symbolism


There are several instances of symbolism throughout the Great Gatsby. For one, there is a central point – Gatsby’s mansion. This is a major part of the novel since it is where all the parties take place. Gatsby’s grand and big mansion symbolize his rich lifestyle. It also shows the inner conflict of Gatsby and foreshadows his loneliness hidden behind his big estate. It also symbolizes his love for Daisy. Gatsby uses his money to buy the big house, thinking it is similar to the house that was taken away from him. Though he progresses a lot in life, ironically his lifestyle does not bring satisfaction to him. It rather seems like a dream. In fact, he struggles to win Daisy back. This quote frames it perfectly: “It makes me sad because I've never seen such — such beautiful shirts before.” Another instance of symbolism in the novel is that of the West and East eggs. They are two fictional villages Fitzgerald has created to represent the different ideas of the newly rich and the old rich. East Egg represents the old rich. Tom and Daisy belong to East Egg. It represents the people, who are born rich and are considered rich, with an arrogant stance toward West Egg. West Egg stands for newly rich people, like Gatsby. It is the world of those who make their own fortune and are not rich by birth. East symbolizes corruption, whereas the West symbolizes goodness. Those these are overlooked quickly by the reader, they are very significant symbols throughout this book.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Perspective

Your perspective is something that typically you don't have a lot of control over. Personally I always believed that the only perspective I could even read from was that of a straight white man. However a class assignment showed me different. Initially I read on the black perspective on GG which proved very insightful. After also reading about the queer and female perspective I was left with several thoughts regarding changed perspectives in literature. For starters, when approaching a piece of literature you have leave any cultural bias you may have behind. What I mean by that is that when your trying to change perspectives, you have to fully immerse yourself in the other perspectives culture. The second detail I noticed was that in any novel   you could view the novel from pretty much any cultural sense. Taking GG for example, there were enough perspectives to be found to fill a book. It depends more on how hard and deep you're willing to look.
Read more

Sacrifice

The Korean War veterans memorial has stood as a reminder of what has been given up by others to protect Americas freedom. In class this week we looked at many diffrent memorials around the world because of our passage 'Postcards from the trenches'. Although this was said to be a harder passage I liked it because it had a very captivating writing style. I was able to go to Washington DC several years ago; while I was there I visited several monuments including the Vietnam and Korean War memorial. I remembered many things from this memorial after talking about it in class, including the many names we saw on the wall. I have a grandpa who served in the war who came with us, and while we were there he found some of his friends names. watching him find it was a very solemn moment that I reflected on while reading this piece. When I visited the Korean War memorial I remember seeing the inscription "Freedom is not free" on the Pool of Remembrance. At the time I didn't re...
Read more

The broken machine

      In "Civil Disobedience" the phrase that stood out to me most was when Henry Thoreau "Now what are they? Men at all? or small movable forts and magazines at the service of the men in power." Throughout this piece about government inefficiency, Thoreau touches on the governments treatment of the military. specifically the troops themselves.  I went back and reread the passage and had a few thoughts from this passage. For starters, this giant, ineffective government does not view its soldiers as people. Although it may try to preserve its troops, they achieve their goal by any means possible. Thoreau is right when he says "What are they, men at all? Or moveable forts and magazines? In my opinion this phrase although it applies to soldiers can apply to all people in general. Are we independent people or are we subject to the whim of the government. At another point Thoreau says “Witness the present Mexican American war, the work of a few indiv...
Read more