nick is unique and consequently flavors the narrative. Global controversies such as depression are excluded from the narrative of hedonistic affluence and moral bankruptcy.
• Tom and George in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby At the same time, the motives of Tom and George’s behavior differ due to their backgrounds, origins, and belonging to different social classes.
• “The Great Gatsby Directed” by Baz Luhrmann This is due to the fact that the film is an indirect adaptation of Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald’s book “The Great Gatsby”.
• The Corrupted American Dream and Its Significance in “The Great Gatsby” The development of the American dream and its impact on the society of the United States is a pertinent topic of discussion for various authors.
• Jay Gatsby: The Great Fool or the Unfortunate Genius The main idea of the work is to show the unfairness of the fate of a poor young man who cannot marry the girl he loves.
• Novel Analysis: The Great Gatsby and Siddhartha Hesse’s Siddhartha seems complementary to The Great Gatsby as Brahman, the main role in Siddhartha, finds contentment in self-realization and not in money, sensuality, and love.
• Fitzgerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby’, Steinbeck’s ‘Of Mice and Men’ and the American Dream “The America Dream’ is a longstanding common belief of the American population that in the United States, people are free to realize the full potential of their labor and their talents and every person in […]
• “The Great Gatsby” by Scott Fitzgerald Who will take care of the dead creatures seems not to be in Tom’s order of what to bother him and together with the wife is comfortable enjoying their wealth while the creatures are rotting […]
• Characters in Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” and Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” The author presents challenges faced in the society as a result of the mixture racial and gender discrimination that a young black girl goes through in search of her dream and personal identity.
• Greene’s “Our Man in Havana” and “The Great Gatsby” by Fitzgerald It is imperative to realize that the purpose of the paper is not to carry out a critical analysis of the plays but to carry out a comparison of the attributes in which they relate […]
• What Money Cannot Buy: ‘The Great Gatsby’ Book by F. S. Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby is a book that unveils the instrumental role of the social aspect of life among people; which not only concentrates on the economic part of it.
• First-Person Narrative in Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby,” Joyce’s “The Boarding House,” Bowen’s “The Demon Lover” In Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Joyce’s short story “The Boarding House,” and the Scottish poem The Demon Lover, the first-person narrative is used differently to achieve the authors’ objectives and create a comprehensive picture of […]
• First-Person Narrative in Bowen’s ”The Demon Lover,” Updike’s ”A&P,” Fitzgerald’s ”The Great Gatsby” In this work, the unworked, repressed experience of the First World War is personified and embodied in the image of the ghost of a person who died in this war.
• “The Great Gatsby” by Fitzgerald: Betrayal, Romance, Social Politics and Feminism This work seeks to outline the role of women in the development of the plot of the book and in relation to the social issues affecting women in contemporary society.
• Jay Gatsby, Jean Valjean and Henry Fleming: The Compare and Contrast Analyses of the Characters The way the characters of the main protagonists are revealed in the novel is one of the most important things in every piece of literature.
• Alvarez’ “In the Time of the Butterflies” & Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” The shallowness, the injustice, the strive for wealth and power, brutality, and greed are the common themes, developed and explored in the books by Julia Alvarez “In the Time of The Butterflies” and by F.
• Luhrmann’s “The Great Gatsby” Jay Gatsby’s tragic flaw is related to his na ve way of thinking that implies his belief in the ability to buy true feelings.
• The Great Gatsby’ by Scott Fitzgerald Literature Analysis This is one of the details that can be identified. This is one of the issues that can be singled out.
