1. Table of contents
I - Dedication ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ P.2
II - Acknowledgements ---------------------------------------------------------------------------P.3
III- Introduction ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------PP. 4-5
IV- Themes Analysis --------------------------------------------------------------------------PP. 6 – 8
a – Money ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------PP. 6 – 7
b – Spiritual Shallowness ---------------------------------------------------------------PP. 7 – 8
c – American Dream --------------------------------------------------------------------P.8
V- Literary Devices --------------------------------------------------------------------------PP. 9 – 27
a – Point of View ----------------------------------------------------------------------PP. 9 – 13.
b – Narrative --------------------------------------------------------------------------PP. 13 – 15
1 – Order -------------------------------------------------------------------------P. 16
2 – Analepsis --------------------------------------------------------------------P. 17
3 – Summary and scene --------------------------------------------------PP. 17 – 18
c – Symbolism -------------------------------------------------------------------------PP. 19 - 24
1 – The Eyes of T. J. Eckleburg ----------------------------------------PP. 19 – 20
2 – The Valley of Ashes --------------------------------------------------PP. 21 – 22.
3– The Green Light ------------------------------------------------------ PP. 22 – 24.
d – Intertextuality ---------------------------------------------------------------------PP. 24 – 27.
Conclusion ------------------------------------------------------------------------------PP. 28 – 29.
Bibliography and Webliography
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2. III - Introduction
The period between the First World War and the Second World War is broadly
called the Modern or the Modernist period. This does not mean that literature is necessarily
modern by today‟s standards. It‟s rather a term to name a particular period and type of work,
like calling Wordsworth as Romantic, Andrew Marvell as a Metaphysical poet or Dickens as
Victorian. Right after the First World War, the values, lifestyles, norms and culture on the
whole, started to undergo a dramatic change. The new trends gave birth to some new aspects
of life and shattered the Victorian values in turn. This seismic shift found a spacious room in
literature. The literature of this period is characterised by experimentation with literary form
and a sense of alienation among its authors. The great shock of the World War and the
religious collapse and the decadence of faith, among other factors, contributed to many
authors‟ feeling that the world they lived in lacked meaning, and the glamour of the jazz Age
was a façade for emptiness and despair. This is visible in a great number of literary works:
Samuel Becket “Waiting for Godot”, T. S. Eliot “The Waste Land”, Robert Frost who wrote
“nature poems” to describe an empty natural world rather than celebrating a meaningful one.
The concept of Modernism means a radical shift in aesthetic and cultural sensibilities
evident in the art and literature of the post-World War period. The ordered, consistent and
inherently meaningful world view of the 19th century cannot accord with the futility and
anarchy characterising the contemporary history. Therefore, modernism breaks with Victorian
bourgeois morality and rejects the optimism prevailing that era. Modern writers depicted a
deeply pessimistic image of a culture in disarray.
Important is to mention that in their attempts to throw off aesthetic burden of the
realistic novel, Modernist launched a wide variety of literary tactics and devises with which
they were successfully able to break with the past and came up with new form fitting in
tackling modern issues.
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3. As an attempt of any artist in a given society, F. Scott Fitzgerald endeavours via the
most of his artistic works to convey the prevailing mood in the America of twenties. He
depicts the hysterical atmosphere, the political corruption and the social problems not a rich
background to enrich his writing, but as a man of good breeding he inherits from his father.
This good upbringing pushes him to defy and mock at the immorality of the golden age. To
realise such a great purpose and to break with the realistic novel, F. Scott Fitzgerald used
some devises and tactics that I called “the Aspects of Modernism” in this research paper.
Thus, this research paper sets out to study the major aspects of Modernism as they
were used by F. Scott Fitzgerald to treat some of the emerging issues immediately after the
World War. Some of these issues have to do with the death of religion resulted from an
immense devotion to materialism and pursuit of happiness; the corruption, loss and the death
of spirit as the driving force behind the failure of American Dream.
This research paper is divided into two basic parts; the first part deals with the
themes. I am not going to tackle all themes treated in the novel but I will be selective instead;
I will choose just three themes that seem to be modern such as Money and its effects on
people‟s lifestyle and how it leads to corruption; secondly, American Dream and how it is
failed to be realised; finally Spiritual Shallowness and how people is symbolically and
metaphorically dead. Concerning the second part, the focus will be on the literary techniques
including the point of view, narrative, disjointed timelines, Symbolism and Intertexuality.
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4. IV - THEME ANALYSIS
There are several themes dealt with throughout the novel, The Great Gatsby. Some of
the key themes have to do with decay, honesty, gender roles, class, religion, money, loss,
American Dream…etc. out of this list, I will be focusing in my analysis on the very modern
themes.
1 - Money
Money or wealth tends to be one of the key themes prevailing the whole novel.
Right after the end of the first world war, the world, the USA in particular, started to witness
unprecedented economic boost which soon had a great impact on the citizens‟ lifestyle,
customs …etc. This immense devotion to wealth is obviously represented by Buchanan
family. The latter is known for its huge amount of money embodied in the enormous palace
they live in. It‟s very noteworthy to mention that this great tendency towards possessing
wealth cannot go without affecting the moral and the social values. Tom and Daisy Buchanan,
Jordan Baker, Dan Cody, and Meyer Wolfsheim are examples of people who have been
corrupted by their money. Daisy, born and married to wealth, has no values and no purpose in
life. She finds her existence to be boring as she floats from one social scene to the next;
usually she is dressed in white with accents of gold and silver (the colors of money); even her
voices sounds like money. In spite of the wealth, she verbally wonders what she will do with
the next day, the next thirty days, and the next thirty years; unfortunately, she does not have a
clue. Even her daughter, Pammy, does not give any meaning to Daisy‟s life, for she views the
child only as a toy or a plaything. Because of her boredom, she has an affair with Gatsby
when she is eighteen, for she is attracted by his good looks and his army uniform. After her
marriage to Tom, she has another affair with Gatsby to relieve her boredom; it is a trifling
4

