Analyzing Themes In The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

In F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald uses the narrator Nick Carraway to provide the opportunity for readers to recognize and analyze themes and ideas portrayed throughout the novel. Whether it be text-to-self, text-to-text, or text-to-world, there are definitely many text connections that can be made after reading this novel, or at least half of it. While reading the novel, I noticed that I can very much relate to it. As a high school student, and being a teenage girl at that, I have learned that rumors and gossip will follow you wherever you go. It does not make a difference if you attend a different school or even move to a different city, there will always be people that spread rumours and bring your past along
Later on in the novel when Nick attends his first party at Jay Gatsby’s mansion, other guests tell him that Gatsby is apparently a murderer. Although they may be in Gatsby’s home, that does not stop them from spreading rumours about him. As a member of today’s technologically advanced society, social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook make it even easier to gossip, and spread negativity about and towards others. For example, about two years ago, someone spread a rumour about one of my best friends and I being lesbian lovers, simply because we are always together. It is like a girl cannot have another friend who also happens to be a girl anymore these days. Although I have nothing against lesbians, or any sexuality at that, the fact that someone would take the time out of their day to assume and come to conclusions about someone they barely know is ridiculous. At first we were shocked and a bit agitated, but as time went on, instead of gossiping back, we just laughed it off and mocked the whole situation by becoming even closer than we were before, taunting them even more. Rumours and gossip teach us how to deal with social problems and
I find that these works of literature are similar in the sense that both the stories have a “forbidden” love in the storyline. Romeo and Juliet are from two opposing families which are the Capulets and Montagues. They end up falling in love with each other, and secretly get married, but Romeo has to vanish from the city due to him murdering their cousin. Juliet’s parents force her to get married to another man, Paris, but they are not aware of her marriage with Romeo. At first she refuses, but then she “agrees” because she makes a plan to make everyone think she is dead to run away with Romeo. This is similar to Daisy and Gatsby’s relationship because they both spent time with each other secretly, both Juliet and Daisy argued with their parents in regards to their relationship because were forced to marry other men, and both Romeo and Gatsby loved their significant others unconditionally and were desperate and determined to be with them. Although their conditions are different, there are definitely similarities between the two