• Political Satire in American Literature Scott Fitzgerald was one of the more famous satirists of the time, particularly in his production of the work The Great Gatsby.
• The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald In the novel, the fictional village of West Egg is perhaps one of the key items that symbolize the life of the new millionaires in the city.
• ‘The Great Gatsby’: Tom and Blanche Like Tom, Blanche in the book of Street Car Named Desire, is loyal to her sister who is the only member of her family that we come across.
• Gatsby & Jean Valjean He is a mysterious person, and no one exactly knows his origins and the ways he used to acquire his fortune.
• The Ethicality of an Action Jay Gatsby As well, an action is “wrong” if it results in the opposite of happiness to the people. Mill’s utilitarian theory can be used to assess the ethically of Jay Gatsby’s action, as presented in the […]
• Francis Scott Fitzgerald & His American Dream In the novel “Tender is the Night,” Fitzgerald describes the society in Riviera where he and his family had moved to live after his misfortune of late inheritance.
• Jay Gatsby & Eponine From Les Miserables: Compare & Contrast Gatsby is the main character in the book “The Great Gatsby,” while Eponine is one of the characters in the book “Les Miserables”.
• Jay Gatsby & Gean Valjean: Characters Comparison This essay compares and contrasts the characters of Gatsby and Jean Valjean in the Les Miserable novels and films. Gatsby strikes the readers as a na ve and lovesick individual though his character is negative.
• Jay Gatsby and Valjean in ‘Les Miserables’: Comparative Valjean’s life contains a series of misfortunes in the sense that he has to hide his true identity. Most of the people in his life were there just for convenience and for the fact that […]
• The Idea of Love in The Great Gatsby and the Parallels or Contrasts That Can Be Drawn With the Presentation of Love in The Catcher in the Rye Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Jerome Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, it is possible to state that the notion of love is presented there similarly even though the texts are absolutely different and […]
• Fitzgerald’s American Dream in The Great Gatsby & Winter Dreams To my mind, Winter Dream is a perfect example of the American Dream, since the main hero, Dexter, implemented each point of it, he was persistent and very hard-working, he was a very sensible and […]
• What Destroyed Gatsby’s Dreams in “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald?
• How Far Does “The Great Gatsby” Demonstrate a View of the American Dream?
• What Is a Good Thesis Statement for“The Great Gatsby”?
• What Is “The Great Gatsby” Main Message?
• Is “The Great Gatsby” a Real Story?
• How “The Great Gatsby” Is a Replica of America?
• Why Is “The Great Gatsby” So Famous?
• What Are the Four Major Themes in “The Great Gatsby”?
• How Does “The Great Gatsby” Explore the Ideas of Illusion Versus Reality?
• How Does “The Great Gatsby” Compare to the Life of Fitzgerald?
• What Going From West to East Meant for the Characters in “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald?
• How Does “The Great Gatsby” Portray the Death of the American Dream?
• How Does Tom Buchanan Represent 1920’s Society in “The Great Gatsby”?
• How and Why Does F. Scott Fitzgerald Use Nick Carraway as His Narrator of “The Great Gatsby”?
• How New Money and Women Are Marginalized in “The Great Gatsby”?
• What Part Does Social Class Play in “The Great Gatsby”?
• What Makes “The Great Gatsby” a Classic?
• Does Fitzgerald Condemn the American Dream in “The Great Gatsby”?
• What Does the Green Light Symbolize in “The Great Gatsby”?
• How Women Are Portrayed in “The Great Gatsby”?
• What Techniques Does Fitzgerald Use to Convey the Main Themes in “The Great Gatsby”?
• Why Did Fitzgerald Write “The Great Gatsby”?
• How Does Nick Carraway Narrate “The Great Gatsby”?
• What Is “The Great Gatsby” Actually About?
• What Social Problems Are Exposed in “The Great Gatsby”?
• How Multiple Incidents Develop the Plot Line in “The Great Gatsby”?
• Does Money Buy Love in “The Great Gatsby”?
• How Has Fitzgerald Used Cars as a Motif in “The Great Gatsby”?
• Is “The Great Gatsby” Still Relevant Today?
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Entertainment | BROADWAY REVIEW: ‘Gatsby’ brings back Big…

