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Essays on The Great Gatsby

The great gatsby essay topic examples.

Whether you want to analyze the American Dream, compare and contrast characters, vividly describe settings and characters, persuade readers with your viewpoints, or share personal experiences related to the story, these essay ideas provide a diverse perspective on the themes and complexities within the book.

Argumentative Essays

Argumentative essays require you to analyze and present arguments related to the novel. Here are some topic examples:

  • 1. Argue whether the American Dream is achievable or illusory, as depicted in The Great Gatsby .
  • 2. Analyze the moral ambiguity of Jay Gatsby and the consequences of his relentless pursuit of the American Dream.

Example Introduction Paragraph for an Argumentative Essay: F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is a tale of ambition, decadence, and the elusive American Dream. This essay delves into the complex theme of the American Dream, exploring whether it remains attainable or has transformed into a tantalizing illusion, luring individuals like Jay Gatsby into its enigmatic embrace.

Example Conclusion Paragraph for an Argumentative Essay: In conclusion, the analysis of the American Dream in The Great Gatsby invites us to reevaluate our perceptions of success and fulfillment. As we contemplate the fate of Jay Gatsby and the characters entangled in his world, we are challenged to define our own version of the American Dream and the sacrifices it may entail.

Compare and Contrast Essays

Compare and contrast essays enable you to examine similarities and differences within the novel or between it and other literary works. Consider these topics:

  • 1. Compare and contrast the characters of Jay Gatsby and Tom Buchanan, exploring their contrasting worldviews and motivations.
  • 2. Analyze the similarities and differences between the portrayal of the Jazz Age in The Great Gatsby and Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises .

Example Introduction Paragraph for a Compare and Contrast Essay: The characters and settings in The Great Gatsby and other literary works offer a rich tapestry for comparison and contrast. This essay embarks on a journey to compare and contrast the enigmatic Jay Gatsby and the brash Tom Buchanan, delving into their contrasting values, aspirations, and roles within the novel.

Example Conclusion Paragraph for a Compare and Contrast Essay: In conclusion, the comparison and contrast of Jay Gatsby and Tom Buchanan illuminate the divergent paths individuals can take in pursuit of their desires. As we consider the consequences of their choices, we are prompted to reflect on the complexities of ambition and morality.

Descriptive Essays

Descriptive essays allow you to vividly depict settings, characters, or events within the novel. Here are some topic ideas:

  • 1. Describe the opulent parties at Gatsby's mansion, emphasizing the decadence and extravagance of the Jazz Age.
  • 2. Paint a detailed portrait of Daisy Buchanan, focusing on her beauty, charm, and the allure she holds for Gatsby.

Example Introduction Paragraph for a Descriptive Essay: The Great Gatsby immerses readers in the lavish world of the Roaring Twenties. This essay embarks on a descriptive exploration of the extravagant parties at Gatsby's mansion, capturing the opulence and hedonism of the era, as well as the illusions they create.

Example Conclusion Paragraph for a Descriptive Essay: In conclusion, the descriptive portrayal of Gatsby's parties serves as a vivid snapshot of the Jazz Age's excesses and the fleeting nature of indulgence. Through this exploration, we are reminded of the allure and transience of the materialistic pursuits that captivated the characters of the novel.

Persuasive Essays

Persuasive essays involve arguing a point of view related to the novel. Consider these persuasive topics:

  • 1. Persuade your readers that Nick Carraway is the moral compass of the story, serving as the voice of reason and morality.
  • 2. Argue for or against the idea that Gatsby's love for Daisy is genuine and selfless, despite his questionable methods.

Example Introduction Paragraph for a Persuasive Essay: The Great Gatsby presents a tapestry of characters with complex moral dilemmas. This persuasive essay asserts that Nick Carraway emerges as the moral compass of the story, guiding readers through the labyrinth of decadence and disillusionment in the Jazz Age.

Example Conclusion Paragraph for a Persuasive Essay: In conclusion, the persuasive argument regarding Nick Carraway's role as the moral compass underscores the importance of ethical navigation in a world characterized by excess and moral ambiguity. As we reflect on his influence, we are compelled to consider the enduring value of integrity and virtue.

Narrative Essays

Narrative essays offer you the opportunity to tell a story or share personal experiences related to the themes of the novel. Explore these narrative essay topics:

  • 1. Narrate a personal experience where you encountered the allure of materialism and extravagance, similar to the characters in The Great Gatsby .
  • 2. Imagine yourself as a character in the Jazz Age and recount your interactions with Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan.

Example Introduction Paragraph for a Narrative Essay: The themes of The Great Gatsby resonate with the allure of a bygone era. This narrative essay delves into a personal encounter with the seductive pull of materialism and extravagance, drawing parallels to the characters' experiences in the novel.

Example Conclusion Paragraph for a Narrative Essay: In conclusion, the narrative of my personal encounter with the allure of materialism reminds us of the timeless nature of the themes in The Great Gatsby . As we navigate our own desires and ambitions, we are encouraged to contemplate the balance between aspiration and morality.

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"The Great Gatsby": Theme and Symbols

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The Portrayal of Female Characters in F.s. Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby

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April 10, 1925, F. Scott Fitzgerald

Novel; Fiction, Tragedy

Jay Gatsby , Nick Carraway, Daisy Buchanan, Tom Buchanan, Myrtle Wilson, Jordan Baker, Meyer Wolfsheim, George B. Wilson, Trimalchio, Mr. Gatz

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote "The Great Gatsby" with multiple motivations in mind. Firstly, he sought to critique the materialistic excesses and moral decay of the Roaring Twenties, a period of post-World War I prosperity. Fitzgerald aimed to expose the disillusionment and hollowness behind the glittering facade of the American Dream. Additionally, he drew inspiration from his own experiences and observations of the wealthy elite and their decadent lifestyles. Through the character of Jay Gatsby, Fitzgerald explored themes of unrequited love, longing, and the pursuit of an unattainable ideal. Ultimately, Fitzgerald's intent was to capture the essence of an era and offer a profound commentary on the human condition.

The story revolves around Jay Gatsby, a mysterious millionaire, and his pursuit of Daisy Buchanan, a married woman with whom he had a romantic past. Narrated by Nick Carraway, a young man from the Midwest, the novel delves into the opulent and extravagant lives of the wealthy elite in Long Island. As Gatsby throws lavish parties in the hope of rekindling his relationship with Daisy, the narrative explores themes of love, wealth, illusion, and the disillusionment that comes with the pursuit of the American Dream.

The American Dream , decadence, idealism, resistance to changes, social excess, caution.

The influence of "The Great Gatsby" extends far beyond its initial publication in 1925. F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel has become a literary classic, revered for its exploration of themes such as wealth, love, and the elusive American Dream. It remains relevant due to its timeless portrayal of human desires, societal decadence, and the consequences of relentless pursuit. The book's vivid characters and atmospheric prose have inspired countless writers and artists, shaping the landscape of American literature. With its commentary on the dark underbelly of the Jazz Age, "The Great Gatsby" continues to captivate readers, serving as a cautionary tale and a poignant reflection of the human condition.