5. entertainment to her. She does not value the feelings of others or even human life. When she
hits and kills Myrtle Wilson, she does not even stop. When Gatsby is shot, she does not even
telephone or send flowers. Daisy is only worried about protecting and entertaining herself.
2 - Spiritual Shallowness
Admittedly, the theme of the death of spiritualism and the theme of money are
interconnected; it is a matter of cause-effect. In other words, the great devotion to wealth
leads to a great oblivion of morals values. To sample this, the life of the rich, represented by
Tom and Daisy, lack in good morals and has no room for religion at all. Tom uses his
financial power to kill Mary Myrtle and escape the punishment; he is cheating on his wife by
having an intercourse with Myrtle.
Additionally, the death of spiritualism manifests itself in a great number of symbols
including the valley of ashes and The Eyes of Eckleburg. The two images exemplify
America‟s declining moral state during the “Jazz Age” era. The huge eyes designed to make
money by an oculist are unconsciously indentified with the eyes of God. Fitzgerald indirectly
implies that these are the eyes of God. This association of the eyes (advertising and material
gain) with religion is the ultimate sign of the corruption of the mind. The eyes see nothing and
therefore cannot help anyone: for instance, this God cannot do anything to prevent Myrtle or
Gatsby from death.
The idea of poor spiritualism is further illustrated in the way Fitzgerald groups his
characters in the novel. The characters can be classified into two groups; this division is based
on the division between the West and the East. Nick and Jay Gatsby who represent people
from the West Egg who are still attached to Victorian moral values like honesty, human
respect, divinity, idealism, romanticism, faith, ambition, community, and other spiritual
values. Therefore, nick enjoys a pure vision towards life and On the other hand, he finds that
5

6. lifestyle grotesque and damaging. Against this sort of character comes the second type
embodied in the Tom, Daisy and Gatsby. Unlike Nick, these people are in the East Egg and
they believe in being wealthy to achieve their dreams. For Tom his big mansion along with
the huge amount of money is the only way with which he managed to win Daisy‟s love.
Owing to this wealth, Daisy preferred to let Jay Gatsby down basically as he is poor. This fact
pushed Jay Gatsby to compulsorily work with the view to being rich enough to win Daisy
back. By and large, this vulgar pursuit of wealth to win love is what makes these people blind
and cannot see the reality purely. The more practical way of saying this is that the acme of
spiritual death of the post war generation depicted itself clearly in the people‟s attempts to use
materialism to win spiritualism.
3 - American Dream
As a matter of fact, the novel is an attack on American Dream as a central theme
that F. Scott Fitzgerald aims to convey. The novel comes to cast light historically on the
failure of that dream in terms of many aspects (socially, politically and religiously). If the
American Dream considers Man as the centre of the world in that he has the rights of life, the
novel states the opposite; the rich (e.g. Buchanan family) accustom themselves to killing
those who do not belong to their social class and the worst of all these people usually run
away from justice; for instance, Tom carelessly killed Myrtle in a road accident without being
punished legally. In addition to that he massacred the Jay Gatsby by the end of the novel.
Against the political system of democracy stands the corruption and the bribery. Jay
Gatsby has achieved his wealth through bootlegging and crime. This money is not new
money; it is dirty money earned in illegal affairs and crime. Ironically, the society in which
the novel takes place is centred around money; a fact that juxtaposed one of the American
6

