The Great Gatsby : Analysis

The Great Gatsby : A Critical Analysis

In his essay "The Life of Gatsby" John W. Aldridge writes: "Carefully plotted interior parallels and cross references serves greatly to enhance the thematic size of the novel and to give back to it some of the quality dramatic specification which the method of static character portrayal takes away" (220). About the complexity of the novel, Ken Bush, in Resource Notes to the text, writes, "Like many great literary works, The Great Gatsby is extremely difficult to classify as belonging to any one particular genre (type of novel). It is certainly, in parts at least, a satire on American society of 1920s but it could also be seen as a symbolic novel, a love story and comment on American dream" (173). About the great craftsmanship of Fitzgerald Matthew J. Bruccoli, in an introduction to his New Essays on The Great Gatsby, writes:

Fitzgerald's principal concern was to improve the existing narrative plan by shifting the pieces of Gatsby's biography: Gatsby's revelation to Nick of his love for Daisy and the account of Dan Cody and Gatsby were incorporated into chapter six. The novel is a work of genius, but it is equally a triumph of craftsmanship (1-2).

            Bruccoli opined that Fitzgerald was the representative novelist of the age and The Great Gatsby was classified as a novel about the roaring twenties. Bruccoli says, "It is one of those novels that so richly evokes the texture of their time that they become, in the fullness of time, more than literary classics; they become a supplementary or even substitute form of history" (6).

            Some critics have tried to interpret this novel as carrying the theme of meaninglessness. They have found the characters and situations in the novel equal to the situation of post-war America. The post-war world in which Gatsby lives is meaningless and almost wholly loveless. In this connection Roger Lewis writes:

A glance at the relationships in The Great Gatsby proves this later point (i.e. loveless). Daisy and Tom's marriage has gone dead; they must cover their dissatisfactions with the distractions of the ideal rich. Myrtle and Tom are using one another; Myrtle hates George, who is too dull to understand her; the McKees exist in frivolous and empty triviality. Even Nick seems unsure about his feelings for the tennis girl back in the Midwest. His attraction to Jordan Baker is clearly an extension of this earlier relationship (both girls are associated with sports), but occurring as it does in the East, it partakes of East's corruption (47-48).

            Any attempt to pinpoint the importance of a work involves a slightly circular argument. The criteria one brings to the work establish its sense of importance, and the claim for importance then justifies the criteria. Such a circularity need not, however, diminish the more obvious contexts used in establishing the wroth of a literary text. Complexity and artistry vision and technique are the values usually brought to the evaluative process. But even within these terms critics find room for disagreement. What is narratively and artistically complex to one may be simplistic and awkward to another. So we must be aware that any discussion of greatness of a work involves judgement that are both tentative and personal.

            Fitzgerald's fiction, his conception of character, the narrative unfolding, the complexity of language–all make for a novel unbelievable complexity. This novel surprises in every reading because we find new things in every reading. The Great Gatsby seems larger than the criteria we bring to its evaluation; whatever we say about it seems never complete or satisfactory enough. It is a novel that has proved larger than its many critics, which is perhaps what we mean when we speak of it as masterpiece. This study aims to see this novel as the representative novel of American society of the 1920s embodying degeneration.