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#1 Posted: 00:34:51 19/05/2015 | Topic Creator
Thesis Statement:
F. Scott Fitzgerald captures the devastating perils of emotion, wealth, and carelessness in his novels, which portray the ethical decay of American society in a lost era of reckless abandon. The Great Gatsby, The Beautiful and Damned, and Tender is the Night display these themes, along with semi-autobiographical content that reflects Fitzgerald's frustration with his own life. His sheer emotional style and his manipulation of literary elements paint the portrait of this broken man and his broken dreams as he falls from a spurious grace.
Excerpt from Analysis of The Great Gatsby:Such an image of grandiosity grows from the sole defining aspect of Gatsby's character: his ardent, permanent love for Daisy. Gatsby “seek[s] to impose some kind of order on a cluttered universe. The meaning Gatsby sought . . . was Daisy; when the betrayal came, his dream disintegrated” (Burnam 110). The “cluttered universe” (110) refers to the ethically void East Egg, and its inhabitants from whom Gatsby draws a sharp distinction. To him, Daisy embodies wealth and status; that is to say, by his opinion of wealth, she embodies morality, divinity, and the concept of love itself. The “betrayal” (110) denotes her ultimate defection to Tom, who controls her with material wealth, leaving her oblivious and apathetic towards the emotional and spiritual wealth that Gatsby devotes to her. Immediately hereafter comes Gatsby's disintegration; figuratively as Tom asserts his superficial dominance, and literally as Gatsby dies, riddled with bullets, leaving behind a world in which he can no longer thrive. Gatsby's death comes naturally, for without Daisy, the epitome of eternal content and desire, his life has no purpose or direction.
Excerpt from Analysis of The Beautiful and Damned: The couple's primary error arises from their total lack of motivation, perpetuated by an ideological disdain for conventional society and a complacent sense of aristocratic sloth. Anthony possesses “a kind of moral greatness that contradicts the objective development of his adventure” (Perosa 42). However, only Anthony himself perceives this “moral greatness” (42); he sees it as justification for his lethargic leisure. His egotism generates from his ludicrously facile upbringing and education; he believes that because he possesses wealth without ever performing honest work, he represents the epitome of social transcendence. The fallacy lies in the fact that his luxury only comes from his grandfather's legacy, and his monumental self-esteem becomes ironic in the results of his refusal to seek steady work; the “objective development” (42), or lack thereof, refers to his financial disrepair and personal collapse, direct consequences of his complacency.
Excerpt from Analysis of Tender is the Night:Faithful to the motif of devolving mentality, their relationship sets Dick on the course for his own deterioration. Because of her cognitive hindrance and status as a patient, Dick must act as Nicole's doctor and father in addition to being her husband. Naturally, this hectic, troublesome marriage impacts Dick at his core, and his occasional resistance to her needs “costs him a difficult and not always successful effort of will” (Stanton 120). Both this concept and the fact that “[h]is nature and his love oppose his profession” (Stanton 120) portray Dick as a hopelessly stressed individual with a dwindling ethos; he exerts all of his personal and professional prowess into healing Nicole, despite the toll it takes upon his character. While this notion testifies to Dick's altruism (White 126), the duress that he endures renders his eventual dishonorable decision somewhat understandable.
Final paragraph of Conclusion:Ultimately, while these idiosyncratic tendencies set Fitzgerald apart from his contemporaries, they also sculpt him as a colossus of American literature and a human paragon of unbridled imagination. He uses depictions of the ardently impassioned dreams, falsely pristine prosperity, and decadent moral cataclysms of Western civilization to form his novels into social, emotional, and autobiographical commentaries that never fail to evoke a spiritual response. Despite the tragedies befallen, Fitzgerald’s works still seem to emit an aura of hopeful determination; they almost imply a “pining for the sublime elevation of art” (Curnutt 43). Fitzgerald’s works project a calling to readers; they shout a beckoning to embolden oneself and dive into the same world of ecstatic euphoria in which Anthony Patch, Dick Diver, and Jay Gatsby immerse themselves. Akin to the luminescent motivation that ceaselessly draws Gatsby to his forbidden love, Fitzgerald’s art sings to the hearts of passionate souls and inspires every reader to chase his own green lights.
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