The Great Gatsby, by F.S Fitzgerald (1925)

Extraits de la fiche de lecture

[...] Fitzgerald succeeded in concentrating in 200 pages the drama of existence through the spirit of a circumscribed period. So, beyond social considerations, which gave rise to varied and numerous critical works, it may be relevant to examine the technical and dramatic devices, that conditioned the nature of the novel, as a living and multi- dimensional piece. First, let us highlight the technical means, based on the revolutionary and modern vision of narration, that govern the original construction of the pattern of the novel as a work of selection Second, one might study the skill of the author to combine this principle of selection to an impressionist approach of narration and language, so- called «magic suggestiveness», which abolishes the traditional conception and imposes a fresh vision of relations between the writer, the narrator and the reader. [...]

[...] In a third one, the figure of Gatsby finally emerges in the background of the stage. After having been the single but hidden object of rumors and phantasms, the hero is ready to invest the story. In fact, in the next chapter, he prepares himself for a decisive meeting with Daisy, which is organized through the intermediary of Nick. This private and sober take-aside does not miss to open on a second party by Gatsby, which echoes the first one as its complete antithesis. [...]

[...] However, Gatsby, and American nation was lured by his optimistic faith in repeating the past as in actual fact, did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city. New -York is the place of short-lived pleasures, and mean calculus, as notices Nick, who is surrendered by a mix of repel and degust Nick appears as the only honest person he knows who never falls into vices. From a strict dramatic point of view, although all the characters attempted to drag him into their corruption, he always resisted, and took refuge into imagination. [...]

[...] The Great Gatsby, by F.S Fitzgerald (1925) Analysis T. Elliott, writer and critic, referred to The Great Gatsby, as the novel was first published in 1925, as first step that American fiction [had] taken since Henry James?. Since this date, critics agree to emphasize it as the most accomplished and mature book ever written by Fitzgerald. The novel was not only praised for its revolutionary topic, based on its ability to render the spirit of the Jazz Age, but more for its destabilizing pattern. [...]

[...] Nick's house appears as a neutral land between to opposite worlds, and could be compared to a hidden observatory, from which he can secretly see what is happening by Gatsby or the Buchanans. Nick is the quiet and discrete observer, who tells the story and gives the reader to the situation. He appears as a skilful technical device coined by the author to figure verisimilitude. Nick's eye filtrates the action and carries out a natural selection of the picture, which is dedicated to reflect the highest level of realism. [...]