BF118842

The great Gatsby The Great Gatsby was a novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald about life in the 1920’s. The main characters of the story each portrayed a different aspect of the times in which they lived but also each in themselves characterized by their own flaws and personality traits. There was the titles character Jay Gatsby who is characterized as being honest, self-hating, kind hearted, and obsessed with Daisy Buchanan. Daisy represented a neglectful mother who spent more time worrying about her own problems then with dealing with her daughter, her husband Tom Buchanan is an abusive alpha male who must be better or else. Nick Carraway the narrator is a spectator to each of the other characters short coming and in some cases tries to change how they are acting this makes him the super ego. Beginning with Gatsby is a man who came from a poor background and after coming back from World War I made his money from bootlegging and other illegal gambling. He strived for wealth because he could not stand being poor and in fact before the war he dropped out of college because he couldn’t stand being a janitor. He fell in love with Daisy Buchanan because she embodied the wealthy culture she was elegant, sophisticated, and beautiful all the things Gatsby wished to have. Even after she is married he obsesses over her thinking only about her, gaining a huge fortune to impress her and throwing wild parties to try and show off to her. His actions show that he has a self-hating mentality as he changes his whole life to feel better, and he is obsessive as he spends years doing everything in his power to gain one person’s affection. Daisy Buchanan on the other hand seems to have narcissistic qualities as she thinks only of herself and does whatever she can to keep herself happy. She originally tells Gatsby that she will wait for him as he goes off to war because Gatsby said that he was rich and would give her the world, but when he returns she is married to a wealthy but abusive man named Tom Buchanan. She is also a neglect full mother, when they introduce the daughter into the book Daisy treats her more as an accessory then as a child mentioning how cute she is but she leaves all the child care to the help or to friends. She spends most of her time buying things for her or lazing about. She also does not take responsibility for her actions as she shows late in the book when she kills that women and allows Gatsby to take the blame and ultimately dies for doing so. She allows the cycle of abuse between her and tom to continue because he is scared to lose the money she has obtained from him. Tom Buchanan is a rich man who comes from wealth; He is very aggressive and is abusive to his wife. Throughout the book he is portrayed as this suppressive man who is this controlling alpha male character. He tends to bully people around to get what he wants and is not afraid to get violent in order to achieve his goal. He is cheating on his wife this is mentioned in the first chapter of the book as he takes a phone call from his lover and has racist undertones. He is jealous of the relationship that his wife develops with Gatsby throughout the book and feels no remorse for his death when it happens. Nick Carraway is the narrator of the story and takes a back seat to most of the events that happen. in the story he spends all of his time just more or less watching what goes on to see how everything will play out but he jumps in if the situation is getting to tense or dangerous in order to keep the peace or to confine to what he believes is the morally decent route. He is the super ego of the story, he spends his time trying to keep everyone in the morally right and combating their wants and lusts. He even though at the beginning of the book says he is not very judgmental is in fact judgmental of everyone in the story believing himself to be morally superior to them. At the end of the novel he leaves New York for the very reason that it is just not morally good enough for him. This book in my mind shows a glimpse in to how the psychology of groups works. Gatsby is a newly rich man who tries to fit in to the society of the wealthy people before him but instead of welcoming him they tend to talk bad about him behind his back or to just try and get rid of him we see this on the school grounds with new kids. If the new kid just tries to show up and be as accepted as everyone else they tend to be bullied or shunned. Gatsby was trying to upset the dominance hierarchy and for doing so he was considered a threat and there for not allowed to join the elite class or to obtain the one he loved. The book in away parallels different types of bullying, Tom is a very physical aggressive bully essentially I’m going to beat you up if you don’t do as I say. Daisy on the other hand while this is accidental toys with Gatsby emotions by flirting with him and when he finally asks her to be with him she says no I’m staying with tom crushing Gatsby; both of those methods can be seen on a middle school playground. The Great Gatsby also shows gender roles for in the 1920s. While Gatsby and Tom both work for their money daisy is just supposed to stay around the house and not work. Gatsby goes out of his way to protect Daisy and to do everything he can for her never letting her lift a finger. Neither of the two men viewed Daisy as much more than a trophy to be displayed rather than a person who in the 1920s was how women were seen they were meant to be looked at but never really supposed to do any type of real work. Rampant materialism was also in the book this is part of a society who is trying to forget the biggest war in their time so they buy things as a way of combating the stress that was put on to them. Freudian theorist would look at the great Gatsby as an example of the id, ego, and super ego. Daisy is the id she just wants thing and will do whatever she can to get it, she is manipulative and willing to hurt people in order to get what she wants. Gatsby and Tom are the ego they go about trying to find ways to appease the id or daisy, tom takes the brute force approach of just getting things done who cares who is in the way, while Gatsby on the other had usually tries to be more kind and understanding using charm to get what he needs done. Then there is Nick who represents the super ego. Nick uses his moral compass to try and guide everyone in the socially acceptable route of things, he is very much in the favor of the middle ground and does not want to rock the boat to much more than he has to. In conclusion the Great Gatsby reflects many different parts of the human growth fields as well as how roles of women have changed in the past few decades. The book takes a Freudian approach to things as it uses the main characters as part of the unconscious mind. Fitzgerald does an excellent job showing how interactions amongst new members of a group and how that can affect the social classes. I would recommend the book for people to read and analyze so that they may make their own conclusion.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++ __ Subject Matter—15 points out of 20 __

You need in-text citations to the textbook for the concepts you are referring to.

You need to have a list of works cited, so I can evaluate your research and resources.

__ Higher-Order Thinking—15 points out of 20 __ : You show that you have found depth in this book, but you do not relate that to the textbook concepts.

__Organization--20 points out of 30__ There's not much of a structure for your thoughts here.

__ Format--0 points out of 10 __ No citations or references.

__ Grammar/Punctuation/Spelling--10 points out of 10 __

__ Readability/Style--8 points out of 10 __ Awkward paragraph transitions--try breaking them apart using empty lines (hit "enter" twice).

Grade: 68/100