Failure and Destruction of a Romantic Ideal in Fitzgerald’s The Great G

The bulky Gatsby and the Destruction of a Romantic Ideal In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald tells the story of a romantic ideal and its ultimate destruction by the inexorable rot and decay of modern life. The story is related by Nick Carraway, who has taken a modest rental house bordering door to Jay Gatsbys mansion. Jay Gatsby is a young millionaire who achieves fabulous wealth for the sole use of goods and services of recapturing the love of his former sweetheart, Daisy Fay Buchanan. Five years prior to the principal events of the story, Daisy stone-broke off with Gatsby and married the vulgar and arrogant Tom Buchanan because he was ample and came from a respectable family. In the years since, Gatsby turns his memory of Daisy into a near-religious worship. He places her on a pedestal and transforms her into his own romantic ideal. In the process, he also transforms himself. He changes his name from Gatz to Gatsby he invents a past, saying he was from a wealthy family and studied at Oxford he affects the speech patterns of an side of meat aristocrat (old sport), and stages parties that resemble theatrical productions. The irony is that Gatsbys complete pursuit of materialism is just an elaborate facade that allows him to pursue his please spiritual vision. All of the trappings of his wealth have a palpate of the unreal, as having no weight or substance. Our first sense of this occurs in Chapter 3, when Gatsby invites Nick to one of his parties. In Gatsbys library Nick encounters a intoxicated guest who announces that Gatsbys books are actually real What do you think? he demanded impetuously. About what? He waived his hand toward the book-shelves. About that. As a egress of fact you neednt bother to... ..., boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. Works Cited and Consulted Bruccoli, Matthew J. Some kind of Epic Grandeur The Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald. New York Carrol and Graf, 1993. Hobsbawm, Eric. The Age of Extremes. New York Pantheon, 1994. Mizener, Arthur, ed. F. Scott Fitzgerald A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ Prentice-Hall, 1963. Posnock, Ross. A New World, Material Without Being Real Fitzgeralds refresh of Capitalism in The Great Gatsby. Critical Essays on Scott Fitzgeralds Great Gatsby. Ed. Scott Donaldson. capital of Massachusetts Hall, 1984. 201-13. Raleigh, John Henry. F. Scott Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby. Mizener 99-103. Trilling, Lionel. F. Scott Fitzgerald. Critical Essays on Scott Fitzgeralds Great Gatsby. Ed. Scott Donaldson. Boston Hall, 1984. 13-20.