1. During F. Scott Fitzgerald's lifetime, approximately 25,000 copies of the book were sold. However, since then, it has gained immense popularity, selling over 25 million copies and establishing itself as one of the most renowned American novels. 2. The Great Gatsby did not have its original title as the author considered various options, ranging from "Under the Red, White and Blue" to "The High-Bouncing Lover." These alternative titles were potentially revealing too much about the content prematurely. 3. In 1926, just a year after its publication, the book was adapted into a film, demonstrating its quick transition from page to screen. 4. Fitzgerald's cause of death is believed to have been tuberculosis rather than a heart attack. Sadly, he passed away at the age of 44. 5. The price of this famous novel at the time of its publication in 1925 was $2, representing its value in that era. 6. The Great Gatsby did not immediately receive critical acclaim upon release. However, it has since garnered recognition and praise, becoming a significant literary work.

"The Great Gatsby" has made a significant impact on various forms of media, captivating audiences across generations. The novel has been adapted into several films, with notable versions including the 1974 adaptation starring Robert Redford and the 2013 adaptation featuring Leonardo DiCaprio. These cinematic interpretations have brought the story to life visually, further immersing audiences in the opulent world of Jay Gatsby. Additionally, the novel has been referenced and alluded to in countless songs, television shows, and even video games, solidifying its cultural significance. Its themes of love, wealth, and the pursuit of the American Dream continue to resonate and inspire creative works in popular culture.

“In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. ‘Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,’ he told me, ‘just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.’” “I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.” “Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead.” “So we drove on toward death through the cooling twilight.” “I hope she'll be a fool -- that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”

Studying "The Great Gatsby" holds great importance due to its enduring relevance and literary significance. The novel offers profound insights into themes such as wealth, love, social class, and the corruption of the American Dream. Its exploration of the Jazz Age exposes the allure and emptiness of a materialistic society, making it a compelling study of human desires and societal decay. F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterful prose and symbolic imagery provide rich material for analyzing character development, narrative techniques, and social commentary. Moreover, delving into the novel's historical context allows for a deeper understanding of the cultural and societal shifts of the 1920s.

The inclusion of "The Great Gatsby" as an essay topic for college students stems from its exploration of themes like the American Dream, the juxtaposition of poverty and wealth, and the destructive allure of corruption. The character of Gatsby embodies the American spirit and can be paralleled to contemporary individuals fixated on materialism and fame as measures of romantic success. Furthermore, this literary masterpiece holds a significant place in American literature, as F. Scott Fitzgerald skillfully weaves socio-cultural elements into each sentence, providing a timeless portrayal of American life that resonates across generations. The choice to analyze and write about "The Great Gatsby" allows students to delve into these thought-provoking themes and examine their relevance to society.

1. Stallman, R. W. (1955). Conrad and The Great Gatsby. Twentieth Century Literature, 1(1), 5–12. (https://doi.org/10.2307/441023) 2. John Jerrim, Lindsey Macmillan, (2015). Income Inequality, Intergenerational Mobility, and the Great Gatsby Curve: Is Education the Key?, Social Forces, Volume 94, Issue 2. (https://academic.oup.com/sf/article/94/2/505/2583794) 3. Robert C. Hauhart (2013) Religious Language and Symbolism in The Great Gatsby’s Valley of Ashes, ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews, 26:3 (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0895769X.2013.798233) 4. Burnam, T. (1952). The Eyes of Dr. Eckleburg: A Re-Examination of “The Great Gatsby.” College English, 14(1), 7–12. (https://www.jstor.org/stable/371821) 5. Tom Phillips (2018) Passing for White in THE GREAT GATSBY: A Spectroscopic Analysis of Jordan Baker, The Explicator, 76:3. (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00144940.2018.1489769?scroll=top&needAccess=true&role=tab) 6. Matterson, S. (1990). The Great Gatsby and Social Class. In: The Great Gatsby. The Critics Debate. Palgrave, London. (https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-349-20768-8_9) 7. Licence, A. (2008). Jay Gatsby: martyr of a materialistic society: Amy Licence considers religious elements in The Great Gatsby. The English Review, 18(3), 24+. (https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA173676222&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=09558950&p=LitRC&sw=w&userGroupName=anon%7E5a84816e) 8. Khodamoradpour, Marjan and Anushiravani, Alireza, (2017) Playing the Old Tunes: A Fiskean Analysis of Baz Luhrmann's 2013 Cinematic Adaptation of the Great Gatsby. International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences, Volume 71. (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3020752) 9. Anderson, H. (1968). THE RICH BUNCH IN" THE GREAT GATSBY". Southern Quarterly, 6(2), 163. (https://www.proquest.com/openview/6a9e704a476d873aada2d2529821b95a/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=2029886)

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5 paragraph essay on the great gatsby

The Great Gatsby: Essay Samples

5 paragraph essay on the great gatsby

Welcome to The Great Gatsby Essay Samples page prepared by our editorial team! Here you’ll find a heap of wonderful ideas for your Great Gatsby essay. Absolutely free research paper and essay samples on The Great Gatsby are collected here, on one page.

📝 The Great Gatsby: Essay Samples List

Below you’ll find a large collection of The Great Gatsby essay and research paper samples. Feel free to use any of them to inspire your own writing!

