Literary Analysis Essay On The Great Gatsby

“Some liars are so expert they deceive themselves”(Austin o’malley). In the Great Gatsby by F.Scott Fitzgerald Jay gatsby is a dirt poor farmer who took advantage of the prohibition to sell illegal alcohol over the counter to get closer to a long lost love. In the book The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Holden caulfield is a sixteen year old prep school dropout who goes through life ignoring everyone and hiding his emotions because he will never like anyone as much as his brother. Gatsby is the phonier than holden because gatsby lied about his past, his wealth and his name.

Jay gatsby lied about his wealth because he sold illegal alcohol and made business trips with meyer wolfsheim. "he is the son of some wealthy people in the Middle West and from them came into a good deal of money"(Fitzgerald 51). This is the first lie gatsby tells people to give them all the idea that he is old money because that's the only way to get respect in west egg. "I thought you inherited your money.""I did, old sport," he said automatically, "but I lost most of it in the big panic – the panic of
“ I was brought up in america but educated in oxford, because all my ancestors have been educated there for many years”(Fitzgerald 51). Gatsby said he graduated from oxford because all his family have but his parents were so poor they couldn't send him off to school so he had to join the military. “ He talked a lot about the past, and i gathered that he wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps”(Fitzgerald 85). He wanted to recover the times he used to spend with Daisy and the times he had her in his arms. “My life my life has been like this and it has to keep going up”. Quote from great gatsby that describes his lies are taking hold of him and he believes that was actually his life all along and he wants it to be real not just for him but for daisy