7. Dream tenets: the equilibrium between the materialism and spiritualism. The latter is entirely
eclipsed by the predominance of the wealth.
V - Literary Devices
A - Point of view
The Great Gatsby, a masterpiece by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a demonstration of art. In
fact, the celebration of literary art cannot be separated from the novel‟s second achievement:
its management of point of view incarnated in the use of Nick Carraway. By using this
narrator, Fitzgerald gains more than objectivity and concentration of effect. Nick, as a
character and observer, describes more than he witnesses; he describes the action and the
results of telling about it.
Before stepping into the discussion of the point of view in The Great Gatsby, I
believe that it would be pertinent to mention that, on the whole, there are two ways for an
author to tell a story: the first-person story or novel in which the protagonist tells his story, or
the-third person story in which the author tells the story from many possible perspectives. For
example, there is the omniscient third-person novel or story in which the writer is God-like
and knows what‟s going on in the character‟s mind: what they think of (cognitive perspective)
and what they feel (emotive perspective) and what is happening in the world of the story
under narration. On the other hand, there is a limited third-person point of view in which the
narrator knows only the thoughts and feelings of a single character, while other characters are
presented only externally. Third person limited grants a writer more freedom than first person,
but less than third person omniscient.
7

8. F. Scott Fitzgerald does not choose to narrate the story in the first person on the
ground that the hero Gatsby dies at the end of the novel. Also, he does not tell the story
through the omniscient point of view in order that Gatsby would be much more
understandable and sympathetic. In response to that and in order to come up with some
artistic effects, F. Scott Fitzgerald chooses Nick Carraway to tell the story. Nick Carraway is
chosen to be different from Gatsby in the sense that he is an unromantic witness, who attests
the truth about Gatsby as Nick himself puts it right at the outset of the novel ―I‘m inclined to
reserve all judgements.”1
By and large, the point of view in the novel is called the partially-involved narrator.
The reason behind this choice might be a tendency to position such a novel of customs and
manners partially away from the author. Additionally, the choice of Nick Carraway can be
interpreted as F. Scott Fitzgerald‟s attempts to achieve a sense of realism in that the story
reflects the life style prevailing in the Jazz Age objectively; thus the best way to achieve this
is through the employment of a matured, conservative narrator who is descended from the
Midwest. Using this point of view, F. Scott Fitzgerald managed to give credibility to his story.
Additionally, another aspect characterising the point of view in The Great Gatsby is
that the understanding of the story entails the intervention of the reader; events as they
happened in Gatsby‟s life and the order in which they are put throughout the book make the
story a bit enigmatic basically as the story is told in fragments instead of chronological order;
a fact that has made of the reader a collaborator and co-author.
Fitzgerald‟s choice of such a point of view, the use of Nick Carraway as a character
through whom the story is narrated, is no more than an attempt to be original and to attain a
sense of authenticity and genuineness. Reasonably, as I referred to earlier, someone like Jay
Gatsby would be more understandable and sympathetic provided that he is presented via the
eyes of a character like us – Readers. We, readers, learn about Jay Gatsby as Nick Carraway
1 - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (London: The Penguin Group 1994), 3.
8

9. does in the novel. The reader is unconsciously involved in the quest for the truth about
Gatsby. In other words, the author intelligently brings the reader closer to the action so that
we would experience the incidents as if we were Nick; both the reader and the narrator are
trying to identify the rationale behind the large parties, to learn about his background, to learn
about how he got that huge amount of wealth…etc.
Another artistic effect that is achieved through the use of Nick Carraway has to do
with the concept of realism and credibility of the story. Narrating via Nick‟s point of view, F.
Scott Fitzgerald successfully managed to make the novel more realistic. This effect would not
have been achieved if he had presented the life of Jay Gatsby through the eyes of an
omniscient narrator. The effect of feeling that the story is real can be obviously and concretely
demonstrated in the parties held by Jay Gatsby. Nick Carraway records the names of the
people who attend the parties as Nick puts it in the following excerpt:
―Once I wrote down on the empty spaces of a
time-table the names of those who came to
Gatsby‘s house that summer. It is an old time-
table now, disintegrating at its folds and headed
‗This schedule in effect July 5th, 1922.‘”2 (P.66)
Using the words like „names‟, „that summer‟, „July 5th, 1922‘, the author makes us believe
that these people do actually attend these parties and gives an impression that we are dealing
with real-life situation accordingly.
In accordance with the above and in response to a close scrutiny of the incidents
in the novel, we will find out that Nick Carraway never tells the reader about something he
2 - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (London: The Penguin Group 1994), 66.
9

10. does not know about or events he did not attend. If it happened that he did not attend an event,
he gets the information from other characters. To sample this, he learnt from Jordan Baker
that Gatsby once courted Daisy Buchanan in Louisville. He also learned about the death of
Myrtle Wilson from the Greek Michaelis. Thanks to this technique, the novel sounds
convincing and credible.
To further explore the techniques of point of view in the novel; we should mention
that Nick Carraway utilizes showing and telling. He presents other‟s emotions and thoughts in
two ways; number one is done under the form of dialogues with the intention of dramatizing
the characters (rewrite in order to show the second way!) The chance to express the concerns
is directly given to characters throughout dialogues. The following excerpt clearly illustrates
the verbal confrontation between Tom Buchanan and Jay Gatsby. The two characters are
entirely allowed to utter without mediation:
―She was the first ‗nice‘ girl he had ever known.
In various unrevealed capacities he had come in
contact with such people but always with
indiscernible barbed wire between. He found her
excitingly desirable.‖3(P. 158)
In addition to direct speech, Nick Carraway uses the indirect form of speech and
thought, which makes it hard for the reader to identify who is responsible for the words
spoken, the narrator or the character as the extract cited above illustrates. Jay Gatsby attempts
to make Daisy see that he is still in love with her. Nick, on the other hand, tries to convince
(himself or other characters?) that it‟s no point trying to repeat the past. This combination of
3 - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (London: The Penguin Group 1994,) 158.
10

