Celebrities In The Great Gatsby
In "The Great Gatsby", Fitzgerald carefully sets up his novel into distinct groups but, in the end, each group has its own problems to contend with, leaving a powerful reminder of what a precarious place the world really is. Jay Gatsby falls in love with a woman of privilege and cannot have her because of the way he was born. He was less wealthy than her. Despite his best efforts to overcome his affliction, it is customary for rich to marry other rich and he can't break the cycle. America is full of classes, the old rich and new rich and on downward to the viscously poor, but money makes people behave awfully and disingenuously.
The story unfolds through the eyes of Nick Caraway, a man from a well to do family with an air of nobility about …show more content…
This theme of people trying to fit in with people of different upbringings comes into play with all the characters in the book.
Gatsby's parties are full of "celebrities", but are mostly a bunch of Broadway performers and some newly rich partiers that are attention mongers with incredibly low self-esteem. Gatsby is using them to draw his love, Daisy, across the bay, to his house “I think he half expected her to wander into one of his parties, some night"(Fitzgerald, …show more content…
They put on a false appearance of being smarter and at a higher moral, but their actions are often at odds with this. A subtle hint at this is when the owl-eyed man marvels at Gatsby's book collection "Absolutely real-have pages and everything. I thought they'd be a nice durable cardboard....It fooled me...It's a triumph."(Fitzgerald, 46). He somewhat implies that Gatsby hasn't read the books, but we learn he has a list of things to do, including reading to better himself.
Later in the story, we find out that James Gatz got his education and became Jay Gatsby, spending give years on a yacht as the confidant of a millionaire. We also find he didn't get educated on a proper small-talk that old money are accustomed and is dismissed as trash by people that would be jealous of his bank account, all because he did not reject a dinner invitation. It shows how insubstantial sincerity and honesty is among the rich, going through the motions of proper etiquette are much more important than truly engaging someone in
The story unfolds through the eyes of Nick Caraway, a man from a well to do family with an air of nobility about …show more content…
This theme of people trying to fit in with people of different upbringings comes into play with all the characters in the book.
Gatsby's parties are full of "celebrities", but are mostly a bunch of Broadway performers and some newly rich partiers that are attention mongers with incredibly low self-esteem. Gatsby is using them to draw his love, Daisy, across the bay, to his house “I think he half expected her to wander into one of his parties, some night"(Fitzgerald, …show more content…
They put on a false appearance of being smarter and at a higher moral, but their actions are often at odds with this. A subtle hint at this is when the owl-eyed man marvels at Gatsby's book collection "Absolutely real-have pages and everything. I thought they'd be a nice durable cardboard....It fooled me...It's a triumph."(Fitzgerald, 46). He somewhat implies that Gatsby hasn't read the books, but we learn he has a list of things to do, including reading to better himself.
Later in the story, we find out that James Gatz got his education and became Jay Gatsby, spending give years on a yacht as the confidant of a millionaire. We also find he didn't get educated on a proper small-talk that old money are accustomed and is dismissed as trash by people that would be jealous of his bank account, all because he did not reject a dinner invitation. It shows how insubstantial sincerity and honesty is among the rich, going through the motions of proper etiquette are much more important than truly engaging someone in