  • Gatsby & Nick in The Great Gatsby Essay Genre : Essay Words : 1763 Focused on : The Great Gatsby characters Characters mentioned : Nick Carraway, Jay Gatsby
  • Gatsby & Jean Valjean: Compare & Contrast Essay Genre : Essay Words : 1259 Focused on : The Great Gatsby characters Characters mentioned : Nick Carraway, Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan
  • The Ethicality of an Action Jay Gatsby Genre : Assessment paper Words : 833 Focused on : The Great Gatsby themes Characters mentioned : Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan, Myrtle Wilson
  • The American Dream in The Great Gatsby: Essay Genre : Essay Words : 619 Focused on : The Great Gatsby themes Characters mentioned : Nick Carraway, Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan, Tom Buchanan, Myrtle Wilson, George Wilson
  • Babylon Revisited & The Great Gatsby: Motifs & Themes Genre : Essay Words : 1216 Focused on : The Great Gatsby themes Characters mentioned : Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan
  • Time as a Theme in The Great Gatsby: Essay Genre : Essay Words : 896 Focused on : The Great Gatsby themes Characters mentioned : Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan, Myrtle Wilson
  • Daisy Buchanan: Quotes Analysis Essay Genre : Essay Words : 1077 Focused on : The Great Gatsby characters Characters mentioned : Nick Carraway, Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan, Tom Buchanan, Jordan Baker
  • Female Characters in The Streetcar Named Desire & The Great Gatsby: Comparative Essay Genre : Essay Words : 1639 Focused on : The Great Gatsby characters Characters mentioned : Nick Carraway, Daisy Buchanan, Tom Buchanan
  • Why Is Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby a Satire? Genre : Essay Words : 680 Focused on : The Great Gatsby genre Characters mentioned : Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan, Mr. McKee
  • Jay Gatsby & Tom Buchanan: Compare & Contrast Genre : Essay Words : 812 Focused on : The Great Gatsby characters Characters mentioned : Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan, Tom Buchanan
  • Francis Scott Fitzgerald & His American Dream Genre : Essay Words : 1815 Focused on : F.S. Fitzgerald’s biography Characters mentioned : Daisy Buchanan, Tom Buchanan
  • Jay Gatsby & Eponine from Les Miserables: Compare & Contrast Essay Genre : Essay Words : 812 Focused on : The Great Gatsby characters Characters mentioned : Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan, Tom Buchanan
  • Jay Gatsby and Valjean in ‘Les Miserables’: Comparative Essay Genre : Essay Words : 769 Focused on : The Great Gatsby characters Characters mentioned : Jay Gatsby, Nick Carraway
  • Love in The Great Gatsby & The Catcher in The Rye: Comparative Essay Genre : Analytical essay Words : 1059 Focused on : The Great Gatsby themes Characters mentioned : Jay Gatsby, Nick Carraway, Daisy Buchanan
  • The Great Gatsby: Analysis and Feminist Critique Genre : Essay Words : 1365 Focused on : The Great Gatsby analysis Characters mentioned : Nick Carraway, Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan, Tom Buchanan, Myrtle Wilson, George Wilson
  • Fairy Tale Traits in The Great Gatsby Genre : Essay Words : 1146 Focused on : The Great Gatsby analysis & context Characters mentioned : Nick Carraway, Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan, Tom Buchanan
  • The Great Gatsby: Book Review Genre : Book review Words : 701 Focused on : The Great Gatsby context Characters mentioned : Nick Carraway, Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan, Tom Buchanan
  • The Great Gatsby: Book Review & Reflection Genre : Essay Words : 587 Focused on : The Great Gatsby characters Characters mentioned : Nick Carraway, Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan, Tom Buchanan, Myrtle Wilson, George Wilson, Jordan Baker
  • Fitzgerald’s American Dream in The Great Gatsby & Winter Dreams Genre : Argumentative essay Words : 1119 Focused on : The Great Gatsby themes Characters mentioned : Nick Carraway, Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan
  • Silver & Gold: Color Symbolism in The Great Gatsby Genre : Essay Words : 889 Focused on : The Great Gatsby color symbolism Characters mentioned : Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan, Tom Buchanan, Jordan Baker
  • Nick as the Narrator in The Great Gatsby Genre : Essay Words : 2473 Focused on : The Great Gatsby characters Characters mentioned : Nick Carraway
  • The Dilemmas of the American Dream in The Great Gatsby Genre : Essay Words : 687 Focused on : The Great Gatsby themes Characters mentioned : Jay Gatsby
  • Political Satire in American Literature Genre : Essay Words : 788 Focused on : The Great Gatsby genre Characters mentioned : Nick Carraway, Jay Gatsby
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Study Guide Menu

  • Short Summary
  • Summary (Chapter 1)
  • Summary (Chapter 2)
  • Summary (Chapter 3)
  • Summary (Chapter 4)
  • Summary (Chapter 5)
  • Summary (Chapter 6)
  • Summary (Chapter 7)
  • Summary (Chapter 8)
  • Summary (Chapter 9)
  • Symbolism & Style
  • Quotes Explained
  • Essay Topics
  • Essay Samples
  • Questions & Answers
  • F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Biography
  • Chicago (A-D)
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Essays About The Great Gatsby: Top 5 Examples and Prompts

The Great Gatsby is a classic American tale; if you are writing essays about The Great Gatsby, find interesting essay examples and writing prompts in our guide. 

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925) revolves around a young man named Nick Carraway and his interactions with his New York neighbors, including the mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby. Throughout the novel, Gatsby attempts to rekindle his relationship with Daisy Buchanan, a cousin of Carraway’s; along the way, he is revealed not to be who he seems. The novel is regarded as a literary masterwork due to its profound exploration of love, social class, gender, and race, among other themes. As a result, it has developed into one of the most well-known ls of all time. 

If you need to write a good essay about The Great Gatsby , look at our featured essay examples below. 

1. The Great Gatsby – Really Great by Grace Nguyen

2. five reasons ‘gatsby’ is the great american novel by deirdre donahue, 3. “the great gatsby” color analysis by kurt medina, 4.  in defense of plot: an analysis of the tension in the great gatsby by aatif rashid.

  • 5. ​​Behind The Great Gatsby by William Peace

Top Writing Prompts on Essays about The Great Gatsby

1. how does the novel manifest the american dream, 2. the story behind the title, 3. compare and contrast, 4. how is new york city portrayed, 5. the great gatsby’s legacy, 6. the theme of race, 7. the theme of social class.

“Gatsby is the prime example of a person disregarding whatever morals he might have had, in order to pursue Daisy, his own personal American Dream. Consequently, his actions were reprehensible, not great. Gatsby also showed himself to be a generally dishonest person. Daisy

was married to a man named Tom. By trying to win her affections Gatsby is, in turn, adamantly trying to get Daisy to cheat on her husband.”

Nguyen writes about the novel’s titular character and how he changed himself so much for one person. This would be admirable if not because he was most enamored with Daisy’s rich life rather than her shallow character. From a working-class background, Gatsby acquired massive amounts of wealth through illegal means to match Daisy’s life, letting go of his morals to achieve his goals. In the end, Nguyen writes that Gatsby dies due to his deception. 

“One reason: It offers complicated characters who can be interpreted in fresh ways for new readers. Is Nick in love with Gatsby, as Greg Olear theorized on Salon? Could Gatsby — the other, the outsider — actually be a black man? Often dismissed as a selfish ditz, is Daisy victimized by a society that offers her no career path except marriage to big bucks?”

Donahue enumerates reasons for which The Great Gatsby is so highly regarded and considered the “great American novel.” These include an “American Dream”-type story, complex and exciting language, and most importantly, the unbelievable love story of Gatsby and Daisy. The millionaire is not motivated by greed but by love; however, he is in love with the idea of Daisy and the past in general rather than Daisy herself. 

“These colors connect the reader to the novel by making him see and feel the actual events and emotions a character has and not only an imaginative image. Gatsby’s example, which is full of lines rich of color imagery, makes the reader feel what he feels; sense what he senses; and try to be what he is. Gatsby’s figure is greatly shaped by this color imagery, validating and supporting the title of the book, colors show how great The Great Gatsby was.”

In his essay, Medina explains how Fitzgerald uses color symbolism to progress the plot and characters, using quotes from the novel as sources. For example, yellow represents Gatsby’s wealth, green symbolizes his greed and jealousy, and white symbolizes the pure, innocent idea he has of Daisy. Medina believes that these colors help readers connect more to the characters, making them feel what they feel and identify with them. 

“The central tension and conflict in the novel is not just whether Daisy will chose Gatsby or Tom but whether Nick will come to sympathize with Gatsby or not. And with this line, it’s clear that Nick does indeed sympathize with Gatsby. He realizes that old money Daisy and Tom are rotten, and that Gatsby is worth more than them. Human sympathy, thus, becomes more expansive than Nick had previously thought.”

Rashid starts off his essay by summarizing The Great Gatsby, then reveals how much of an impact tension has on the novel. Rather than the tension between Gatsby and Daisy, he believes that the tension lies in the extent to which Nick’s sympathy goes. He sympathizes greatly, going so far as to help invite people to Gatsby’s funeral (barely anyone comes, however). Rashid says this is emblematic of the “larger failures of society.”

5. ​​ Behind The Great Gatsby by William Peace

“Drawing on his own personal experience, Fitzgerald specialises in drawing characters who yearn to break into the ranks of the rich and powerful. Through his vivid depiction of the Wilsons, the unhappily married couple who run the gas station in Ash Valley, Fitzgerald captures the sense of life literally passing them by.”

