The+Great+Gatsby



Book Review by Danielle Powell

Title: The Great Gatsby Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald ISBN-13: 978-0743273565
 * Bibliographical Information: **

Publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons

Publication date: April 10, 1925

Pages: 180 Age range: 13+ Language: English

F. Scott Fitzgerald, an American short-story writer and novelist, is known for his turbulent personal life and his famous novel The Great Gatsby. He was born on September 24, 1896, in St. Paul, Minnesota.The Great Gatsby is considered Fitzgerald's finest work; Although the book was well-received when it was published, it was not until the 1950s and '60s, long after Fitzgerald's death, that it achieved its stature as the definitive portrait of the "Roaring Twenties," as well as one of the greatest American novels ever written.
 * Author Biography: **

F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel,The Great Gatsby, follows Jay Gatsby, a man who orders his life around one desire: to be reunited with Daisy Buchanan, the love he lost five years earlier. Gatsby's quest leads him from poverty to wealth, into the arms of his beloved, and eventually to death. Published in 1925, The Great Gatsby is a classic piece of American fiction. It is a novel of triumph and tragedy, noted for the remarkable way Fitzgerald captured a cross-section of American society.
 * Summary: **

The Great Gatsby has been one of my favorite novels to read. The reason for this is because there is so much hidden within the text. Reading the novel the second time, for me, was much more enjoyable because I was able to understand the "secrets". I have also watched the 2013 movie which I also appreciated but it did not compare to the novel.
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Book Review: **

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">The novel uses an abundant amount of literary elements such as irony, dramatic, verbal, allusion, aphorism, flashback and simile. The three major ones were foreshadowing, symbolism and metaphor. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">All the way leading up to the climax, Fitzgerald uses foreshadow when he hints at the downfall of Gatsby, such as in Chapter 3 where he writes, “He snatched the book from me and placed it hastily on its shelf muttering that if one brick was removed the whole library was liable to collapse.” <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Fitzgerald made many things in The Great Gatsby highly symbolic to try and better convey his themes. Among others, he uses colors, locations, seasons, cars, and Daisy’s voice. Also in the novel, one of the character, Daisy, uses a metaphor to describe Nick in chapter 1 when she says, “You remind me of a- of a rose, an absolute rose. Doesn’t he?” These occur regularly throughout the book.
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Literary Element Analysis: **