Romance and Conflict

I have enjoyed reading The Great Gatsby very much, because of the many characters like Gatsby who wanted to relive his past romance with Daisy and created a new identity for himself to be rich and have money to spend. Daisy, who loved her husband Tom, still loved Gatsby. In my opinion, the climax of the book is in chapter 7 when Tom asks Daisy who she loves and she said she loves Tom but also loves Gatsby. I feel that this is the climax of the book, because when she said that she still loved Gatsby in front of Tom I had already guessed the book was going to take another turn in their lives.
posted by Natiya D.

What goes around comes around...

While reading the book, I realized that what goes around comes around. I say this because Tom cheated on Daisy with Myrtle and Myrtle died. Daisy never really loved Tom and was still in love with Gatsby and at the end Gatsby dies as well. Tom and Daisy were both very cold-hearted and careless. They should have known at one point or the other that everything was going to come back to them. The book had its moments where it really caught your attention, and it had some moments when you just didn't feel like reading it. All in all I enjoyed reading it.

The Great Gatsby was much different than what I expected. Though I knew it would deal with the wealth and extravagance of the 1920’s the ending caught me off guard. The moral was quite clear: money can’t buy everything. I was very intrigued by Jay Gatsby; it was almost disappointing that he made his money bootlegging. All the mystery surrounding him could have led to such a creative background. I guess the simplicity of Mr. Gatsby’s fortune serves the purpose of showing the shallowness of the time. I would have liked for Gatsby to have gotten closer to Daisy before he died. The book made Tom look like a terrible person and by the end of the book I was rooting for Gatsby. It was interesting how Gatsby, exuding money and confidence would become just an average nervous man trying to get the girl of his dreams. Perhaps the nervous Gatsby was the old James Gatz showing through. Overall I liked the book’s insight into the extravagance of an era and how it showed the downside to a life full of money and ease.
posted by Matt S.

symbolism

I'm glad I read The Great Gatsby. It's become one of my favorite books because of Fitzgerald's use of intense points of view, background on the Roaring Twenties, and my favorite - symbolism. I found it amazing how Fitzgerald utilized symbolism to really bring out essential aspects of the novel. He uses objects such as the defunct clock to represent Gatsby's desire to travel back in time and rekindle his past relationship with Daisy. However his ideal perspective of Daisy leads to a mere obsession of impossible dreams in contrast to the reality of life. The green light is one of the most important symbols utilized throughout the book, representing Gatsby's vocations and hopes for his future life. The eyes of TJ Eckleberg symbolize "God" looking down upon the moral decay society is suffering from. The billboard seems to look down upon all the sins that people commit including death. The lavish and opulent parties represented a place where the rich could attend to escape life's responsibilities, and resort back to hedonism and luxuries whenever life was too challenging to handle. My favorite quote from the book was, "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And then one fine morning— So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past," in which he uses a metaphor to express the extent to which dreams are truly able to be accomplished. The quote epitomizes the ideal where Gatsby desperately wants to return back to the state of romance with Daisy, yet is constantly set back by obstacles. He fails to realize his ambition to run away with Daisy is a mere fantasy, because Daisy herself is not at all stable enough to decide whether to continue living her comfortable life with Tom and her daughter, or throw it all away in hopes of achieving another rekindling romance with Gatsby. As Gatsby constantly obsesses over recreating a past, his struggles to make his illusions into reality ultimately lead to his downfall.
- posted by Jennifer J.

What I Liked Most in Fitzgerald's Writing

An excellent book, The Great Gatsby shows the reader the way of life in the 1920's, and describes the setting in an amusing way, letting the reader see what is going on at that time of Americam Dream. Fitzgerald was very clever with symbolism in the story; it makes the story more rich and interesting. The eyes of TJ Eckelberg on the billboard were the best way to reiterate that no one can do anything without being observed! But if I had to choose what I most liked in Fitzgerald's writing, I would say the changes of the points of view. It is a great way to show the reader that he can trust the narrator, that he is telling the truth-- otherwise it wouldn't have other narrators. It also allows the readers to understand past relationships between characters. Although I really loved the way Gatsby loves Daisy, it really got me upset about Gatsby being murdered. It was an unnecessary way of ending the novel. But it is a book that you can not let go until you have read it all.
posted by by Isadora R

A Review

The Great Gatsby is an absolutely readable and recommendable novel for a reader who has some knowledge about the late 19th century and the early 20th century and is interested in learning about the effects of World War I on the society (upper class). The fall of the great empires and the old traditions and values was followed by a society that devoted itself to the idols “money,” “parties,” etc. But this was not the center of my attention. I was captivated by F. Scott Fitzgerald’s capability of integrating point of view and particularly imagery in his vivid descriptions and narrations. (F. ex.: p.11 description of Tom Buchanan, p. 12 description of the room, etc.)
posted by Amir G.