Peace’s essay explores the background of Fitzgerald, the novel’s author, and how it inspired him to write it. He joined the army, fell in love with another wealthy woman named Zelda Sayre, and proposed to her; however, she rejected him, and he fell into despair. However, his later success led Zelda to accept him. Nevertheless, their relationship was rocky, as they struggled to sustain their extravagant lifestyle. Peace writes that the story, particularly the character of Daisy, is based on this period in his life. 

A significant reason for the novel’s status today is its reflection of the“American Dream” many desperately wish to achieve. Explain exactly what the American dream is and how it is represented in The Great Gatsby , particularly in the character of Gatsby. 

The title refers to Gatsby as “great”; the question is, is he truly deserving of this title? Analyze the character of Jay Gatsby, citing quotes from the novel and online sources, and determine whether you believe he is indeed “great” or not. Be sure to justify your response correctly; there is no wrong answer as long as it is well-supported. 

For your essay, compare and contrast any two characters from the novel. How are they similar? How are they different? What is their fate at the end of the story? Answer these questions in your essay and cite text evidence when analyzing a character. 

The Great Gatsby has also gained much notoriety due to its portrayal of New York City. Analyze the setting of the story and the way it is described- what is he trying to say about the city and its way of life? Compare Fitzgerald’s vision of the city to how it is seen today. 

The novel has left a longstanding impression on American literature and the world, having been adapted countless times. Write about why the novel has become a classic and how its legacy can be seen today in film, literature, television, art, and pop culture. What exactly has been its impact on society? Delve into this question in your essay to create an exciting piece of writing.

Being set in the 1920s, when racism was rife in society, The Great Gatsby is littered with racial prejudice. Discuss the presence of racism, particularly against Jewish people and African-Americans. Which characters show it? Who is the racism being subjected to? Answer these questions in your essay and use quotes to support your arguments.

Essays about The Great Gatsby

The theme of social class is prevalent in the novel. Write about how Fitzgerald views the social hierarchy of the 1920s based on the novel. Keep in mind the author’s background when writing; the book is primarily based on his own experiences. 

Tip: If writing an essay sounds like a lot of work, simplify it. Write a simple 5 paragraph essay instead. If you’re stuck picking your next essay topic, check out our guide on how to write an essay about diversity .

5 paragraph essay on the great gatsby

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Need to write about a theme for a Great Gatsby assignment or just curious about what exactly a theme is? Not sure where to start? Learn here what a theme is, what the main themes in The Great Gatsby are, and what the best tips for writing about themes for your English/Language Arts class essays are.

We will also link to our specific articles on each theme so you can learn even more in-depth about themes central to Gatsby .

What Is a Theme? Why Should You Care?

First things first: what exactly is a theme? In literature, a theme is a central topic a book deals with. This central topic is revealed through plot events, the actions and dialogue of the characters, and even the narrator's tone. Themes can be very broad, like love, money, or death, or more specific, like people versus technology, racial discrimination, or the American Dream.

In short, a book's theme can usually answer the question, "what's the point of this book?". They're the "so what?" of literary analysis. Also, note that books can definitely have more than one major theme —in Gatsby we identify seven!

Knowing a book's major theme(s) is crucial to writing essays, since many assignments want you to connect your argument to a book's theme. For example, you might be asked to write an essay about a prompt like this: "How does the life of Jay Gatsby exemplify (or deconstruct) the idea of the American Dream?" This prompt has you connect specific details in Jay Gatsby's life to the larger theme of the American Dream. This is why many teachers love theme essays: because they encourage you to connect small details to big ideas!

Furthermore, the AP English Literature test always has an essay question that has you analyze some aspect of a book and then "compare it to the theme of the work as a whole." (If you want specific examples you can access the last 15 years of AP English Literature free response questions here , using your College Board account.) So this skill won't just help you in your English classes, it will also help you pass the AP English Literature test if you're taking it!

So keep reading to learn about the major themes in Gatsby and how they are revealed in the book, and also to get links to our in-depth articles about each theme.

Overview of Key Themes in The Great Gatsby

Before we introduce our seven main themes, we'll briefly describe how the story and characters suggest the major Great Gatsby themes. Remember that the story is set in the 1920s, a period when America's economy was booming, and takes place in New York: specifically the wealthy Long Island towns of West Egg and East Egg, as well as Manhattan and Queens.

As you should know from the book ( check out our summary if you're still hazy on the details!), The Great Gatsby tells the story of James Gatz , a poor farm boy who manages to reinvent himself as the fabulously rich Jay Gatsby, only to be killed after an attempt to win over his old love Daisy Buchanan . Daisy is married to Tom Buchanan , and they're both from old money, causing them to look down Gatsby's newly rich crowd (and for Tom to look down at Gatsby himself).

Meanwhile, Tom is having an affair with Myrtle Wilson , the wife of mechanic George Wilson . Through the Wilsons, we see the struggles of the working class in dismal Queens , NY. As if they didn't already have it hard enough, Myrtle is killed in a hit-and-run accident (caused by Daisy Buchanan), and George, who's manipulated by Tom to believe that Jay Gatsby was both his wife's lover and her murderer, ends up shooting Gatsby and then himself.

The whole story is told by Nick Carraway , a second cousin of Daisy's and classmate of Tom's who moves in next to Gatsby's mansion and eventually befriends Jay -- and then comes to deeply admire him, despite or perhaps because of Jay's fervent desire to repeat his past with Daisy. The tragic chain of events at the novel's climax, along with the fact that both the Buchanans can easily retreat from the damage they caused, causes Nick to become disillusioned with life in New York and retreat back to his hometown in the Midwest.

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Aside from having a very unhappy ending, the novel might just ruin swimming pools for you as well.

The fact that the major characters come from three distinct class backgrounds (working class, newly rich, and old money) suggests that class is a major theme. But the rampant materialism and the sheer amount of money spent by Gatsby himself is a huge issue and its own theme. Related to money and class, the fact that both Gatsby and the Wilsons strive to improve their positions in American society, only to end up dead, also suggests that the American Dream -- and specifically its hollowness -- is a key theme in the book as well.

But there are other themes at play here, too. Every major character is involved in at least one romantic relationship , revealing that they are all driven by love, sex, and desire -- a major theme. Also, the rampant bad behavior (crime, cheating, and finally murder) and lack of real justice makes ethics and morality a key theme. Death also looms large over the novel's plot, alongside the threat of failure.

And finally, a strong undercurrent to all of these themes is identity itself: can James Gatz really become Jay Gatsby, or was he doomed from the start? Can someone who is not from old money ever blend in with that crowd? Could Gatsby really aspire to repeat his past with Daisy, or is that past self gone forever?

In short, just by looking at the novel's plot, characters, and ending, we can already get a strong sense of Gatsby's major themes. Let's now look at each of those themes one by one (and be sure to check out the links to our full theme breakdowns!).

The 7 Major Great Gatsby Themes

Money and Materialism : Everyone in the novel is money-obsessed, whether they were born with money (Tom, Daisy, Jordan, and Nick to a lesser extent), whether they made a fortune (Gatsby), or whether they're eager for more (Myrtle and George). So why are the characters so materialistic? How does their materialism affect their choices? Get a guide to each of the characters' material motivations and how they shape the novel.

