The Great Gatsby | Essays and Criticism

  • Three Themes in The Great Gatsby

    In the following essay, three themes are examined: the most prevalent theme of the corruption of the American dream, the theme of love and its fleetingness, and the theme of optimism.

  • Major and Minor Characters in The Great Gatsby

    The following essay is an in-depth look at Daisy Buchanon, Nick Carraway, Jay Gatsby, and Tom Buchanon, and at the specific roles the minor characters play in the unfolding of the story.

  • Critique of American Upper Class Values

    This essay examines the upper class myths of lineage, institutional education, manners, and wealth. Fitzgerald uses The Great Gatsby’s central conflict between Tom Buchanan and Jay Gatsby to illustrate his critique of American upper class values.

  • The Paradoxical Role of Women

    The women in The Great Gatsby appear to be free-spirited, scorning norms of what the nineteenth century would have considered proper female behavior; this essay investigates just how independent they really are.

  • Fitzgerald's Use of the Color Green

    The following essay explores Fitzgerald's use of the color green in The Great Gatsby, a symbol that represents both love and money, as well as Gatsby's ultimate goal—a spring-like renewal that would put his past behind him and plant the seeds for a future with Daisy.

  • The American Dream

    This essay looks at Fitzgerald's critique of Jay Gatsby’s particular vision of the 1920s American Dream; what Fitzgerald seems to be criticizing is not the American Dream itself but the corruption of the American Dream.

  • Romance and Cynicism in The Great Gatsby

    The following essay explores the interplay between romanticism and cynicism, two forces Fitzgerald presents as unreconcilable; Fitzgerald seems to be telling us that romantic ideals are impossible in early twentieth-century America, that they are a relic of a bygone era.

  • A Modernist Masterwork

    The following essay discusses how Fitzgerald, in his style, portrayal of American morality, and treatment of his characters in The Great Gatsby, left the Victorian era behind and created a Modernist masterwork that still serves as a model for American fiction.

  • Fitzgerald's Distinctly American Style of Writing

    This essay examines the beginning and ending passages of The Great Gatsby, which illustrate the way Fitzgerald creates a uniquely American expression from the basic building blocks of the English language.

  • The Jazz Age

    This essay looks at the music of “The Jazz Age” revolution taking place in American Arts in the 1920s; Fitzgerald's exposure to the music of his time fuels not only Gatsby's parties but also the general feel of The Great Gatsby.

  • The Theme of Time in The Great Gatsby

    The following essay explores Fitzgerald's theme of time, and his use of the past, characters, and images to advance this theme; Fitzgerald turns a critical eye to the American concept of time, in effect warning us all to avoid becoming trapped in time.

  • Jordan Baker, a Soldier in the Culture War

    This essay takes an in-depth look at Jordan Baker, who represents the proto-feminist known as a flapper; in changing fashion and the way a woman's morality was perceived, flappers had more influence on society in the 1920s than their more radical sisters.

  • George and Myrtle Wilson

    This essay discusses George and Myrtle Wilson, who add an additional layer of substance to The Great Gatsby by placing the major characters into perspective and by showing the low to which both the upper and lower classes can sink.

  • Major Characters, Time, Ambiguity and Tragedy

    In the following essay, Casie E. Hermanson examines the roles of the major characters in The Great Gatsby and how the novel both depicts its own time and deals with timeless issues of ambiguity and tragedy.

  • The Greatness of Gatsby

    In the following excerpt, Charles Thomas Samuels describes Fitzgerald's two great achievements in The Great Gatsby: the "triumph of language" and his creation of the book's narrator, Nick Carraway.

  • A Note on Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

    In the following excerpt, David F. Trask asserts that The Great Gatsby is Fitzgerald's critique of the American dream and the outmoded values of traditional America.