The Great Gatsby Review By Michael Dawson

Over the summer months, I read a novel called "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald. A very well written novel, set in the "roaring 20s", a time of great wealth and prosperity.

The story begins with a character named Nick Carraway, the narrator throughout the novel. Nick works in the bond business and lives on West Egg, just outside of New York. There are two eggs, West and East Egg, West being the less fashionable side and East being the wealthier one. One night, Nick gets invited to his cousin Daisy's house, and meets several characters there including: Tom Buchanan (Daisy's Husband) and Jordan Baker. Tom had gone to university with Nick and was a very good football player at that time. Tom was a very cocky and brutish man, who was not very nice to his wife, Daisy. Jordan Baker is a very good golfer who is fancied by Nick. The next day, Nick is invited by Tom, to go to New York and meet his "girl", in other words his other mistress. Myrtle. Tom's "girl" is married to George Wilson, a man who owns a garage in the valley of ashes.

Finally, we get introduced to Jay Gatsby, a very well off man who was a soldier in WWI. Gatsby always has these extravagant parties every Saturday, as his neighbor Nick watches. However, Nick gets invited to one of Gatsby's parties and surprisingly meets Gatsby not at the party, but inside where he watches the party. Gatsby and Nick become very good friends and oddly one day Gatsby decides to ask Nick if he could meet Daisy for tea sometime soon. Nick secretly sets up this meeting between Gatsby and Daisy, and to the interest of Nick, he discovers they both had a history together before the war. Gatsby had been training in Louisville for the war, and met the beautiful Daisy and fell madly in love with each other. The relationship lasted for a month, until he sadly left for the war. While Gatsby was away, Daisy found the rich and pompous Tom Buchanan and married him. Gatsby, heart-broken by the news, waited for eight years to find her and get another chance. At the climax of the story, Tom confronts Gatsby about him and Daisy, then by the end of the fight Daisy truly finds out that she loves Tom. Before, this confrontation, Daisy and Gatsby were drive to New York and had a collision with a car. Ironically, the car they hit was driven by Myrtle, and sadly she passed away. George outraged by his wife being killed, asks Tom which car crashed into his Myrtle's car. He said a yellow car, which Daisy was driving, however Tom tells George that Gatsby was driving the yellow car. George, in need of revenge of his wife's death, goes to Gatsby's house, shoots and kills Gatsby and then George commits suicide. At the end of the novel, only a few people show up for Gatsby's funeral, including: Gatsby's father, Nick, Owl Eyes and "the boarder". Also, Tom and Daisy end up staying together.

The author's use of diction, in this novel is very well done. Fitzgerald describes things in such a unique and interesting way. For example, "He had one those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life." pg-49. Fitzgerald describes Gatsby in such a nice and elegant way that you just want to keep on reading. His language is old-fashioned and gives you a really good feel of how the English language was used in the 1920s. The character development in this novel is very interesting to see how they turn out at the end of the story. For example, at first Gatsby seems very mysterious and unknown, however later in the novel we learn the real truth about his fortune, in which he inherited it from his elder/mentor, Dan Cody. The dialogue in this novel is very well written and easy to understand for the reader.

"The intimate revelations of young men, or at least the terms in which they express them, are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious supressions." Nick Carraway pg-1. This quote defines the novel by how Nick would judge most characters throughout the book. "I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool, it's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool." Daisy pg-22. This displays how Daisy was so unhappy that Tom, her husband, was not there for his child's birth and puts her anger upon the baby, instead of Tom. Also, this shows that she regrets ever marrying Tom when she said she hoped the baby was a fool, referring to her being seen as a beautiful fool by Tom. A definite lack of respect for women.