Interpretations Of The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

Interpretations of a work can be drastically different depending on a multitude of circumstances including: the context in which it was written, the background of the reader, and the specific elements that are being focused on. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s most highly lauded work, The Great Gatsby, which provides insight into the corrupt lives of wealthy American society during the 1920s, offers a myriad of themes depending on the focus of its analysis. In the novel, a young businessman, Nick Carraway, narrates the intriguing story of his summer spent living next door to an extremely wealthy and very mysterious man, Jay Gatsby. While Gatsby’s facade of extravagant parties characterizes him as an image of the materialistic style of the Roaring 20’s,
Many aspects of The Great Gatsby mirror parts of Fitzgerald’s life, but the novel is a much more idealized version that leaves out the mental illness, alcoholism, and fighting that marred his real story. Similarly, Gatsby’s creation of a completely new identity by leaving his past life and reinventing himself in New York demonstrates that he is somehow detached from reality. The novel’s narrator, Nick Carraway, describes that “Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself. He was a son of God” (98). Considering Gatsby through a biographical lens in the context of Fitzgerald’s own life, it is clear that much like how Fitzgerald wrote the book as a more perfect version of his own life as a wealthy man during the 1920s, Gatsby has created an identity that is the more perfect version of himself, as opposed to his life in a humble farming family as James Gatz. Therefore, Fitzgerald is more similar to Gatz in that they both see Jay Gatsby as some elite member of society who has a perfect life, despite his inner struggles. More specifically, analyzing Gatsby’s character through a psychological lens reveals that several of his traits, including his detachment from real life and his disillusioned ideas of himself, are characteristic of Borderline Personality Disorder. Gatsby believes that the identity he created for himself is “Platonic,” which stems from the philosopher Plato, who said there was an alternate universe that was a completely perfect version of everything. Gatsby’s misconception that becoming wealthy made him perfect reveals that he does not see himself in a realistic way and instead relies on superficial definitions. The Borderline Personality