Approaches to interpreting Fitzgerald’s "The Great Gatsby". Unreliable narration, the functions of adultery, and the role of the American Dream

A GRIN Anthology

Vittoria Guarino, Friederike Lang, Emilie Platt, Julia Straub, GRIN Verlag (Hrsg.)

• Publisher: GRIN Verlag
• Year: 2024
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9783389081716
• Topic: Literatur
• Subtopic: Nordamerikanische Literarische Sammlungen

Anthology from the year 2024 in the subject American Studies - Literature, , language: English, abstract: This anthology contains four term papers. The first paper delves into the acclaimed work of literary realism, "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and its cinematic adaptation by Baz Luhrmann in 2013. Rather than debating fidelity or artistic superiority between literature and cinema, the focus is on exploring adaptations as autonomous artworks. The narrowed scope centers on the examination of elements of unreliable narration in "The Great Gatsby" and how they are transposed onto the screen in the 2013 adaptation. The aim of the second paper is to analyze what message F. Scott Fitzgerald as a modernist writer tries to convey to his readership through the employment of the theme of adultery in his 1925 novel "The Great Gatsby". Most importantly, based on the assumption that committing adultery fulfils different functions in the novel, it presents Daisy Buchanan's and Myrtle Wilson's motivations pushing them to do it. The "Great Gatsby" seems to tell a story about a typified American Dream, a young man who was able to escape poverty and living a high-class lifestyle. But after all it cannot be easily determined if it is a story that represents the American Dream or if the Dream he had changed into a Nightmare. The third text presents the American Nightmare in the novel with specific symbols that play an important role, his failure and the price he had to pay for his dream. Is Gatsby's economic success nevertheless a realization of the American Dream? It is important to ask that question because often "The Great Gatsby" is mainly associated with the American Dream and its typical lifestyle. How did Gatsby make his way up to the top? And how important is wealth, success and his social status really in his opinion? In the fourth text those questions will be given a closer look at.