Society and Class: Building on the money and materialism theme, the novel draws clear distinctions between the kind of money you have: old money (inherited) or new money (earned). And there is also a clear difference between the lifestyles of the wealthy, who live on Long Island and commute freely to Manhattan, and the working class people stuck in between, mired in Queens. By the end of the novel, our main characters who are not old money (Gatsby, Myrtle, and George) are all dead, while the inherited-money club is still alive. What does this say about class in Gatsby? Why is their society so rigidly classist? Learn more about the various social classes in Gatsby and how they affect the novel's outcome.

The American Dream : The American Dream is the idea anyone can make it in America (e.g. gain fame, fortune, and success) through enough hard work and determination. So is Jay Gatsby an example of the dream? Or does his involvement in crime suggest the Dream isn't actually real? And where does this leave the Wilsons, who are also eager to improve their lot in life but don't make it out of the novel alive? Finally, do the closing pages of the novel endorse the American Dream or write it off as a fantasy? Learn what the American Dream is and how the novel sometimes believes in it, and sometimes sees it as a reckless fantasy.

Love, Desire, and Relationships : All of the major characters are driven by love, desire, or both, but only Tom and Daisy's marriage lasts out of the novel's five major relationships and affairs. So is love an inherently unstable force? Or do the characters just experience it in the wrong way? Get an in-depth guide to each of Gatsby's major relationships.

Death and Failure: Nick narrates Gatsby two years after the events in question, and since he's obviously aware of the tragedy awaiting not only Gatsby but Myrtle and George as well, the novel has a sad, reflective, even mournful tone. Is the novel saying that ambition is inherently dangerous (especially in a classist society like 1920s America), or is it more concerned with the danger of Gatsby's intense desire to reclaim the past? Explore those questions here.

Morality and Ethics: The novel is full of bad behavior: lying, cheating, physical abuse, crime, and finally murder. Yet none of the characters ever answer to the law, and God is only mentioned as an exclamation, or briefly projected onto an advertisement . Does the novel push for the need to fix this lack of morality, or does it accept it as the normal state of affairs in the "wild, wild East"?

The Mutability of Identity: Mutability just means "subject to change," so this theme is about how changeable (or not!) personal identity is. Do people really change? Or are our past selves always with us? And how would this shape our desire to reclaim parts of our past? Gatsby wants to have it both ways: to change himself from James Gatz into the sophisticated, wealthy Jay Gatsby, but also to preserve his past with Daisy. Does he fail because it's impossible to change? Because it's impossible to repeat the past? Or both?

How to Write About The Great Gatsby Themes

So now that you know about the major themes of The Great Gatsby , how can you go about writing about them? First up: look closely at your prompt.

Sometimes an essay prompt will come right out and ask you to write about a theme , for example "is The American Dream in Gatsby alive or dead?" or "Write about the relationships in Gatsby. What is the novel saying about the nature of love and desire?" For those essays, you will obviously be writing about one of the novel's major themes. But even though those prompts have big-picture questions, make sure to find small supporting details to help make your argument.

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For example, if you're discussing the American Dream and arguing it's dead in the novel, don't just make that claim and be done with it. Instead, you can explore Gatsby's past as James Gatz, George Wilson's exhausted complacency, and Myrtle's treatment at the hands of Tom as examples of how the American Dream is treated in the novel. Obviously those examples are far from exhaustive, but hopefully you get the idea: find smaller details to support the larger argument.

On the other hand, many essay prompts about Gatsby will look like a question about something specific, like a character or symbol:

  • Explore Tom and Daisy as people who 'retreat into their money.'
  • What does the green light at the end of Daisy's dock represent? How does its meaning change throughout the novel?
  • Show how Fitzgerald uses clothing (and the changing of costumes) to tell the reader more about the characters and/or express theme(s).

These prompts are actually a chance for you to take that detailed analysis and connect it to one of the larger themes—in other words, even though the prompt doesn't state it explicitly, you should still be connecting those more focused topics to one of the big-picture themes.

For example, if you talk about Tom and Daisy Buchanan, you will definitely end up talking about society and class. If you talk about the green light, you will end up talking about dreams and goals, specifically the American Dream. And if you discuss clothing to talk about the characters, you will definitely touch on money and materialism, as well as society and class (like how Gatsby's pink suit makes him stand out as new money to Tom Buchanan, or how Myrtle adopts a different dress to play at being wealthy and sophisticated).

In short, for these more specific prompts, you start from the ground (small details and observations) and build up to discussing the larger themes, even if the prompt doesn't say to do so explicitly!

What's Next?

Now you're an expert on themes, but what about symbols? If you need to write about the important symbols in The Great Gatsby, check out our symbols overview for a complete guide.

Want a full analysis of Jay Gatsby and his backstory? Not sure how his story connects with the American Dream? Get the details here .

Want to go back to square one? Get started with Chapter 1 of our Great Gatsby plot summary.

Want to improve your SAT score by 160 points or your ACT score by 4 points?   We've written a guide for each test about the top 5 strategies you must be using to have a shot at improving your score. Download them for free now:

Halle Edwards graduated from Stanford University with honors. In high school, she earned 99th percentile ACT scores as well as 99th percentile scores on SAT subject tests. She also took nine AP classes, earning a perfect score of 5 on seven AP tests. As a graduate of a large public high school who tackled the college admission process largely on her own, she is passionate about helping high school students from different backgrounds get the knowledge they need to be successful in the college admissions process.

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5 paragraph essay on the great gatsby

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5 paragraph essay on the great gatsby

The Life, Death—And Afterlife—of Literary Fiction

Those of you who are reading this essay, let me ask you, right away—is your smart phone next to you? Or is it in your hand? Are you reading this on your phone, swiping up the paragraphs, swipe , swipe , swipe , wondering how far you're going to have to swipe to actually finish this thing? (Just so you know, it’s gonna take a lot of swiping.) Or are you reading on your computer screen, as I've been writing this on mine? I happen to know you’re not reading this in a print magazine. Ha! And ouch!

As you read, is your smart phone or computer or iPad simultaneously acquiring notifications, texts and emails, along with promotions, advertisements and daily venues of news, opinions and games such as Wordle and Spelling Bee, an altogether constant onslaught of information, incessantly demanding that you spend every waking hour of every day focused on this unrelenting digitality that keeps showing up on the screen in front of you, that screen with which you likely indulge in more back-and-forth than you generally do in person with an actual human being, like, say, your husband, wife, son, daughter, brother, sister, friend, lover, boss, employee?

Are you multi-tasking as well, working online, Zooming, Googling, communicating with your fellow employees, but also darting off now and then to your favorite venues (like, maybe, this), and then back to your job, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth?

Another question: when you’re reading a short story (on this same site, for instance) or a novel, do you remain immersed in the narrative, able to stay there for quite some time without going anywhere else? As if you were having sex for fifteen or twenty minutes, maybe even half an hour, unwilling to allow any interruptions? Or as if you had dived into a swimming pool or a lake or a sound or a sea and were floating across the water, staring up at the sky?

