F. Scott Fitzgerald’sThe Great Gatsby

Narrative TechniqueAmerican Dream

andGatsby’s American Dream

Karadeniz Technical UniversityDepartment of English Language and Literature

Ahmet Mesut ATEŞ

Narrative Technique

• Narrator, Nick, is a minor character merely an observer; he doesn’t affect or trigger events.

• Gatsby, the protagonist of the story, is vaguely described; leaving reader to construct a character with nothing but a few impressions and indirect portrayals.

• Protagonist is not succesful but a failed character• Boundaries between inanimate and animate

objects seem vague/blury.

Gatsby as Protagonist

It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternalreassurance in it, that you may come across four or five timesin life. (p.32)

With an effoft I managed to restrain my incredulous laughter. The very phrases were worn so threadbare "that they evokedno image except that of a turbaned 'character' leaking sawdust at every pore as he pursued a tiger through the Bois de Boulogne. (p.42)

Animating Attributes to Inanimate Objects

The lawn started at the beach and ran towards the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over sundials and brick walks and burning gardens -finally when it reached the house drifting up the side in bright vines as though from themomentum of its run. (p.6)

This is a valley of ashes - a fantastic farm where ashes grow likewheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes takethe forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally,with a transcendent effort, of ash-grey men who move dimly andalready crumbling through the powdery air. Occasionally a line ofgrey cars crawls along an invisible track, glves out a ghasdy creak, and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-grey men swaffn upwith leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud, whichscreens their obscure operations from your sight. (p.16)

Animating Attributes to Inanimate Objects

American Dream‘American Dream’ can be defined as:

The prospect of a new country where everybody is emancipatedfrom their former economic, religious, social, ethnic and any other identities and status; a new frontier for Easterns and a new home for those who lack the existence of or the sense of.

Among many we can choose the followings as major catalysts in the emergence of American Dream:

– World War I– The overly-exaggrated and misinterpreted ‘almighty America’ image– Ever-increasing urbanisation– Prohibition of alchololic drinks between 1918-1931– Prospect of easy money– A hopeless/desperate economical and political atmosphere in post-war Europe

Gatsby’s American Dream

Gatsby’s American Dream can be analysed in two part:• Before he met Daisy• After his return from World War I

Gatsby before Daisy

Gatsby’s father Mr Gatz show his son’s determination through what his son wrote on an old book. Before the war Gatsby’s only priority was money.

Gatsby after DaisyHe wants her to see his house,' she explained. 'And your house is right next door.''oh!''I think he half expected her to wander into one of his parties, some night,' went on Jordan, 'but she never did. Then he began asking people casually if they knew her, and I was the first one he found. (p.51)

He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom andsay: 'I never loved you.‘ …'And she doesn't understand,' he said. 'She used to be able tounderstand. We'd sit for hours - ‘ …'I wouldn't ask too much of her,' I ventured. 'You can't repeat the past.''Can't repeat the past?' he cried incredulously. 'Why of course you can! (p.70)

Collapse of Gatsby’s Dream

Gatsby turned to me rigidly: 'I can't say anything in his house, old spoft.''She's got an indiscreet voice,' I remarked. 'It's full of - ' I hesitated.‘Her voice is full of money,' he said suddenly.That was it. I'd never understood before. It was full of money – that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbal's song of it ... Fligh in a white palace the king's daughter, the golden girl… (p.70)

Fitzgerald portrates a failure rather than a success, so we actually read an American Failed-Dream.

BibliographyDimock, Wai Chee. Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner. Yale University, Department of American Studies, Open Yale Courses.National Endowmant of Arts. NEA Big Read Audio Guides, Lec. 16

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.