The Great Gatsby Connection #4

     Looking back on my American Literature project research,  the novel The Great Gatsby by F, Scott Fitzgerald is included in both my definition of American literature and also in a few articles I have researched. In an article found on Ebsco host by Thomas Hischak, The Great Gatsby is mentioned to be one of the successful Hollywood pictures influenced by American literature featured in 2013. This book fits in the American literature category for multiple reasons. First off the author, Fitzgerald was from America and wrote the book in America and secondly the book was a response to the 20s time period in American history, including descriptions of popular events, such as luxorious parties, and the wealthy class division during this time. Although the novel is a correct portrayal of some aspects of the 20s, not all the people smoked cigars, wore flapper dresses, and went to roaring parties weekly. 

     With the movie having premiered this past summer, I had watched the film prior to reading the novel, which might have influenced the way I read and interpreted the book. Others, whom had read the book before watching the movie, explained that they thought the book was fairly hard to follow and understand. However, I thought it was easy to read and I followed the story with ease. Although watching the movie first may be helpful, it confused me often and was hard for me to distinguish characteristics from the book and the movie. I think I would have better enjoyed the book if I had read the book before seeing the movie.  

The Great Gatsby Connection #3

     The Great Gatsby has many aspects of the American dream and the self-made man throughout the novel. Many of the characters in The Great Gatsby live what some call the American dream. The American dream, during this time, is living wealthy luxurious lives with fancy parties and dazzling flapper dresses. Almost all the characters focused on in this book live this lifestyle and portrayed as wealthy. However, not all the characters were born into this kind of fortune. Gatsby is one of these characters, he is a self-made man. Gatsby describes in a life story how he was born into an extremely poor family, whom he did not even consider his own, and from the start work to get away from them and become a better man. He started to work when he came across a captain, whom had the wealth he desired, after many years with his idol the man died and Gatsby earned the wealth he greatly deserved. Although he did receive the money from someone else he is still considered a self—made man because he worked for his money to gain the life he desired.

     In English we learned about the American dream and the self-made man, which we later wrote a developed paper on from personal experiences. In my paper I wrote about the self-made man my great-grandfather had become and the journey it took him to reach this goal. My essay was very similar to The Great Gatsby’s example of a self-made man because my great-grandfather started out poor and through work he also met a man, whom he later bought the business from and became the man he is today.