The Great Gatsby Literary Analysis Essay Sample

The Great Gatsby is a novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The story is narrated by Nick Carraway who follows the life of a man named Jay Gatsby. Gatsby is a mysterious man to most people, however Nick is one of the few who Gatsby actually opens up to. Gatsby fought in World War I where in training he met a woman named Daisy. Daisy and Nick were cousins. Daisy and Gatsby fell in love and she promised to wait for Gatsby once he got back from the war. Daisy went on and married a man named Tom Buchanan. Tom was a very wealthy man who was born into his rich lifestyle. Daisy values wealth in love and Gatsby was a penniless man. Gatsby's whole mission in the novel is to become a wealthy man in any way that he can and show off his luxurious lifestyle to Daisy in hope of winning her back. Daisy and Gatsby were bound to be together but the only thing in the way of that was Daisy’s husband, Tom Buchanan. The novel has many messages and different ways that could change your outlook on literature or even life. 

 Reading The Great Gatsby made me realize how much the world has changed ever since the 1920s. Automobiles were still relatively new to the world when the novel takes place. Now in today’s day, we have cars that could run off electricity and have more horsepower. Another innovation that greatly improved since the novel was written was the telephone. Today, we have mobile phones that could fit in our pocket. The novel portrayed telephones as a bad thing for some characters. Daisy knew what it meant whenever she heard the phone ring. She knew that whenever it rang, her husband, Tom Buchanan, was being unfaithful to her once again. Despite knowing about these altercations, there was nothing she could do about them. Tom’s money and lifestyle was something that meant too much for her to leave. Technology has greatly improved throughout time and this novel does an excellent job at portraying what it was like back then.  

A way that The Great Gatsby changed my attitude towards life is it made me realize that promises may be broken and life goes on. Daisy promises to wait for Gatsby to get back from the war so they can spend the rest of their lives together. She broke that promise by going off and marrying Tom Buchanan who was an extremely wealthy man. Instead of Gatsby going on with his life without her, he makes it his goal to win her back by also becoming very wealthy and showing off his lavish lifestyle. Him going beyond to try and win her back only caused more problems than solutions for himself. If he wouldn’t have tried so hard for Daisy, he wouldn’t have been framed for the killing of Myrtle Wilson and he wouldn’t have been shot dead. Daisy is relatively at fault for the lives of Jay Gatsby, Myrtle Wilson and George Wilson. 

Something that reading The Great Gatsby made me interested in is learning about the origin stories of characters in novels or films. The Great Gatsby does a good job at describing Jay Gatsby’s origin story to the reader. It lets us understand what drove Gatsby to become the person he was. Ever since Cody’s mistress didn’t give Gatsby the $25,000 Cody left for him, he was driven to become extremely wealthy himself. Another time that he was driven to do something was when Daisy left him for Tom Buchanan. Gatsby knew that he had to first become very wealthy like Tom for Daisy to even look his way again. Once he became wealthy, his only mission was to get her back again from Tom. In my opinion, I think what makes this novel great is that it is easy to follow along and understand each character and their back story.