The Great Gatsby (1925)

A The Great Gatsby (1925) is a American tragic novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

• Context:
  • It can typically present American Dream through wealth acquisition and social mobility.
  • It can typically explore Social Class Divide through old money and new money tensions.
  • It can typically examine Disillusionment through failed romantic pursuit and corrupted idealism.
  • It can typically depict Jazz Age through extravagant party scenes and prohibition era references.
  • It can typically portray Moral Decay through materialism, infidelity, and spiritual emptiness.
  • ...
  • It can often employ Symbolism through green light, valley of ashes, and doctor t.j. eckleburg's eyes.
  • It can often utilize First-Person Narration through nick carraway's perspective.
  • It can often showcase Literary Modernism through nonlinear storytelling and psychological complexity.
  • It can often highlight American Geography through east egg, west egg, and new york city settings.
  • ...
  • It can range from being a Simple Love Story to being a Complex Social Commentary, depending on its interpretative depth.
  • It can range from being a Historical Document to being a Timeless Literary Masterpiece, depending on its critical reception.
  • ...
  • It can have Literary Influence on american literature through stylistic innovation and thematic exploration.
  • It can maintain Cultural Relevance through educational curriculum inclusion and media adaptation.
  • It can provide Critical Lens for american identity through dream versus reality examination.
  • ...
• Examples:
  • The Great Gatsby Editions, such as:
    • Original Publication Editions, such as:
      • The Great Gatsby (1925), the first edition published by scribner's.
    • Notable Reprint Editions, such as:
      • The Great Gatsby (1945), which revived interest in the novel after fitzgerald's death.
      • The Great Gatsby (1991), featuring critical introduction by literary scholar.
  • The Great Gatsby Adaptations, such as:
    • Film Adaptations, such as:
      • The Great Gatsby (1974), starring robert redford as gatsby.
      • The Great Gatsby (2013), directed by baz luhrmann with modern visual style.
    • Stage Adaptations, such as:
      • The Great Gatsby (2010), an experimental theater production by gatz.
  • The Great Gatsby Literary Analysises, such as:
    • Thematic Analysises, such as:
      • The Great Gatsby: American Dream Analysis, examining dream corruption and materialistic pursuit.
      • The Great Gatsby: Class Structure Analysis, exploring social hierarchy in 1920s america.
    • Character Analysises, such as:
      • The Great Gatsby: Gatsby Character Study, analyzing gatsby's psychological development.
      • The Great Gatsby: Daisy Character Study, examining female representation in modernist literature.
  • ...
• Counter-Examples:
  • The Beautiful and Damned, which is another fitzgerald novel but focuses on anthony patch and gloria gilbert rather than jay gatsby.
  • This Side of Paradise, which is fitzgerald's first novel that explores princeton undergraduate life instead of long island society.
  • The Great Gatsby (Biography), which would be a biographical work about fitzgerald rather than his fictional novel.
  • The Great Gatsby (Academic Paper), which would be a scholarly analysis of the novel rather than the literary work itself.
• See: F. Scott Fitzgerald, American Modernism, Lost Generation, 1920s Literature, Jazz Age Fiction, Great American Novel, Celestial Eyes, Tragedy, Charles Scribner's Sons, The Beautiful And Damned, Tender Is The Night, Jazz Age.

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References

2024

• (Wikipedia, 2024) ⇒ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Gatsby Retrieved:2024-4-22.
  • The Great Gatsby is a 1925 novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in the Jazz Age on Long Island, near New York City, the novel depicts first-person narrator Nick Carraway's interactions with mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and Gatsby's obsession to reunite with his former lover, Daisy Buchanan.

    The novel was inspired by a youthful romance Fitzgerald had with socialite Ginevra King, and the riotous parties he attended on Long Island's North Shore in 1922. Following a move to the French Riviera, Fitzgerald completed a rough draft of the novel in 1924. He submitted it to editor Maxwell Perkins, who persuaded Fitzgerald to revise the work over the following winter. After making revisions, Fitzgerald was satisfied with the text, but remained ambivalent about the book's title and considered several alternatives. Painter Francis Cugat's dust jacket art, named Celestial Eyes, greatly impressed Fitzgerald, and he incorporated its imagery into the novel.

    After its publication by Scribner's in April 1925, The Great Gatsby received generally favorable reviews, though some literary critics believed it did not equal Fitzgerald's previous efforts. Compared to his earlier novels, This Side of Paradise (1920) and The Beautiful and Damned (1922), the novel was a commercial disappointment. It sold fewer than 20,000 copies by October, and Fitzgerald's hopes of a monetary windfall from the novel were unrealized. When the author died in 1940, he believed himself to be a failure and his work forgotten.

    During World War II, the novel experienced an abrupt surge in popularity when the Council on Books in Wartime distributed free copies to American soldiers serving overseas. This new-found popularity launched a critical and scholarly re-examination, and the work soon became a core part of most American high school curricula and a part of American popular culture. Numerous stage and film adaptations followed in the subsequent decades.

    Gatsby continues to attract popular and scholarly attention. Scholars emphasize the novel's treatment of social class, inherited versus self-made wealth, gender, race, and environmentalism, and its cynical attitude towards the American Dream. The Great Gatsby is widely considered to be a literary masterpiece and a contender for the title of the Great American Novel.

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