11. direct speech and free indirect speech makes it difficult to know who is talking; for example,
in the above passage, we do not know who calls Daisy « nice girl ». Is it Jay Gatsby who
considers her so or is it Nick Carraway, who is sharing the same view held by Gatsby towards
Daisy? The two speakers here, Nick and Gatsby, form complementary parts of one voice. This
use of direct and free indirect speech makes it difficult to say to what extent the narrator
obliterates the character‟s voice.
In addition to showing, the technique of telling is also a significant part of the point
of view. Instead of presenting the readers with an exchange, Nick Carraway summarises the
events in a single sentence. For example, in the following passage, Nick sums up the events of
three weeks in one sentence:
“Reading over what I have written so far I see I have
given the impression that the events of three nights
several weeks apart were all that absorbed me. On
the contrary they were merely casual events in a
crowded summer and, until much later, they
absorbed me infinitely less than my personal
affairs.” 4 (P. 61)
4 - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (London: The Penguin Group 1994,) 61.
11

12. B - Narrative
Narrative techniques, along with the point of view have made of The Great Gatsby a
successful piece of literary art. Before I embark on analysing the narrative, it would be
advisable to state that the narrative levels act in a hierarchic relation to one another. A more
practical way of saying this is that Nick Carraway deems the only source of information for
the reader. In other words, he is the ears and the eyes of the readers and when the trustworthy
narrator cannot access the information, he resorts to other secondary narrators. In The Great
Gatsby, the narrative process includes Dan Cody, Meyer Wolfshiem, Jordan Baker and
Gatsby‟s father. For example, in the following passage, Jordan Baker tells a story about her
friend Daisy, saying:
―One October day in nineteen-seventeen —— (said
Jordan Baker that afternoon, sitting up very straight on
a straight chair in the tea-garden at the Plaza Hotel) —
I was walking along from one place to another half on
the sidewalks and half on the lawns. …etc I was
flattered that she wanted to speak to me, because of all
the older girls I admired her most. She asked me if I
was going to the Red Cross and make bandages. I was.
Well, then, would I tell them that she couldn‘t come
that day? The officer looked at Daisy while she was
speaking, in a way that every young girl wants to be
looked at sometime, and because it seemed romantic to
me I have remembered the incident ever since. His
name was Jay Gatsby and I didn‘t lay eyes on him
12

13. again for over four years—even after I‘d met him on
Long Island I didn‘t realize it was the same man.‖5
(PP: 80-81)
The choice of Jordan Baker to tell the story of Gatsby‟s first love affair and not
through the eyes of Nick can be ascribed to the idea that Nick Carraway was not there at the
time of the event. Thus, he cannot narrate it to the reader. Baker, then, deems (do you mean
Baker is deemed a second degree narrator? by deem? to be the second degree narrator. This
technique in narration is called metadiegesis. Within the same context, other characters cast in
the role of second hand narrators including Dan Cody, Meyer Wolfshciem and Gatsby‟s
father (Henry Gatz). This technique, also, as I mentioned earlier, serves the credibility of the
narration. Beside the second-hand narrator, F. Scott Fitzgerald employs what critics call in
narratology pseudo-diegetic narrative (when someone else who has heard a story from
another person tells the story himself). The use of this type of narrative is concretised in the
following extract:
―She was the first ‗nice‘ girl he had
ever known. In various unrevealed
capacities he had come in contact
with such people but always with
indiscernible barbed wire between.
He found her excitingly desirable.‖ 6
p. 158
5 - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (London: The Penguin Group 1994,) 80-81.
6 – Ibid., P. 158.
13

14. Gatsby describes Daisy as a „nice‟ girl. If you look at the passage carefully, you will not
easily indentify whose voice it is. Is it Nick‟s or Gatsby‟s? The difficulty, as I mentioned
earlier, lies in the use of direct speech and free indirect speech. Nick, on this level, absorbs the
voice of Gatsby into his own. In other words, he takes charge of the second level narrative
(Gatsby‟s). It‟s worth underlying that these techniques are lost to conventional novels in
narrative.
The two aforementioned types of narrative contribute to the elucidation of Gatsby‟s
background. This information is necessary for the reader to use with the view to
understanding the historical background of the hero.
In the following remaining paragraphs, I will discuss the other aspects of narrative in the
novel by focusing on order, analepsis, summary, and scene.
1 - Order
As I mentioned earlier, unlike the traditional novels, a proper understanding of The
Great Gatsby as a modern literary work necessitates the contribution of the reader to
arranging the fragmented events in the story in the chronological order. The reader learns
about Gatsby‟s life in segments precisely as these events do not appear in the book as they
happened in Gatsby‟s life. Through these flashbacks, the reader has to rebuild Gatsby‟s
biography from the available fragments uttered by characters throughout the course of the
novel. A more practical way of saying this is that the order of events embodied in the use of
flashbacks is meant to involve the reader as reconstructor and to make the story of Jay Gatsby
a believable story.
14

