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    Literary Theory in The Great Gatsby

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    This document provides a literary analysis of The Great Gatsby through several lenses: 1) It examines how recurring colors like yellow, gold, and green are used symbolically in the novel to represent ideas like money, luxury, and unattainable dreams. 2) It analyzes how feminist literary criticism can be applied due to the way women are often viewed and treated as objects by the male characters. 3) It discusses how a reader response analysis is one of the weakest approaches because interpretations can vary widely between individual readers based on their own experiences.

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    Literary Theory in The Great Gatsby

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    62 views4 pages
    This document provides a literary analysis of The Great Gatsby through several lenses: 1) It examines how recurring colors like yellow, gold, and green are used symbolically in the novel to represent ideas like money, luxury, and unattainable dreams. 2) It analyzes how feminist literary criticism can be applied due to the way women are often viewed and treated as objects by the male characters. 3) It discusses how a reader response analysis is one of the weakest approaches because interpretations can vary widely between individual readers based on their own experiences.

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    This document provides a literary analysis of The Great Gatsby through several lenses: 1) It examines how recurring colors like yellow, gold, and green are used symbolically in the novel to represent ideas like money, luxury, and unattainable dreams. 2) It analyzes how feminist literary criticism can be applied due to the way women are often viewed and treated as objects by the male characters. 3) It discusses how a reader response analysis is one of the weakest approaches because interpretations can vary widely between individual readers based on their own experiences.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    62 views4 pages

    Literary Theory in The Great Gatsby

    Uploaded by

    api-557942344
    This document provides a literary analysis of The Great Gatsby through several lenses: 1) It examines how recurring colors like yellow, gold, and green are used symbolically in the novel to represent ideas like money, luxury, and unattainable dreams. 2) It analyzes how feminist literary criticism can be applied due to the way women are often viewed and treated as objects by the male characters. 3) It discusses how a reader response analysis is one of the weakest approaches because interpretations can vary widely between individual readers based on their own experiences.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 4

    Literary Theory in The Great Gatsby

    Grace Parent

    ENG4UL-02
    Mrs. Taylor
    26 July 2021
    Parent 1

    It is possible for the reader to view The Great Gatsby from several archetypal

    perspective, for example the tragic hero, or the quest. In addition, recurring colours play a

    significant role throughout the novel, yellow, gold and green being three of the most prominent.

    Fitzgerald uses yellow to represent money, materialism, high society and luxury - the yellow car,

    the girls in twin yellow dresses, Dr. T.J. Eckleburg’s enormous spectacles. The yellow car was

    the cause of Myrtle’s death, which Daisy was driving at the time. This represents how luxury can

    cause serious harm and tragedy and “the golden girl” (Fitzgerald 120) who caused the accident

    was not held accountable. Fitzgerald uses green for the colour of Daisy’s dock light across the

    river to represents Gatsby unattainable image of Daisy and their relationship, but it also

    symbolizes Gatsby’s jealousy now that Daisy is with another man. Gatsby bought his house so

    he could see that light from his backyard. It remined him of how close (just across the river) he

    was of achieving his dream of being with Daisy, but crossing the river was much more difficult

    that originally thought and there were many challenges on the way.

    The strongest literary theory that can be used to analyse The Great Gatsby is feminist

    literary criticism. The women in the novel are all very strong and clever, although the men still

    view their wife’s/girlfriends and women in general as objects to own and dominate. We see this

    whenever a woman stands up to Tom, he feels threatened and reasserts control by physically

    reminding them of his superiority. For example, when Myrtle tried to prove she had a right to say

    Daisy’s name, Tom responded by, “Making a short deft movement… [breaking] her nose with

    his open hand” (Fitzgerald 37). Wilson, Gatsby, and Nick also treated their partners like objects

    or property to be bought and sold.

    The weakest theory to analysis The Great Gatsby through was reader’s response. Each

    person interprets a text in a different way. The story is not meant to be experienced by only the
    Parent 2

    words on the paper, but also by the experiences the reader brings to the text and the connections

    they make. I did not find myself relating to a lot of the characters but the one I did the most was

    Nick. One of the first things Nick refers to is something his father told him, “’ Whenever you

    feel like criticizing any one… just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the

    advantages that you’ve had’” (Fitzgerald 1). Even though I do not come from a rich family I still

    have been given many advantages that others have not. Similar to Gatsby, both of my

    grandparents did not come from privilege, but used the opportunities presented to them, worked

    hard, and built a good life for themselves. This allowed them to give their children opportunities

    they did not enjoy, something Gatsby never was able to.
    Parent 3

    Work Cited

    F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1925

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