Can you read anything at all from start to finish, ie. an essay or a short story, without your mind being sliced apart by some digital switchblade? Without your seeking distraction as a form of entertainment, or entertainment as a form of distraction? Or is all of this just ordinary life in the internet era, with your every thought and feeling and perception being diverted or fractured or dissolved or reiterated endlessly with utter normality in a digitalized world to which nearly all of us are fixated, or might we say, addicted? Did you ever even know a different world?

I did know a different world, at least once upon a distant time. I arrived at Esquire in the late eighties to work with the legendary fiction editor Rust Hills , whose passion for literature arose in him every single morning like daylight. He and I would occasionally drink two or three Negronis at lunch, sometimes at the New York Delicatessen on 57 th Street, and talk about the writers and novels and short stories we loved (and hated). Often we met with the writers themselves, and if they were young and didn’t have much money, Rust might slide them across the table a check of his own, just so they could keep scribbling away in their precocious days of writing. Then he and I would happily weave our way back to the office at 1790 Broadway, plop down in our cubicles and make enthusiastic phone calls to writers and agents, our voices probably a little louder than usual. Rust always believed that we could ask anyone for anything. “Let de Gaulle do his own refusing,” he liked to say. Our jobs never felt like work—we played for a living.

The tech world back then seems almost non-existent by comparison to that of this century, even though New York City in the 1980s was economically soaring, having been resurrected from its financial crisis in the mid-Seventies. Yes, cable television had arrived en masse that decade, as had VHSs, Blockbuster movie rentals, dual-cassette answering machines, and far more CDs than the sadly dying vinyl records.

But for all of that, computers were only slowly listing their way into homes and businesses, considered then more like superior typewriters than electronic versions of a personal post office. Back then, we dropped tokens like coins into the subway tolls—no MetroCards to slide through a slot on the turnstile. In those days, rather than staring at their phones, subway riders spent their journey reading books, magazines, and newspapers, with besuited straphangers adept at folding the New York Times broadsheet into an eighth of its original size, and reading the newspaper while holding it in a single hand. Out on the streets, we waved our hands in the air to lure taxi cabs our way. “Uber” would have been considered nothing more or less than an intriguing word from another language. As for “zooming,” well, that just meant we were speeding down the avenue, transported by a wild or exuberant or desperate cabbie. Cell phones had not yet arrived to any significant degree, so pay phones cluttered the sidewalks of the city. At home in our apartments, we still suffered from the expense of long-distance phone calls. And at Esquire , our receptionist, who also worked as the switchboard operator, would connect incoming calls to us. If we missed the calls, she would give us handwritten messages and phone numbers when we came by her front desk. Yes, handwritten.

As for magazines, they were physically everywhere—on our coffee tables at home, in waiting rooms, libraries, airplanes and trains; and being sold at newsstands, bookstores, drugstores and magazine shops that vended only magazines, hundreds of different periodicals, maybe even thousands, including literary journals. Which meant that fiction as a whole, and short stories in particular, were also everywhere to be found. And bought.

Back then, magazines in general, Esquire included, stood rather jauntily in the center of American culture, alongside the towering industries of television, movies, and music. Editors in that era often achieved national renown as editors. And to borrow Marshall McLuhan’s longtime axiom, magazines then were mediums for the message, with literary fiction being one of the prime and abiding messages, as it had been in periodicals for more than a century. In the 1920s, for example, F. Scott Fitzgerald made his living not as a writer who had published The Great Gatsby , one of the greatest American novels to this day, but instead as a short story writer, who was paid for 160 stories delivered in various magazines, most frequently the Saturday Evening Post .

“Decades ago,” wrote the tech and media journalist Simon Owens in 2020, “short fiction was a viable business, for publishers and writers alike.” He cites the ideal venues for short stories as the so-called “glossy” magazines (who calls them that now?) such as Esquire , The New Yorker , Playboy, and The Atlantic , along with what were once known as “pulp” magazines, among them Asimov’s Science Fiction and Analog , all of which benefited from hundreds of thousands, and in some cases, millions of subscribers. I was always impressed as well by Redbook and McCall’s , two popular monthly women’s magazines, both now departed from the print world, which for close to a century routinely published accomplished fiction, including stories by Willa Cather, Edith Wharton, Anne Tyler, and a condensed version of Toni Morrison’s novel Song of Solomon . Even the renewed Vanity Fair , prior to its celebrity obsession when Tina Brown took it over in 1984, devoted itself to extraordinary fiction, at one point buying and printing Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novella Chronicle of a Death Foretold .

For a while in the nineties, it still seemed to Rust and me and many other writers, editors, and marketers that fiction in magazines would last, well, forever. As would magazines themselves. As would literary fiction, period, anywhere and everywhere. Esquire , The Atlantic , Playboy , The New Yorker, and Harper’s published short stories in nearly every one of their issues. Several of those magazines— Esquire , The Atlantic, and The New Yorker —also put out a summer issue solely dedicated to fiction. I even loved using novelists and short story writers to research and compose nonfiction—John Edgar Wideman, for instance, who wrote a rich, imaginative investigation into Michael Jordan and his influence on race in America, and Denis Johnson , who roamed around the world, reporting on multiple catastrophes, including the civil war in Liberia and the take-over of Afghanistan by the Taliban. Another brilliant fiction writer, Joy Williams , Rust’s wife, fired out dazzling and sarcastically ferocious essays, one against hunting entitled “ The Killing Game ” (which infuriated hunters who subscribed to Esquire ), and another in defense of nature, called “ Save the Whales, Screw the Shrimp .”

And yet for all of that, a radical change in the structure of literary culture was already approaching. I remember one afternoon in the early-to-mid nineties when the novelist and short story writer Mark Helprin alerted me that tiny computers the size of transistor radios were heading our way. That we would carry them in our hands, stuff them in our pockets, and even pay bills and receive income through these little, unimaginable instruments. That magazines and newspapers and books might even disappear into or pop out of that miniature machine. How could he have known this? I have no idea. Laptop computers in those days seemed at least as big as briefcases, with office computers the size of altars. I recall saying to him with a bit of a laugh and much more astonishment: “Really? The size of a transistor radio?” It struck me as science fiction. Turned out to be science. Helprin was right.

As was the novelist, so-called metafictionalist, and Johns Hopkins professor John Barth, who back in 1993 declared: “I happen to not be optimistic about the future of literature in the electronic global village.” The only thing wrong with his intuition: the word “village.” It’s not a village anymore, if it ever was; it’s a universe.

At times, the digital universe feels to me like the technological equivalent of a black hole, swallowing everything around it, including the un-digital idiosyncrasy of humans, to the point that we are unable to re-emerge from that hole into a freer, more open constellation. In God, Human, Animal, Machine , the writer Meghan O’Gieblyn, who lost her faith after having been raised as a fundamentalist Christian, has created a fascinating inquiry into the nature and power of informational technology, as if that technology might be a new God, in the process of mathematizing uniqueness, and algorithmizing all of us, whether we are religiously faithful, agnostic, or atheistic. She describes how the Israeli intellectual Yuval Noah Harari argues that we already accept “machine wisdom” when it comes to the recommendation of “books, restaurants and potential dates.” He believes that “dataism” is replacing humanism as “a ruling ideology,” invalidating the conviction that an individual’s feelings, ideas, and beliefs make for a “legitimate source of truth.” According to Harari, “Dataism now commands: Listen to the algorithms!”

