The Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925) is a sharp, lyrical critique of the Jazz Age and the American Dream. Narrated by outsider Nick Carraway, it follows Jay Gatsby—a wealthy, enigmatic man—who throws wild parties to win back his lost love, Daisy Buchanan, a symbol of old-money privilege. Fitzgerald’s prose brims with vivid imagery: Gatsby’s glittering soirees, the bleak Valley of Ashes, and the green light at Daisy’s dock—an iconic symbol of hope and unattainable dreams. Gatsby, a self-made man clinging to the past, is both tragic and heroic; his faith in rewriting history blinds him to Daisy’s shallowness and the cruelty of high society.