Characterization Of The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

Alexander Kasshamoun Ms. Clancy American Literature A1 20 April 2015 Characterization and the Contrast Between Hopes and Reality in The Great Gatsby The Great Gatsby, written by F.Scott Fitzgerald, is a story where dreaming stays in one’s sleep. One of the overall themes of the novel is the idea that there is a contrast between one’s dreams and reality. Characterization plays an important role in developing the central theme through the use of various characters. Characterization in the Great Gatsby provides how Fitzgerald contrasts an individual s hopes from his or her reality. Jay Gatsby, one of the main characters, is characterized in The Great Gatsby to help the audience understand the contrast between one’s hopes and reality. Fitzgerald characterizes Gatsby as a mysterious individual who tries to reinvent his past in order to be socially perceived to have a high status in hopes that one day the love of his life, Daisy, will fall in love with him. This is explained when Nick narrates how Gatsby changed his name from James Gatz after his parent’s death when he was seventeen years old, â€Å"I suppose he’d had the name ready for a long time, even then. His parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people — his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents at all.† (37) The quote explains how Gatsby is avoiding his reality of being a part of a family of â€Å"unsuccessful farm people† to make society see him as a man of high status to prove himself worthy of Daisy.Show MoreRelated F. Scott Fitzgerald ’s All the Sad Young Men Essay1271 Words   |  6 PagesF. Scott Fitzgerald’s All the Sad Young Men F. Scott Fitzgerald’s All the Sad Young Men was his sixth book. The work was composed of nine short stories that had been published in magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post over the course of the previous year. 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