In the past twenty-five or so years, the magazine industry has shrunk in the midst of this “dataism,” particularly in its rendition of literary fiction. Three years ago, Adrienne LaFrance, executive editor of The Atlantic , decided to help devise an online destination for such fiction, short stories in particular, beginning with one by Lauren Groff. “The thinning of print magazines this century,” she writes , “meant a culling of fiction.” The internet, in her estimation (and mine), “makes fairly efficient work of splintering attention and devouring time.” As a result, she concludes that literary reading is “far too easily set aside.”

Simon Owens, the previously mentioned tech and media commentator, could not fathom the economic incentive behind LaFrance’s online venue for fiction. “Short stories don’t generate a lot of traffic,” he writes. In the past, he explains, a writer could make “a middle class living writing nothing but short fiction, and a few did.” Now, he writes, “that’s not the case.”

I often think of how writers, editors, copy-editors, fact-checkers, and even publishers are losing their work just like coal miners in Appalachia have over the last twenty years, with both professions having jobs taken away, seemingly forever, by what has been described in regard to West Virginia, for instance, as “automated technology.”

The power of the internet has not just affected writers economically. It has influenced the very nature of their own creativity. What Will Self, one of my favorite novelists over the last thirty years, calls BDDM—“bi-directional digital media”—is having a severe effect not just on reading, but on writing. Self confesses : “If there are writers out there who have the determination—and concentration—to write on a networked computer without being distracted by the worlds that lie a mere keystroke away, then they’re far steelier and more focused than I.” His vision of the literary future, despite his love for literature (even apparently for e-books), is dark indeed. “If you accept [over the next twenty years] that the vast majority of text will be read in digital form on devices linked to the web,” he asks, “do you also believe that those readers will voluntarily choose to disable that connectivity? If your answer to this is no, then the death of the novel is sealed out of your own mouth.” Writers in this age, he states, are “less imposing” than many of the relatively recent past, which is a “…a reflection of a culture in which literature is no longer centre stage (or screen).”

Given that this new medium is bi-directional and mathematical, and that, to quote Marshall McLuhan once again, “the medium is the message,” literary criticism itself has become dully numerical. Writers and writing tend to be voted upon by readers, who inflict economic power (buy or kill the novel!) rather than deeply examining work the way passionate critics once did in newspapers and magazines. Their “likes” and “dislikes” make for massive rejoinders rather than critical insight. It’s actually a kind of bland politics, as if books and stories are to be elected or defeated. Everyone is apparently a numerical critic now, though not necessarily an astute one. Or even honest. Consider, for instance, Cecilia Rabess’s recent debut novel Everything’s Fine , about a young Black woman employed by Goldman Sachs, who becomes enamored of a racist white co-worker. Six months before the book was even published—and read—members of the digital venue Goodreads , owned by Amazon, blasted the future publication with a flood of one-star reviews, accusing Everything’s Fine of prejudice and racism. Numbers, numbers, numbers, all in attack, rather than a variety of detailed immersions into the actual text, subsequently shared in what we call “writing.”

It’s as if the internet, with its ostensibly forthright venues, has actually turned nearly all of its posters into marketers and up-and-down voters, rather than readers and reviewers. That may be one of the reasons that the publishing and academic world has now become so consumed with propriety in relation to literary writing; otherwise editors, publishers and professors fear that old and new literature, along with themselves, may be treated as viciously as Rabess’s novel.

My perception is that, perhaps because of online mass condemnations, there’s simply too much of an ethical demand in fiction from fearful editors and “sensitivity readers,” whose sensitivity is not unlike that of children raised in religious families who’ve been taught that unless they do everything right, Hell (a longstanding venue of “cancellation”) is their likely destination. That instruction, common in the Protestant South where I grew up, has now—strangely—segued into the secular world of academics and publishing. Too many authors and editors fear that they might write or publish something that to them, at least, is unknowingly “wrong,” narratives that will reveal their ethical ignorance, much to their shame. It’s as if etiquette has become ethics, and blasphemy a sin of secularity.

The power of literary fiction—good literary fiction, anyway—does not come from moral rectitude. Consider, if you will, Harriet Beecher Stowe, who was a morally righteous author in the 1850s and whose famous anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, became immensely popular (at least in the North) and in time, a historical version of American sanctimony. Yet, as James Baldwin wrote nearly a century later in his essay “Everybody’s Protest Novel,” it was also “a very bad novel.” For one thing, it praises the enslaved for turning their cheeks, as it were, to be slapped again—or killed—rather than fighting back, a notion of Christian virtue and acceptance that results in brutal suffering and death on an unjust earth that will finally send Uncle Tom out of America to a less violent place known as Heaven. In Baldwin’s words, Stowe “was not so much a novelist as an impassioned pamphleteer; her book was not intended to do anything more than prove that slavery was wrong… This makes material for a pamphlet but it is hardly enough for a novel, and the only question left to ask is why we are bound still with the same constriction.”

And yet constriction has become even more constricted at this point of the 21st century, narrowing the fearless explorations that have been inherent in literature. A new American edition of To the Lighthouse , Virginia Woof’s 1927 British classic, to be published this year by Vintage, opens with an apologetic preface proclaiming that the publication is not an “endorsement” of the novel’s “cultural representations or language.” And just like in the 1850s, there are present-day writers—Sally Rooney, Ben Lerner (I remain a fan of his first two novels, but not his third), Celeste Ng, and Emma Cline, to name a few—composing fiction that Becca Rothfeld, in a brilliant essay appearing in Liberties Magazine , describes as “sanctimony literature,” in which the authors endorse and applaud their pious protagonists for living correctly. In contrast to the four novelists cited above, Rothfeld lauds Jane Austen for creating what she calls “morally mottled characters.” In Rothfeld’s view, political and ethical merit are not inherently identical. The truth is, pretty much all of us are mottled, and to immerse ourselves as readers into the complexity—not the clarity—of existence is illuminating. We can feel as close to the characters as we do to ourselves.

For me, good literature investigates morality. It stares unrelentingly at the behavior of its characters without requiring righteousness. The problem these days with a vast amount of fiction ( and its criticism) is that morality is treated as if it were mathematically precise, obvious, undeniable, and eternal. It is none of those things. Morality evolves, devolves and evolves again. It is not a rule that comes from outside of ourselves, as when the Ten Commandments supposedly floated down to the top of a mountain into the hands of Moses. That’s fiction, too, folks, as if the Bible were a very good book of magical realism, written by Garcia Marquez . Truth does not have to be literal. It can arrive at reality, dressed in a dream. Paradoxically, fiction is often truer than journalism in regard to the nature of life, even though it is largely invented, aka “fiction.” And genuine morality, as opposed to contemporary etiquette, arises from within us, over time, with thought, with feeling, and, crucially… with curiosity. In Buddhist meditation, for example, curiosity leads to a greater and more generous awareness.