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Subscriber only, entertainment | broadway review: ‘gatsby’ brings back big broadway but lacks heart.

Those old-fashioned components might be enough for this title (now helpfully in the public domain) to find an audience.

There’s unceasing public appetite for the characters in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s great American novel , a racy story of decadence, infidelity and lies. Every time I’ve seen some version of it — and there have been many — I’ve seen at least some audience members dressed to the nines in suits and gowns. People raise their game when they’re taking a date to “The Great Gatsby,” even if they’re far from Broadway.

That said, this new musical, as penned by Kait Kerrigan with music composed by Jason Howland and lyrics by Nathan Dylan, makes you feel very little, except when Howland’s lush melodies are reaching their climax. Even then, the feelings that flow are more admiration for Howland’s craft than the kind of emotion that flows back into an embrace of story.

While it’s a massive show at the Broadway Theatre , Marc Bruni’s production, first seen at New Jersey’s Paper Mill Playhouse , doesn’t really convey the sense of flapper-age decadence that created the adjective “Gatsbyesque.” This isn’t an especially sensual show; no one seems to pulse with sexual desire, notwithstanding the huge bed that rolls onstage at one point. (As does an automobile).

Why the strange remove? A decision was made here to convert everything into dialogue and eschew the famous narrative voice of Nick Carraway ( Noah J. Ricketts ). It has the effect of making you wonder what Nick is even doing in the show, given his peripheral relationship to the central story of Jay Gatsby ( Jeremy Jordan ), Gatsby’s pursuit of Daisy Buchanan ( Eva Noblezada ) and the impact of that quest on Tom Buchanan (John Zdrojeski), Myrtle Wilson (Sara Chase), Jordan Baker (Samantha Pauly) and George Wilson (Paul Whitty).

Ricketts plays Nick as a bland, observational dude, not so different from Cliff in “ Cabaret ,” which makes some sense, but not so much when he’s shorn of his ability to share his thoughts about what he sees and experiences. Without that, stuff still happens, but little in this show helps an audience put it into any kind of fresh context.

There’s a lot of plot to get through, of course, and “Gatsby” covers the familiar ground reasonably well.

Howland is one of the most gifted young American composers, one still waiting for the right material to fully break out. He has written some lovely ballads for Jordan, whose voice soars to the back of the giant theater, and for Noblezada, who’s appealing but still needs more definition to fill out the role of Daisy.

Another problem with the book and the staging, though, is that it tends to treat everything on the same temporal level. Time does not slow down before the climactic accident and, while it sure comes as a surprise, it also verges on the unintentionally comic.

Dominique Kelley has created some serviceable party dancing, but the show, in my view, is under-choreographed. These are talented performers who could do so much more than what is mostly social dance, not so different from someone’s Gatsby-themed shebang.

The passion of Jay and Daisy somehow never moves. Jordan mostly plants himself and sings his face off, which is great as far as it goes, but the show’s lack of fluidity is a big problem.

Audiences don’t exactly need their hand held by Nick or anyone else through “Gatsby,” but given the familiarity of this territory, we do crave a distinctive point of view. Beyond exploiting this famously beguiling title, it’s never clear what this telling really wants to say.

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“The Chocolate War,” published 50 years ago, became one of the country’s most challenged books. Its author, Robert Cormier, spent years fighting attempts to ban it — like many authors today.

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By Brian Raftery

In the 50 years since it came out, “The Chocolate War” has become one of the country’s most challenged books. But the tensest battle over the novel may have been fought in Panama City, Fla., in the mid-1980s. That’s when an attempt to ban “The Chocolate War” divided the town, leading to arson and death threats against middle-school teachers.

Early in 1986, English teachers at Mowat Middle School protested a schoolwide ban against a select number of novels, including Robert Cormier’s “The Chocolate War.” The book, published in 1974, had been long been criticized by some parents for its modest locker-room talk and anti-authority worldview — and enjoyed by the young in part for the same reasons.