Suspense

The Great Gatsby was one of the most interesting books I have read in my life. The way the author uses suspense in the novel makes the reader addicted to wanting to read more and more. Whenever they would get to the main point they would always eliminate the conclusion and it used to get me nervous and it used to also get my brain to work, thinking about what might be the part that's missing. I liked the whole thing Gatsby had for Daisy. It is romantic when he actually confronts Tom about the love he had for her. When Daisy ran over Myrtle with Tom's car was it was very ironic; that would have never come to my head. The part that I hated from the book was when Mr. Wilson shoots Gatsby. I didn't find any point to that. Although Wilson was told that Gatsby was the one who killed his wife, he didn't have any right to go and shoot him because he didn't have any proof.
Posted by Brisilda G.

values in The Great Gatsby

I actually really liked The Great Gatsby. I especially liked the florid language Fitzgerald uses in his descriptions of the setting and characters. What actually surprised me was that I felt sorry that Gatsby was killed at the end. He was really the only character you could root for because all the other characters, except for Nick in my opinion, weren't very likable at all. I started to dislike their free-floating, squandering lifestyles without care or consequence. I found it an admirable trait in Nick that although he came from a predominant and wealthy family, he still wanted to achieve something in life. Fitzgerald displayed his opinion of the wealthy through his characters and contrasted their superficial and materialistic values with the more traditional ones of Nick and Gatsby to amplify the problems of the rich so that it is obvious that many are selfish, inconsiderate, careless people who used money to wash away their sins.
posted by Mikaela M.

Gatsby review

The Great Gatsby was a very intresting and exciting novel. I found Gatsby himself a very intresting character. Although he was was insecure, he was a very smart man. He was insecure because he had to hide his true identity and create a second personality. Although he was a liar, he was smart because he had a constant group of friends who were unable to reveal his true identity. I thought it was an interesting story line, and it was crazy how Gatsby threw all these crazy parties and attempted a lavish lifestyle, but at the end of the book, only three people attended his funeral. This book also taught me the lesson that it is better to make a legitimate life and struggle then be a bootlegger, because I would not like to get shot after being falsly accused of murdering some man's wife. In conclusion I enjoyed The Great Gatsby because I learned that if the people you are associated with don't really know who you are, or if you don't act like yourself, the people you think mean most to you will not be there in the long run.
posted by Eric K.

Favorite Character

My favorite character in The Great Gatsby is Jay Gatsby himself. His image and his past demonstrate that people like Gatsby are determined to achieve whatever goal or goals those people have, even if it means to walk the wrong and immoral path. Gatsby, on the outside, is like everyone else. His goal is to win Daisy's love and live happily with her. On the inside, however, we can see that Gatsby is significantly different from everyone else, for he was willing to walk the dangerous path of bootlegging if that was the only choice he had to win Daisy's heart and achieve his goal. This high moral of "the process of achieving a dream does not matter; what matters is the achievement itself" may be trite, but it's logically reasonable because lots of people often think this way when they're tempted like Gatsby is. As a conclusion, I like Gatsby the most out of everyone else in The Great Gatsby because he exemplifies the kind of spirit no one else does in the book by putting his life in jeopardy (for bootlegging), which takes a lot of guts and determination to do.
posted by Manuel K.

review of The Great Gatsby

In my opinion The Great Gatsby was an interesting book. It was very entertaining and fun to follow. It had a lot of suspense that kept me wanting to read and finish a chapter once I began it. The author used many literary elements throughout the book. The imagery he used was creative and the structure of the book was different in that he changed narrators which I liked. I did find the book a bit short and wondered why he didn't make it longer, but I later thought that the book had so much suspense that holding off the reader too long might make them a little too anxious and not want to finish the book. It's a good book to recommended to someone who is looking for an interesting book with mystery, suspense, lies, and love who doesn't want to read a lengthy novel. Its a great book for classroom and book club discussions. There are so many things that can be discussed that reading it with a large group of people would be very fun. I was upset toward the end of the book because I wanted to know more about Gatsby. I wanted the book to go into his mind and let the reader discover more about his own personal experiences in the past with Daisy and how he grew up. I think the author could have written a bit more to include these details because after all the book is titled after his name.
posted by Candace M.