15. 2 - Analepsis
Analepsis occurs when, at a point in the text, narration returns to a point in the story,
while prolespsis is narration of an event before earlier events have been mentioned. Simply
put, an analepsis is a flashback and a prolepsis is a foreshadowing or anticipation.
A close scrutiny of the events related to Gatsby and the way they are narrated in the
novel shows that analepsis, in its two forms, is highly used by the author. Let‟s focus on the
most significant events and the pages in the novel: The most events are Gatsby‟s childhood
(pp: 179 – 180), Gatsby and Dan Cody‟s meeting (pp: 106 – 107), Gatsby and Daisy‟s love
(pp: 154 - 156), Gatsby‟s travel to Louisville (p. 158), and How Gatsby becomes wealthy (pp:
177 - 179). These events in the story time are not the same as they appear in the life of Jay
Gatsby. Normally and according to the traditional novel, Gatsby‟s childhood should have
been in the first chapter, but it comes right the end of the novel. This narrative technique, as I
mentioned earlier, is meant to violate the conventional way of narrative and to involve the
reader in constructing the biography of the hero by putting the fragments in the right order.
Also, F. Scott Fitzgerald wants to address the idea that the narrative reflects the modern world
that is fragmented, a world that lacking the order.
B - Summary and Scene.
Sometimes in the process of the narration, the author sometimes thinks that there are
some events which are not worthy of elaboration. These events are usually condensed into
very limited textual space by giving a brief account of its main details like « three weeks » in
the following passage:
―They carried him into my house,‘
appended Jordan, ‗because we lived just
15

16. two doors from the church. And he stayed
three weeks, until Daddy told him he had to
get out. The day after he left Daddy died.‘
After a moment she added as if she might
have sounded irreverent, ‗There wasn‘t any
connection.‖7
In addition to that, Nick‟s family history is introduced through summary: “My family have
been prominent, well-to-do people in this middle-western city for three generations.‖8 P.4
As far as scene is concerned, the author uses scenes to dramatise the characters. The
scene is clearly manifested in the use of dialogues with the less intrusion of the narrator. The
finest example is when the author leads the two main characters to meet one another in Tom‟s
house. During this scene, Jay Gatsby attempts to persuade Daisy into loving him again and
stubbornly dissuades her from believing Tom Buchanan‟s marital show, but as Tom
humiliates Gatsby by revealing his illegal affairs, he managed to prevent ― Mr Nobody‖9 from
having Daisy. This confrontation is really the most significant scene in the whole novel.
‗It was an opportunity they gave to some of the officers
after the Armistice,‘ he continued. ‗We could go to any of
the universities in England or France.‘
I wanted to get up and slap him on the back. I had one of
those renewals of complete faith in him that I‘d
experienced before.
7 - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (London: The Penguin Group 1994,) 136.
8 - Ibid., P.4
9 - Ibid., P.138
16

17. Daisy rose, smiling faintly, and went to the table.
‗Open the whiskey, Tom,‘ she ordered. ‗And I‘ll make you
a mint julep. Then you won‘t seem so stupid to yourself….
Look at the mint!‘
‗Wait a minute,‘ snapped Tom, ‗I want to ask Mr. Gatsby
one more question.‘
‗Go on,‘ Gatsby said politely.
‗What kind of a row are you trying to cause in my house
anyhow?‘
They were out in the open at last and Gatsby was content.
‗He isn‘t causing a row.‘ Daisy looked desperately from
one to the other. ‗You‘re causing a row. Please have a
little self control.‘
‗Self control!‘ repeated Tom incredulously. ‗I suppose the
latest thing is to sit back and let Mr. Nobody from
Nowhere make love to your wife. Well, if that‘s the idea
you can count me out…. Nowadays people begin by
sneering at family life and family institutions and next
they‘ll throw everything overboard and have
intermarriage between black and white‖ 10 (pp. 138 – 139)
10 - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (London: The Penguin Group 1994), pp. 138 – 139.
17