The Mowat teachers endured all sorts of harassment because of their stand. Pranksters called in the middle of the night, calling them lesbians and witches. Parents harangued them at community meetings. Even some of their colleagues turned against them.

That fall, a sloppily addressed letter was found at the Mowat offices. It featured the words “YOU ALL SHALL DIE” in letters cut out from magazines, and mentioned several teachers by name — including Alyne Farrell.

“That was when the you-know-what really hit the fan,” said Farrell, now 76. “I was a single woman with a young child, and I lived alone. We had police sitting in our driveway for three days and nights.”

Yet the teachers had a notable ally: Cormier himself.

Not long after the “YOU ALL SHALL DIE” message arrived in the mail, another letter made its way to Mowat. This one was part apology, part lament.

“I have been at a loss for words,” Cormier admitted in his note. “The ironic thing is that words are my business, and the words I used in my books have been the cause of so much trouble.”

Cormier died in 2000 at age 75 . A trove of his letters and essays at Fitchburg State University provide a glimpse at how an author’s life is affected when a book unexpectedly inflames a long-running war. Many writers are having a similar experience today, with books facing opposition at libraries and schools nationwide — including, once again, in Panama City .

As Cormier would remark to one of his children, “I’m weary of the battle, but a tired fighter can still be a fighter.”

For a book that proved to be so provocative, “The Chocolate War” had an innocuous enough birthplace: the Cormier family dining table in Leominster, Mass. During dinner one night in the fall of 1968, Cormier’s son, Pete, told his father he’d been tasked with selling chocolates as part of a fund-raiser for his private school.

The elder Cormier, who was no fan of authority, told his son he had his permission not to participate — he didn’t have to go along with the crowd.

“He was encouraging me to take a stand,” Pete Cormier said in a recent video interview. “I was a skinny freshman — a low man on the totem pole — and this made me feel like a rebel.’”

Over the next few years, while working as a newspaper editor and columnist, Robert Cormier stayed up late at night, spinning Pete’s minor act of defiance into “The Chocolate War.” The book follows a small-town freshman named Jerry Renault, whose refusal to sell candy for his school earns him the ire of a manipulative headmaster and the vengeance of an underground student group known as the Vigils. By the book’s end, Jerry has been harassed, beaten and ostracized, leaving him just as alone as ever.

“The Chocolate War” wasn’t an easy sell: Several editors rejected the book, citing its violence, language and pessimistic message. But teens in the 1970s were eager for stories that reflected their angst and anxieties, and novels like S.E. Hinton’s “The Outsiders” and Judy Blume’s “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” had become hand-me-down hits.

The relatably bummed-out tone of “The Chocolate War” — paired with Cormier’s economical prose and hyper-specific recall of adolescent cruelty — was aimed at young readers who’d become skeptical of the grown-ups running their world.

“You don’t have to go to a Catholic boys’ high school to realize that the school system is inherently screwed up and manipulative,” said the actor and filmmaker Keith Gordon, who wrote and directed a 1988 adaptation of Cormier’s book.

After its release in 1974, the book went on to become one of the most celebrated young adult novels in the country — and one of the most hotly contested.

It spurred book-ban attempts in towns like Proctor, Vt. (where the novel was assailed for its “negativism”); Columbia, S.C. (for “pervasive vulgarity”); and Groton, Mass. (for “less than wholesome sexual activity).”

Cormier spent hours responding to the various book-ban squabbles — a job he resented at times. “I am furious, because I would rather be working on my novel,” he wrote in a draft for an essay . “Or even looking out the window, thinking about my novel.”

In many cases, the book was eventually reinstated, though in some cases, students still needed special permission to get a copy. “Even when you win, you lose,” Cormier wrote .

By the late 1980s, a conservative political wave was sweeping the country, and opposition to “The Chocolate War” — as well as some of Cormier’s subsequent books — increased. According to a 1987 report by the People for the American Way, “The Chocolate War” was by then the most-challenged book in the United States, ahead of “The Catcher in the Rye” and “Of Mice and Men.”