Curiosity, in my view, is also what tends to make for far better fiction, and nonfiction as well. Too many publishers and editors these days seem to regard themselves as secular priests, dictating right and wrong, as opposed to focusing on the allure of the mystifying and the excitement of uncertainty. Ethics and aesthetics appear in this era to be intentionally merged, as if their respective “good” is identical. By contrast, the late, brilliant editor Robert Gottlieb, who worked with Toni Morrison , Robert Caro , Cynthia Ozick , Doris Lessing , and Joseph Heller , among many others, blended himself into the prose and intentions of his authors, supporting and allowing the independence of their freestanding literature. He was an editor-in-chief at the The New Yorker for several years, but never a dictator. He could judge and sharpen the distinctive power of an author’s voice without condemning its unique, often defiant point of view.

In their best moments, writers scribble on their pads and type on their keyboards like children playing with their buddies outside on the street or in the woods or at a park, far away in soul, if not place, from their parents. As the scholar and literary critic Peter Brooks declares in the book Seduced by Story , a beguiling and recent analysis of the nature of narrative, both fiction writing and children’s play “are about the creation of a space of freedom within the inexorable mechanisms of the real. That play, in the case of the successful fiction, delivers us back to reality changed, enhanced, with a greater wisdom in our stock.” Novelists love novels, he suggests, because such literature doesn’t constrain its creation by rules. “Fiction,” writes Brooks, “is playful precisely in its refusal to accept belief systems, its insistence on the ‘as if.’”

Or, as my friend, the novelist Darcey Steinke, says: “I actually think the best writing has paradox and ambiguity built right in. You can’t write without accepting it. Novels are about people that are f***** up!”

Oh, dear literature! Will you die or shrink or practically disappear into a tiny, elitist realm like opera has into Lincoln Center on the Upper West Side of Manhattan? James Shapiro, an English professor at Columbia, has only owned a smart phone for the past year. And yet his literary life has radically altered. “Technology in the last twenty years has changed all of us,” he tells Nathan Heller in a New Yorker piece about the diminishment of English majors in college. “…I probably read five novels a month until the two-thousands. If I read one a month now, it’s a lot. That’s not because I’ve lost interest in fiction. It’s because I’m reading a hundred web sites. I’m listening to podcasts.”

John Guillory, another professor, recently retired from New York University, and the author of Cultural Capital and Professing Criticism , says his fellow academics need to confront “the declining cultural capital of literature in a wildly expanded media universe.”

There’s even anxiety that artificial intelligence might make human writing superfluous. The Italian writer Italo Calvino , one of my favorite novelists (read The Baron in the Trees !), foresaw this in a lecture he gave way back in 1967, entitled “Cybernetics and Ghosts.” He laid out questions that strike me as astonishingly prescient, given the recent attempts of AI at composing literature. “Will we have a machine capable of replacing the poet and the author?” Calvino asked during his speech. “Just as we already have machines that can read, machines that perform a linguistic analysis of literary texts, machines that make translations and summaries, will we also have machines capable of conceiving and composing poems and novels?”

The answer, as Calvino likely already knew, even though he died at the age of 61 in 1985, is: You betcha . A couple of years ago, a former Esquire colleague of mine, Adam Fisher, relayed to me a poem composed by AI. It wasn’t that good, but it wasn’t that bad, either. It probably would have gotten a solid B in an MFA program.

Will readers like us therefore need to become the literary equivalents of the Amish, living peacefully and slightly outside the technological world? Can reading and writing literature become our version of riding in horse-drawn buggies cantering peacefully down a car-jammed highway? Or do we simply need to accept new forms of art, whatever they might be, as when Bibles were first printed by the Gutenberg Press back in 1455, and a new bright vision arose from reading?

Not long ago, I was waiting in a long line to the cashiers at the Barnes & Noble bookstore by Union Square in Manhattan, lugging a stack of books and magazines that I was about to buy. Just ahead of me stood a lovely, dark-haired woman, probably in her forties or fifties, also carrying a stack of books, who pulled a flip phone out of her coat pocket, opened it for a second, then flipped it back shut with seeming delight. I fell in love with her instantly. Yes, she was beautiful, and I didn’t mind that, but it was the flip phone that made me want to ask her out, to sit with her in a bar or coffee shop, discussing the similar nature of our particular universe, and then to subsequently marry and share a digitally-free—or at least digitally-modest—life.

Her flip phone made me believe I already knew her. That she also loved reading literary fiction (the books she was lugging implied that, too, including Haruki Murakami’s short story collection First Person Singular , which I was also buying). That she appreciated direct contact with humans, talking and listening in physical presence, not just staring at a phone in the midst of humanity. That there was a calmness in her, and strength as well. In my view, she had either rebelled against smart phone obsession or never succumbed to it in the first place. I’m reminded of a wonderful line from Lola Shub, a high school senior from Brooklyn, quoted by Alex Vadukul in the New York Times last December in an article about young Luddites: “When I got my flip phone, things instantly changed,” she said. “I started using my brain.”

My own brain decided to hide my intermittently-smart Samsung phone in the back pocket of my jeans and wondered what to say to the flip phone woman. In the end, however, I said nothing. Instead, I smiled at a little kid, also hauling a stack of books, who just came running into the line ahead, and then leaning against that very woman. The boy grinned back at me. I went up, bought my books and magazines, stuffed them in my knapsack, took them home, sat down on my favorite chair, turned off my phone, and began to read.

Outside my window, a big moon sailed slowly across the sky above New York City. It felt like my head was its own moon, albeit somewhat smaller, peacefully floating over Murakami’s story “Cream.” The very process of reading in itself is a generous, enriching form of solitude, meditational in fact, but it is also a calm instigation of independence, and maybe even an ongoing incentive for intellectual revolution. It allows a reader, especially in this digital age, to think more freely rather than being dictated by aggressive algorithms. Murakami’s recently-published stories also made me realize how fiction at large, and short stories in particular, remain as exhilarating as ever, the embodiment of an infinite variety of visions and voices, and powerful alternatives to the standard nature of the current mind, regardless of whether literary fiction is now harder to find, publish, promote, and write in this era of digital dictatorship.

Twenty-five years ago, I wrote and published the following paragraph in the introduction to an anthology I edited called Why I Write , that features original essays by 28 fiction writers, including Denis Johnson , Joy Williams, Darius James, Mary Gaitskill , Ann Patchett , and David Foster Wallace :

The very act of reading literature, the anticommunalism of it, the slow drift into reverie, the immersion into the charismatic black-and-white grids of the page—all of this emphatically unplugs us from that other grid, that beeping, noisome electronic grid that attempts to snare us in a web of reflex, of twitch and spasm. Does this make the pursuit of literature a Luddite maneuver, with all the shadowings of melancholy and futility attendant on such rebellions? I suspect that to the contrary, passionate reading will become a form of permanent opposition…

I feel this way now more than ever. And I suspect I will for the rest of my life. Will you?

Will Blythe is the author of a New York Times bestseller To Hate Like This is To Be Happy Forever . A former literary editor at Esquire , he quit the magazine in protest to a last-minute cancellation of a novella by David Leavitt that included scenes of gay sex.

In the golden age of magazines, short stories reigned supreme. Has the digital revolution killed their cultural relevance?

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  1. Essays on The Great Gatsby

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    Related to money and class, the fact that both Gatsby and the Wilsons strive to improve their positions in American society, only to end up dead, also suggests that the American Dream -- and specifically its hollowness -- is a key theme in the book as well. But there are other themes at play here, too.

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