18. C - Symbolism
As well as point of view and narrative, symbolism is another ingredient that has
made of this novel a success. The core of this part is to shed as much as possible light on the
key symbols embodied in « the valley of ashes », « the eyes of Dr. J.T. Eckleburg », and « the
green light ».
1 - The Eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg
“But above the grey land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift
endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T.
J. Eckleburg. The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue and
gigantic—their retinas are one yard high. They look out of no face
but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass
over a nonexistent nose. Evidently some wild wag of an oculist set
them there to fatten his practice in the borough of Queens, and then
sank down himself into eternal blindness or forgot them and moved
away. But his eyes, dimmed a little by many paintless days under sun
and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping ground.”11 (pp. 26 - 27)
“Standing behind him Michaelis saw with a shock that he was
looking at the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg which had just emerged
pale and enormous from the dissolving night.
‗God sees everything,‘ repeated Wilson.‖12 (P. 170)
11 - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (London: The Penguin Group 1994), pp. 26 – 27.
12 - Ibid., P.170.
18

19. Literally, and as it is clearly stated by the author himself, the eyes of Doctor T. J.
Eckleburg are left by an oculist who made that huge and gigantic picture with the view to
earning much money and attract more clients. Deeply, taking the historical context into
accounts and close examination of the above the symbol show that the advertisement
incarnated in the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg has a symbolic dimension.
Against the realists, particularly in France, who gave much more focus on the form,
precision and exactitude, F. Scott Fitzgerald prefers not to be that clear partly because such
symbols will bring about curiosity and partly because it aims at enticing the use of
imagination to sort out the hidden laws of art. Given this perception, symbols in the novel are
intentionally reflecting a typical life that was prevailing the age of twenties in the USA; the
life that mysteriously witnessed a great change in customs and norms. New trends including
the death of spiritualism, the predominance of materialism, the death in life, the loss
altogether deemed enigmatic in the eyes of the writer, which, in turn, would hard to express
clearly in sentences. Therefore the best way to depict that complexity of Jazz Era is through
symbols.
The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg, as one of the several symbols used to serve the
death of spirits in the American of twenties, are identified with the eyes of God as well as the
death of God. F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the symbol of the eyes to represent God staring down
and judging American as wasteland. For George Wilson, the connection between the eyes of
Doctor T. J. Eckleburg and the eyes of God is thematically symbolic in the sense that he is
socially and culturally blinded by the materialism to the extent that the eyes of Doctor T. J.
Eckleburg are viewed as the eyes of God: “God sees everything‖.
19

20. 2 - The Valley of ashes
―About half way between West Egg and New York the
motor-road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it
for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from a
certain desolate area of land. This is a valley of
ashes—a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat
into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens where
ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising
smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, of men
who move dimly and already crumbling through the
powdery air‖13
The Valley of ashes, as one of the key symbols in the novel, is first introduced in
chapter 2; located between West Egg and New York. It is described as grey land and spasm of
bleak dust, created by the dumping of industrial ashes. Symbolically, the valley of ashes
stands for the moral and social decay that emanated from the uninhibited pursuit of wealth
and pleasure. It additionally symbolizes the plight of the poor; George Wilson, who lives
among the dirty ashes and lose vitality accordingly, is the finest embodiment of the poor.
―The interior was unprosperous and bare; the only
car visible was the dust-covered wreck of a Ford
which crouched in a dim corner. It had occurred to
me that this shadow of a garage must be a blind and
13 - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (London: The Penguin Group 1994), p. 26.
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21. that sumptuous and romantic apartments were
concealed overhead when the proprietor ( Wilson)
himself appeared in the door of an office, wiping his
hands on a piece of waste. He was a blonde, spiritless
man, anaemic, and faintly handsome.‖14 p. 28.
Stylistically, it is also worth of mentioning that the location of the valley of ashes
(west) and the people living there have several characteristics in common. Unlike people who
come from the east (Nick Carraway), the westerns are depicted as “blind‖, ―spiritless‖ and
―anaemic‖.
3 - The Green Light
The green light which is placed in chapters 1, 5 and 9 functions at many levels in the
sense that it carries several meanings at every level of the story. Throughout the course of the
narration, the green light functions as a sign of Gatsby‟s promising future, as money, as the
green breast of the New World, and as springtime.
The green light at the end of Daisy‟s Dock has a great symbolic dimension in the
book. In the eyes of Gatsby, the green light stands for his dream incarnated in Daisy. To attain
her would be completing Gatsby‟s American Dream. In our first acquaintance with the green
light in the novel, we see Gatsby reaching out for it to the extent of worshipping it:
14 - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (London: The Penguin Group 1994), p. 28.
21

22. ―…he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a
curious way, and, far as I was from him, I could have
sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward
– and distinguished nothing except a single green light,
minute and far away…‖15 P.28.
Later, we find out that this green light is located at the end of Daisy‟s Dock. The green colour
represents hope, promise, and renewal. Therefore, it would plausibly to claim that Gatsby‟s
dream of a future with Daisy could be represented in the novel by this green light. So
important is to mention that this green light will never be achieved; this impossibility is
obviously stated by the author while describing the green light as “minute” and “far away”
―Involuntarily I glanced seaward—and
distinguished nothing except a single green light,
minute and far away, that might have been the end
of a dock.‖16 P.24
Additionally, later in the final chapter, the green light is compared to “the green
breast of the new world‖; 17 P.192. Gatsby‟s dream of rediscovery of Daisy is a reminder of
the explorer‟s discovery of America and the promise of a new continent.
However, Gatsby‟s dream is tarnished by his great tendency towards material
possessions, the same as the America of today: she devoted much more to materialism and
wealth. The green light (promise, hope, spiritualism) are immensely eclipsed by the great
15 - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (London: The Penguin Group 1994), pp. 28.
16 - Ibid., P.24.
17 - Ibid., P.192.
22

