Critical Studies: The Great Gatsby

by Kathleen Parkinson

Book Overview

Kathleen Parkinson places this brilliant and bitter satire on the moral failure of the Jazz Age firmly in the context of Scott Fitzgerald's life and times. She explores the intricate patterns of the novel, its chronology, locations, imagery, and use of color, and how these contribute to a seamless interplay of social comedy and symbolic landscape. She devotes a perceptive chapter to Fitzgerald's controversial portrayal of women, and goes on to discuss...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140771972
• ISBN13: 9780140771978
• Release Date: October 1988
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 0.28 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.1" x 7.8"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

One of the Great Stories of its Era

I reread this recently and loved it so much more than when I had to read it in high school. Fitzgerald's humor is so much more subtle than most humor writer's today and the funny lines are tucked between such beautifully crafted prose. The story is so simple - basically just describes a few parties at a mysterious Gatsby's mansion - but the humor and just enough foreshadowing keep you wanting to move forward. His observations of the young rich would fit in almost perfectly today. Inspired me to get back to writing my own book! By Jaimal Yogis, author of Saltwater Buddha

dreams

This book is about knowing that some dreams are too far from reach, yet we still always try to attain them. Like Gatsby, we are taunted by how close we can come to that dream, but in the end, we realize that our efforts are fruitless. Each of us have our own "Daisy" -- each person did during the 20's, each person does now, each person will in the future -- The Great Gatsby is a classic. Fitzgerald does a fantastic job depicting a timeless theme that people of all time periods have experienced.

the best i read

i know i probabnly didnt read alot but i was assgiened this book. its complexity is so thrilling. i truly recommmend it!its something that each of us has to ponder about ourselves becuz truly...we are what we crate ourselves.if u read this book ull know what im talking about.

Fitzgerald, the best writer of the twentieth century

Before I commence my review, let me first interpret the final verse of this wonderfully written book:"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."If you read the context, it is referring to Gatsby's dream of the future, of reaching Daisy and the green light that she represented. This passage simply means that he is a boat riding against the malevolent currents of the future and how they are unrelenting and implacable, never capitulating to his endeavors, and so he is endlessly pushed back to his inescapable past.This is my simple and terse exegesis of this passage. If I am wrong, then so be it, but I consider it a very plausible explanation given the themes of the story and the immediate context in which we find the sentence.Now that that's out of the way, I will voice my opinion on Fitzgerald's magnum opus. I will spare you the details on the story since you can read the synopsis above. Fitzgerald's style and phraseology leave some baffled and sometimes vexed, but it's these two controversial elements that make his works so magical - not just Gatsby, but also The Beautiful and Damned and his other novels. In Fitzgerald's era I do not believe he is matched in his brilliance. While his stories may not be as creative and ingenious as Hemingway's, the talent and artistic prowess of Scott is palpably, in my view, far greater than Steinbeck or Hemingway. There are few, if any, endearing characters in The Great Gatsby. I almost commiserate and lament Gatsby's ( spoiler ahead! ) demise, but really he is a rather shallow man at best, with a hint of loyalty and dignity. Nick is too insipid and lifeless for me to care one way or another. Daisy and Tom are nearly rehashes of Anthony and Gloria Patch and are utterly pathetic and contemptuous people, stereotypically xenophobic and parochial in their outlook of the world.Then we are simply left with majestic prose and prolific use of vocabulary. I cannot tell you how many words I have learned from Fitzgerald's books, not so much this particular novel, but especially The Beautiful and Damned.Regardless of the profusion of imagery abundant in the text, the book never gets tedious or garrulous; itself the book is only 170 or so pages long - calibrate this with The Beautiful and Damned and Tender is the Night, two books which ARE verbose and overdone, in my view.Overall I would rank this book as the best tale told by the most proficient and deft writer of the twentieth century. I shudder to consider what might have been if he used his skills to the full and actually wrote more ambitious works in the vein of Hemingway. I do not regard The Great Gatsby as a work as complex - and somewhat convoluted - as The English Patient, for example, but Scott's talent is so astronomically high that he overcomes his lack of creativity and is able to tell the same stories over and over again with infinite variety - this, in my opinion, is the apotheosis of the great writer. Ingenuity is merely a

great is the word

I read this in high school and remember wishing the book would end quickly. That was fifteen years ago. By some whim, I picked it up again...and wished it would never end. Maybe it's a sign of maturity. God willing.Fitzgerald's writing style is so fluent and enjoyable that you want to read his words aloud. I began to read Tender is the Night after being so enthralled with The Great Gatsby, and though it still had the same poetic flow of words, the story seemed to crawl unbearably (I didn't get past page 75). The Great Gatsby is a masterpiece though. The more books I read, the more I realize that there are no "great authors," only authors with moments of greatness. The Great Gatsby was Fitzgerald's great moment.