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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: 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: 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: 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."