The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby

The movie created by David Merrick as well as the novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, both entitled The Great Gatsby, ate truly two fine pieces of art. The movie version shows the viewer what is happening in the story without internal comments from the narrator and the viewer can understand exactly what is happening without any intellectual thought involved. The novel, however, challenges the reader to look deep inside the writing in order to grasp the true effect of the novel and what kind of meaning is being portrayed. The novel also challenges the reader’s creativity and imagination. It lets the reader explore the character’s personalities in their own special way and the reader can relate these personalities to real life. The novel also allows the reader more freedom that the move, in the way that it lets the reader shape their own opinions of the different characters. As a person watches the movie version, all the characters are laid out for them and every detail of the character is seen, yet in the novel the character is described fully and it is up to the reader’s imagination to picture what the character looks like as well as the emotions conveyed by this character in the novel. The novel version of The Great Gatsby is a definite piece of art and clearly challenges the reader both intellectually and imaginatively to understand the words that describe the character accurately. Therefore the novel

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is still the best representation of the Romantic Hero and his American Dream, despite efforts by interpreters like David Merrick in his film version to "usurp" it, for the author challenges the reader’s imagination through his brilliant narrative technique, unforgettable characterization, and use of symbolism, so that Gatsby’s experience becomes everyone’s.

The novel is told in the perspective of a single character, Nick Carraway. Nick is an innocent and simplistic character and when the story is conveyed through this type of character it usually is told truly, and without any outside influence from the other characters in the plot. Nick’s telling of the story is taken from his first hand accounts on how he sees the story unfold, straightforward and in the order that it occurs without confusion. Nick is a very moralistic man and his morals, and also his values, are positively genuine. His heart is filled with compassion, especially for Gatsby and the events that surrounded Gatsby’s death as he was one of three people that were at this great man’s funeral. This genuine, yet critical, character is seen through his narration because he tells the story with his own comments of how he views, with the help of his morals and values, the different characters. For example, when he describes Tom Buchanan’s speech about is own family, " Nowadays, people begin by sneering at family life and family institutions, and next they’ll throw everything overboard and have intermarriage between black and white." (Fitzgerald, 130) Nick’s narrative reply to this comment simply shows how Nick’s thoughts can become the readers after he simply describes this statement as, "impassioned gibberish", (Fitzgerald, 130). The reader can be persuaded to view the character exactly how Nick sees them. However it can have an opposite effect and the reader may see the characters differently as they look back at the reading, and see Tom Buchanan as a man that has not been taught any better than to make simple "indiscretions" and he simply loves his wife and wants life to get back to normal. Through the narration, the reader can develop these different opinions of Tom, yet in the movie the viewer simply sees what is happening and does not get the true emotions of what is happening, and lack the insight put in by the narration in the novel. Also, the viewer of the movie does not get the true history the film version as in the novel. In the novel the mysterious, yet descriptive past is told by Gatsby to Nick and in the film version it is not as descriptive and the viewers are certainly not imagining it for themselves as expressively as they would if reading the novel. Nick is a very well written narrator and through his innocence and values he proves to be also a very simplistic character and also a great choice for a narrator.

The characters in both the film and the novel are very complex as well as very well written/acted out. All the characters have very definite roles in the story line and in turn have definite roles in the outcome of the story. The novel version is clearly the more superior in the way that it describes and sets up the character and allows the reader to see deep into what the character life and emotions really revolve around. This is done by Fitzgerald magnificently through characterization. When reading the novel it is discovered that the characters are not always