The Great Gatsby, A Literary Work

                    Unsure of what the specific definition of literary work could be, I decided to look it up. Aside from basically being a “written work” the other thing mentioned was a work of imaginative or creative thinking. Going off of this, I agree that Gatsby can be defined as a literary work. One of the things Fitzgerald does in Gatsby that makes him such an excellent writer is that he is able to lead us through the characters, and can manipulate how we feel about them at any different time. Throughout the novel, we never learn more than we need to about the characters, and are constantly only finding out small bits of information, just enough to give us an opinion on them and add somewhat of a backstory.   

                     The one character we learn the least about is Gatsby, and most everything what we’ve been told about him as been a lie, even by the end of the book we’re still unsure. This makes Gatsby the most complex of all the characters, because we aren’t able to tell if he’s good or bad. For example, we’re able to tell right off the bat that Tom Buchanan is a bad man, for cheating on his wife and constantly abusing the people around him. With this knowledge, we’re more unlikely to feel sorry for Tom. On the other hand, we never learn enough about Gatsby that towards the end of the story, we’re feeling sorry for him. We feel sorry that he’s up waiting for Daisy who doesn’t come, and for unsuspectingly getting shot by Wilson. Of course, we’re experiencing all of this through Nick, who we still don’t know too much about. 

                          Nick is constantly acting as if he doesn’t understand the lifestyle of the people on West and East Egg, but being Daisy’s cousin must mean he knows a thing or two about that way of living. The fact that Nick himself refuses to party, puts us in more of an understanding perspective, because us being the reader, cannot understand why all these characters would want to act as ridiculous as they do. And because we aren’t exposed to much about Nick, other than he is probably the only character the reader can somewhat relate to, by being not fabulously wealthy, and is a hard worker, we are able to go into the book with more of our own opinions, rather than having to constantly view through Nick’s feelings to help influence our thoughts. For example, when Tom is trying to get Nick to party, with Myrtle and her friends, I know that I certainly felt uncomfortable for Nick, and especially when Tom slaps Myrtle for bringing up Daisy. Fitzgerald was clever in making Nick such an average, working class man, because I think it really helped us as readers along when making opinions and having emotions for the characters.