Group items tagged

Argument: Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" has numerous connections to the works of Virgil and Aeneas as a commentary of ethical and moral decay. Claims:-Fitzgerald was a moralist -Fitzgerald is similar to Petronius -Fitzgerald uses Virgil as a moral guide Evidence:-"Like most moralists from Hesiod to C. B. De Mille, he set a moral type (like Nick Carraway) against a moral antitype (Gatsby)." -"Fitzgerald, like Petronius, is interested in the trappings of the wealthy of his day; both Gatsby and Trimalchio have amassed huge wealth by questionable means, and cannot entirely obscure their low origins and gross habits. When both men celebrate their material success by throwing lavish parties for hordes of dissolute neighbors, they are rewarded by being the subject of their guests' gossip." -"The farmers described in Virgil's Georgics are exemplars of Augustan morality, the same kind of values cherished by Nick Carraway." -"At the end of The Great Gatsby Nick concludes the novel by speaking of the effort to escape the past and achieve one's ambition in an image expressing the archetypal element in any struggle for a distantly receding ideal."

Argument: Despite raging criticisms that Fitzgerald work as a American writer had failed miserably, but analyzing his success after his death, the importance and significance of his novels are proven prevalent when observing American Culture during the Jazz Age. Claim: There was much critical neglect during Fitzgerald life, much ridicule and shame brought upon Fitzgerald. His life ended with misery, yet does not lessen the writers contribution to literary representation of American culture. Evidence: "...the days and months of his private world began to descend into tragedy. He could not bring the order into his life that would allow him to write his next novel. By the end of the twenties he was living too high and drinking too much" (Shain). "...he did the final complexity of our society and to recognize that we create a large part of our moral selves as we become engaged in that society. This is the theme that runs through his fiction · and through his life" (Shain). http://go.galegroup.com.lib.chandleraz.gov/ps/retrieve.do?sgHitCountType=None&sort=RELEVANCE&inPS=true&prodId=LitRC&userGroupName=chandler_main&tabID=T001&searchId=R1&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&contentSegment=&searchType=BasicSearchForm&currentPosition=6&contentSet=GALE|H1479001146&&docId=GALE|H1479001146&docType=GALE&role=Scribner

Argument: The moral characters of a young couple disintegrate as they wait to inherit a vast fortune. Claims: It is ironic how Anthony and Gloria only had to expect to get money to be corrupted by it. They are selfish and self-indulgent, both of which contributed to their attachment to greed, excess, and alcohol. Fitzgerald's disapproval of their actions is clearly evident throughout the book. Evidence: "As they move through their pointless round of pleasures, they demand wilder and stronger stimulation, but this only contributes to their downward spiral." "Quite a few of the pleasure-seeking, carefree antics of Anthony and Gloria-at least in the earlier sections of the novel-are based on escapades of Fitzgerald and his wife." "The third-person narrator veers between bemused appreciation of Anthony and Gloria as unapologetic hedonists and hardly veiled disapproval of their waste of talent and lives." http://search.ebscohost.com.lib.chandleraz.gov/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lfh&AN=MOL9830000741&site=lrc-live

Argument: Fitzgerald used characterization to uphold his view on the American culture during the Jazz Age. Claim: Fitzgerald is able to establish a clear reflection of a large society through one or two characters. His approach to writing a culturally reflective novel is shown through brightest by character interactions. Evidence: "Echoes of the American Dream pervade the novel, which contrasts the supposed innocence and moral sense of the "Western" characters with the sophistication and materialism of the "Eastern" characters" (Palvovski).

Argument: Fitzgeralds use of certain items in the novel are inferred as symbolic from past times to portray the social ranks aswell as trying to illustrate other psychological human qualities. Claim: Mentioning the eggs and the fowls at these Saturday night parties have some kind of resemblence to "The Feast of Trimalchio" in Petronius's The Satyricon. Evidence: "Fitzgerald first pays homage to his classical indebtedness by writing that "his career as Trimalchio was over" when Gatsby stops his Saturday night parties (119). He then adds a satiric bite to the egg and fowl allusions with the aid of the idiomatic meanings of "chicken" when he describes Nick's glimpse of Tom and Daisy "sitting opposite each other at the kitchen table with a plate of cold fried chicken between them and two bottles of ale [...] conspiring together" (152-53). "

Argument: Fitzgerald struggles with what literature depicts as the American Dream. In the Great Gatsby, the narrator Nick analyzes his neighbor (Gatsby) as his quench for conquering his American Dream becomes the primary pusher for his depression. Claim: Money is a strong player in the Fitzgerald's characters. Yet, no matter how much or how little a character is known to have, their happiness is not determined by the number. Evidence: "...instructing him to think no worse of someone who has less money..." --- MONEY AN ESSENTIAL FACTOR "The Great Gatsby, raises essential political questions: What does it mean to live well, and on what terms people can live together? And it suggests how America answers them. " - -- AMERICAN DREAM

Arugement: Fitzgerald embodys beauty, sex, and aristocracy throughout the novel and portrays how they are linked aswell as how they are contradicting towards one another--order, responsibility, and purposefulness. Claim: Fitzgerald's dominating purpose for this book, as for all his books, illustrates "unity and force," and this book is considered as a traditional bildungsroman:a novel about the moral and psychological growth of the main character. Amory being the target character for this. Evidence: "But the bar is strong enough to hold them and emerges intact because Fitzgerald does use those things with a "mentality back of them." Amory metamorphosis into the spiritually unmarried man should come as no surprise: from his first instictive attempts to get something definite to his explicit commitment to the struggle to guide and control his life, that is where he is heading."

Arguement: Fitzgerald is most interested in the way he uses dialogue to create his character. Throughout his books characters are allowed to be differentiated by the way they speak. It is also proven that "language" functions as an "index to sensibility." Claim: If we are able to understand a fiction conversation we should take into considerations how it plays into the dynamics of the plot and the characters. Evidence: "From a perspective that focuses on the dramatic--rather than the poetic--qualities of Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan appears as an actor whose whole existence is theatrical, a character whose identity is almost entirely limited to the role she performs in conversation."

Argument: Wealth is dangerous to society because it leads to moral deterioration in the form of drugs and alcohol. Claims:-Wealth skews personal identity leading to feelings of superiority and entitlement -Wealth provokes an unattainable desire for happiness through the forms of luxury and indulgence Evidence: -"Alcohol or drugs are used to escape the pain brought on by a warped perspective, and the rich have no trouble getting more, whenever desired." -"For example, in cases of inheritance, where wealthy individuals didn't really earn their money at all, there are high rates of abuse and addiction." -"However, happiness soon becomes an unattainable ideal when it gets tied up with an insatiable desire for personal possessions and luxurious living. When you always want more, you're never satisfied, and the dissatisfied are more likely to turn to drugs or alcohol."