23. devotion to wealth. This extravagant tendency to materialism shattered the second part of
American Dream represented by the green light. If you notice the contrast between the chapter
1 where green symbolises hope and promise of the future, and the beginning of chapter 2
where we are introduced to the “foul waste land‖ of the present, where only the eyes of
Eckleburg, gone mad, symbolises advertising and commercialism.
D - Intertextuality
The term intertextuality as it is defined in wikipedia is ―the shaping of texts'
meanings by other texts. It can include an author‘s borrowing and transformation of a prior
text or to a reader‘s referencing of one text in reading another. The term ―intertextuality‖
has, itself, been borrowed and transformed many times since it was coined
by poststructuralist Julia Kristeva in 1966. As critic William Irwin says, the term ―has come
to have almost as many meanings as users, from those faithful to Kristeva‘s original vision to
those who simply use it as a stylish way of talking about allusion and influence.‖18
As for the intertextuality in the Great Gatsby, according to many critics, the novel
contains allusions to and draws inspiration from many works of literature, both classical and
modern. The great work that has an immense impact on F. Scott Fitzgerald while writing the
Great Gatsby is T. S. Eliot‟s The Waste Land.
A close scrutiny of the way F. Scott Fitzgerald depicts the scene of the “valley of
ashes‖ reminds us of the T. S. Eliot‟s well-know poem entitled “The Waste Land‖ which was
published in 1922, and F. Scott Fitzgerald for sure had read it with great interest.
18 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intertextuality
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24. There is no doubt that F. Scott Fitzgerald had Eliot‟s wasteland in his mind while describing
“the valley of ashes‖. In Eliot‟s wasteland, the poet epitomizes moral depravity and spiritual
emptiness, great devotion to commercialism. Throughout the poem, the poet, via the images,
expresses the anxiety and frustration and emptiness that characterised the modern man, unlike
the Victorian era, particularly the post-war generation. The latter was totally cut off from
spiritual values owing the shock of the First World War.
Let us examine this passage taken from The Great Gatsby:
―This is a valley of ashes—a fantastic farm where ashes grow
like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens where
ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke
and finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly
and already crumbling through the powdery air. Occasionally a
line of grey cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a
ghastly creak and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-grey
men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable
cloud which screens their obscure operations from your sight.
But above the grey land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift
endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of
Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are
blue and gigantic—their retinas are one yard high. They look
out of no face but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow
spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose. Evidently some
wild wag of an oculist set them there to fatten his practice in the
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25. borough of Queens, and then sank down himself into eternal
blindness or forgot them and moved away.‖16p.26
The valley of ashes as it is pictured in the passage cited above represents the
sterility as well as immorality in the America of twenties. The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg
over the barren world are a sign of an oculist‟s business and his blindness, symbolically, will
never be corrected mainly as they are sunk down into eternal blindness. The eyes are a
revealing symbol in both literary works; people are unable to see things in their real sense and
behave blindly accordingly. For example, Gatsby was watching over nothing: ―So I (Nick
Carraway) walked away and left him (Jay Gatsby) standing there in the moonlight—watching
over nothing.‖17 P. 156. He is blinded to the reality of Daisy who is materialistically oriented
and spiritually empty. Additionally Tom is blind to his hypocrisy (his cheating on his wife
embodied in his intercourse with Myrtle Wilson), his exploitation of the poor (Mr Wilson)
and his physical violence: ―Making a short deft movement Tom Buchanan broke her (Myrtle
Wilson) nose with his open hand.‖18 p. 41. Additionally, Myrtle Wilson wrongly sees it that
Tom can be her salvation, but he turns out to be a source of trouble and suffering; she blindly
rushes for his car with the intention of escaping from her legitimate man (Mr Wilson) and is
killed accordingly: “…Myrtle Wilson, her life violently extinguished, knelt in the road and
mingled her thick, dark blood with the dust.‖19 P. 147. Another aspect of blindness has to do
with Eckleburg‟s eyes. He thinks that the eyes of Eckleburg are the right judge as he mistaken
the gigantic eyes with the eyes of God: ―God sees everything‖20P.170.
16 - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (London: The Penguin Group 1994), p.26.
17 - Ibid., p. 156.
18 - Ibid., P.41.
19 - Ibid., P.147.
20 - Ibid., P.170.
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26. The connection between F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel, The Great Gatsby, and T.S.
Eliot's poem, "The Waste Land," shows that F. Scott Fitzgerald transposes the meanings and
motifs of “The Waste Land” to his book “The Great Gatsby”. Let us consider these verses
