impression: the great Gatsby.

"the need for illusion, and the tragedy that springs from it's inevitable failure" f. scott Fitzgerald , this side of paradise.


 Fitzgerald has recurring themes through out his writings that include: dreams, illusions, wealth, the jazz age.
and they all gather and mash up nicely in the great Gatsby.
the great Gatsby is the story of jay Gatsby, told from the perspective of his neighbor, nick caraway, who serves as almost nothing but an observer, of the man, the time, the helpless tragedies of dreams.
jay gasby is incredibly wealthy, and is notorious for his great parties.
nick is friends with daisy and tom buchanan, and their friend, jordan baker, who later becomes the love intrest of our narrator.
tom, is a rather awful, dislikable larg man, who is cheating on his wife, Gatsby, is in love with daisy, and she with him.
they had been in love with each other for 8 years, before daisy married tom, but due to certin complications, daisy married tom.
among the books meny messages, the idea of illusion, is what struck me the most.
he portrays illusion as a very strong and dominant factor in the human experience.
for illusion to run through a whole society, a whole decade, a widely believed (back in the 1920s especially   phenomena, that wealth was equivilint to happiness.
there is the illusion of these grand parties, when no one seems to be enjoying their time.
the illusion of jordan baker to nick Caraway, when eventually, her tand slim arms and witty personality, fail to stur any fuss within him.
there is the illusion of daisy to jay Gatsby, the illusion of her waiting for him yeas later.
the illusion of her voice, full of money.
and most of all, the illusion of the greatness of Gatsby, who otherwise was, a mere poor boy, helplessly in love with another illusion.
"Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her; if you can bounce for her too, till she cry 'lover, gold hatted, high bouncing lover, I must have you!" thomas parke d'invilliers.
This was the quote scott Fitzgerald appropriately chose for the book carrying on the theme of illusion, how the man illudes the women into loving him, and how he iludes himself into believing her artificial love would be sufficient

Fitzgerald was angry at the world around him when he wrote this, but old enough, and creative enough to put his anger in such a moving way.
F.scot Fitzgerald was born to a to a lower middle class family who could barely make enough money to 'make ends meet' so the fear, and insecurity of being poor always remained with Fitzgerald.
upper classed white women were brought up to take care of their appearances and figures so they would attract a wealthy husband who would maintain them the lavished lifestyle the were use to.
scott fell in love with a girl named zelda and they were engaged for a while, zelda broke off the engagement because he was too poor, later on he wrote the novel "this side of paradise" which got him a small fortune, and he married zelda.
but he had never forgotten, that, zelda did not marry him when he was poor.
the Fitzgeralds were known for throwing parties, almost as luxurious as Gatsby's, after a while of reckless spending , they, consequently, lost all their money.
they then moved to france, where the living was more affordable back then.
Fitzgerald's main mission seemed at times ( intelligently so) to record accurit portrits of his time, which he thought, was an especially legendary time, but after a while he felt a certain end, his getting older, the jazz age  slowly fading away
"one day in 1926 we looked down and found we had flappy arms and fat pot and we couldn't say boop-boop-a-doop to a sicilian" said Fitzgerald.
"'we're getting old' said Daisy. ' if we were young we'd rise and dance' "
by the end of the book, nick talks about how he has turned 30,  and how, all of this madness, all of these parties and illusions are over.
" 'I am thirty' I said ' I'm five years to old to lie to my self and call it honor' "
this book was a beautiful collaboration of melancholy reality and the aesthetics of illusion.
this is the way of dreams.
they are complex and helplessly out of reach, we stuff our selfs with little bits of condolence.
constantly being pulled forward and backwards to actions almost irrational.
"so we beat on, boats against the curent, borne back ceaselessly into the past."