“The fundamentalists are certainly rolling in high gear,” Cormier wrote in 1987, “and it gives me the chills.”

He responded by inviting educators to his Massachusetts home, granting numerous interviews and corresponding with supporters and critics alike. He was anguished when he heard from teachers whose jobs were on the line because they wanted to use “The Chocolate War.” He wondered if he should encourage them: “Do I have the right to ask others to risk themselves,” he wrote , “while I remain safe?”

The Mowat Middle School fight troubled him.

“The attacks have accelerated,” Cormier told the Mowat teachers. “I feel very guilty these days as I sit at my typewriter … other people are fighting my battles.”

Such battles would continue well into the 1990s and 2000s , making “The Chocolate War” one of the few young adult novels to aggravate grown-ups across multiple generations. As of January, it was still on at least one banned book list in Florida.

For all the book-ban skirmishes Cormier waded into, nothing had prepared him for the ordeal in Panama City.

The fight had been ignited not by “The Chocolate War,” but by another Cormier novel: “I Am the Cheese,” his 1977 thriller about a troubled young man who can’t remember his past. When the parent of a Mowat seventh-grader objected to the book — citing its language and “morbid and depressing” tone — school officials immediately yanked it from classes, along with a few other titles, including “The Chocolate War” and Susan Beth Pfeffer’s “About David,” a 1980 novel about teen suicide.

For Farrell, whose ninth-grade English curriculum at Mowat included “I Am the Cheese,” the decision felt like a step backward. She and several other teachers had spent years revamping the school’s English department, getting rid of decades-old grammar textbooks and looking for provocative new stories that would get their students interested in reading. Cormier’s novels were a perfect fit.

The Mowat teachers pushed back on the ban, prompting an angry backlash. A grandparent with connections to Mowat was so offended by “The Chocolate War” that he took out an ad in a local paper , highlighting snippets of the book’s dialogue that included words like “bastard” and “goddamn.”

“Your child’s TEXTBOOKS,” the ad read. “HAVE YOU READ THEM?”

“Once they lit into poor old Robert Cormier,” Farrell said, “he didn’t stand a chance.”

Public meetings grew tense, and according to one account from the time , a school superintendent barged into the English department’s workroom and scolded the teachers for championing “depressing” books. Predictably, the controversy made the book a best seller in local stores.

Then things turned scary: After a local TV reporter revealed that a petition supporting the ban contained invalid signatures, she woke up to the smell of smoke and found that a flammable liquid had been set ablaze under her apartment door.

“When I see the situation at Mowat, I can only shudder,” Cormier wrote in a letter to the teachers. “I remember being in precarious situations as a reporter, but never with death threats and arson.”

Book banning in Panama City continued, eventually growing to include such classics as “The Great Gatsby” and “Twelfth Night. ” It wasn’t until a group of students — led by Farrell’s 13-year-old daughter, Jennifer — filed a federal class-action lawsuit in 1987, claiming their constitutional rights had been violated, that officials slowly began returning titles back to classrooms.

Eventually, Cormier made his way to Panama City and met with the Mowat teachers.

“He wanted us to know that he was pleased,” Farrell said. “He was giving us all the credit.”

By then, the dust-up in Panama City was quieting down. But, as with so many book-ban fights, no one walked away from the battle feeling triumphant.

“There was no big victory,” Jennifer Farrell, now 50, said. “Everyone lost. It was a time when the excitement of fighting against oppression should have been uplifting, and it wasn’t at all. In the end, it made the entire community suffer.”

Still, for all his regrets about the trouble “The Chocolate War” had caused for others, Cormier continued to defend it staunchly in the last years of his life .

“The message of ‘The Chocolate War’,” he noted, “is that evil succeeds when good people allow it.”

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