taken from the poem: April is the cruellest month, breeding / Lilacs out of the dead land,
mixing. T. S. Eliot gets into the land to discover that the roots of Lilacs in the sterile land
desperately looking for life out of nothing. Similarly, the valley of ashes is described with its
―This is a valley of ashes—a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills
and grotesque gardens where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising
smoke…etc‖21P. 26. These descriptions imply that no life aspects can ever exist in the rough
environment and that the waste lands are not merciful.
Furthermore, another aspect that both The Great Gatsby and The Waste Land has
in common is the emptiness: for example in the poem, particularly in “A Game of Chess”, the
woman says despairingly:
“What shall I do now? What shall I do?
I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
With my hair down, so. What shall we do to-morrow?
What shall we ever do?”
Likewise, in the great Gatsby, Daisy says in the first chapter 1 ―All right,‘ said
Daisy. ‗What‘ll we plan?‘ She turned to me helplessly. ‗What do people plan?‖22 (P. 14) and
in chapter seven : she says “„What‘ll we do with ourselves this afternoon,‟ cried Daisy, ‗and
the day after that, and the next thirty years?”23 (P. 126)
21 - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (London: The Penguin Group 1994), p. 26.
22 - Ibid., p. 14.
23 - Ibid., P.26.
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27. The life in the eyes of such modern women has no sense; they also do not know how
to manage their time wisely and waste it as a result. The lack of purpose in life is one of the
main aspects characterised the post war generation. So the two writers give much space within
their literary works.
Finally, the similarities between Owl-Eyes and Tiresias can be pointed out. Owl-
Eyes has these "enormous owl-eyed spectacles," is blind, "but perceptive." In the same way,
Tiresias is also blind, but he foresees all. Both characters represent the eye of the mind.
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28. Conclusion
Throughout this research paper, I should claim that F. Scott Fitzgerald successfully
managed to tackle some of the social and moral issues that emerged immediately after the
First World War. Issues of corruption, immorality, the predominance of materialism over
spiritualism, the greed, the death of God …etc are being skilfully depicted in a modern way of
writing. Artistically, for the writer, it would be inappropriate to tackle such modern issues
using the traditional exactitude realistic way of writing. For F. Scott Fitzgerald as well as his
predecessors, the fragmented, chaotic, unbalanced world should be treated sarcastically and
consistently within new pertinent literary form: against linearity and chronological order of
events, that characterised the Victorian novels, come fragmented events under the technique
of analepsis, in which the reader is forcefully and intelligently forced into being an active
reader rather a passive one. The involvement of the reader as a collaborator, co-author and
constructor is one of the major aspects of modernism in the Great Gatsby. Unlike the
traditional novel, in which the author manipulated the data and considered as the source of
information, the modern novel (The Great Gatsby for instance) announced the death of the
author by the use of narrators who cast in the role of observers, characters, interpreters,
commentators: (Nick Carraway for example). The glorification of the reader manifests itself
obviously in the great use of many other literary tactics and devices including symbolism,
narrative and intertextuality. This novelty in writing involves skilful readers. The new readers
have to equip themselves with critical thinking along with a rich arsenal of knowledge of the
mythology and the other literary books written in the same period or else an active
understanding of the content and what it meant would be a hard task to do. In the Great
Gatsby, our case of study, for the readers to understand the novel in meaning entails reading
T. S. Eliot before they step into reading the novel.
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29. Basically, my attempt to interpret the novel, I confess, remains far from being
entirely exhausted and it still needs more scrutiny to sort out other aspects of modernism
including irony, parody, disjointed or discontinuous time, time-shifts, stream of
consciousness used in the narrative structure in addition to parody, plurality, juxtaposition,
ambiguity, and despair, fragmentation and disorder in life and, replacing absolute truths with
a relative sense of reality and focusing on the unconscious as a source of motivation and the
break with certainties.
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30. Bibliography
Beacraft, B. W., and M. A. Smale. The Making of America: 2nd Ed.
Singapore: London group, 1982.
El Hamri, R. Modernism in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.
2O11.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. London: the penguin
Group, 1996.
Froster, E. M., in Edgar V. Roberts. Writing Themes about
Literature. U.S.A: Prentice – Hall, Inc, 1964.
Mizener, Arthur. Scott Fitzgerald. London: 181A High Holborn,
1987.
Wislon, L. Modernism. London: Ashford Colour Press Ltd. 2007.
Webliography
http://www.signosemio.com/genette/narratology.asp
http://www.gradesaver.com/the-great-gatsby/study-guide/major-
themes/
http://www.shmoop.com/great-gatsby/themes.html
http://www.123helpme.com/view.asp?id=13885
http://fictionwriting.about.com/od/glossary/g/limited.htm
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