East vs. West in The Great Gatsby :: essays research papers

F. Scott Fitzgerald tends to write with a very poetic style in his otherwise prose novels. The Great Gatsby is no exception. In the novel, Fitzgerald takes an obscure and rather insightful look on basic issues of the 1920’s. One of those issues is that of east vs. west. The 1920’s were a time of booming youthful energy in the east and of age-old tradition in the west. Fitzgerald uses a somewhat naturalistic approach when he suggests that people belong to one or the other and cannot function in the wrong one. The character of Daisy Buchanan in the novel The Great Gatsby illustrates the defining differences between the east and the west and the people who belong in each place. All the main characters of this novel originated in the west and Daisy was no exception. She grew up in the west and spent her entire single life there living in the mansion of her wealthy parents. The west represented everything that was formal and proper. Daisy went to fancy balls in wealthy country clubs and was courted by gentlemen. Everyone in the west got married happily, or at least pretended to, and never had affairs. The west was morality and formality, but more than that, it was perfection. â€Å"For Daisy was young and her artificial world was redolent of orchids and pleasant, cheerful snobbery and orchestras which set the rhythm of the year, summing up the sadness and suggestiveness of life in new tunes.† (p. 158) Daisy grew up in a life of too perfect happiness and comfort. Romance also prevailed in the sweetly proper courtship of the west. â€Å"There was a ripe mystery about it, a hint of bedrooms upstairs more beautiful and cool than other bedrooms, of gay and radiant activities taking place through its corridors and of romances that were not musty and laid away already in lavender but fresh and breathing and redolent of this year’s shining motor cars and of dances whose flowers were scarcely withered.† (p. 155-156) Daisy represented mysterious love and passion in all her western ideals to all men who happened upon her innocent trap of obsession. Daisy gave up on her true love for Gatsby in exchange for the new, rich, and exciting Tom Buchanan, who swept down from Chicago to steal Daisy away. They ran off to the east together in search of excitement. East vs. West in The Great Gatsby :: essays research papers F. Scott Fitzgerald tends to write with a very poetic style in his otherwise prose novels. The Great Gatsby is no exception. In the novel, Fitzgerald takes an obscure and rather insightful look on basic issues of the 1920’s. One of those issues is that of east vs. west. The 1920’s were a time of booming youthful energy in the east and of age-old tradition in the west. Fitzgerald uses a somewhat naturalistic approach when he suggests that people belong to one or the other and cannot function in the wrong one. The character of Daisy Buchanan in the novel The Great Gatsby illustrates the defining differences between the east and the west and the people who belong in each place. All the main characters of this novel originated in the west and Daisy was no exception. She grew up in the west and spent her entire single life there living in the mansion of her wealthy parents. The west represented everything that was formal and proper. Daisy went to fancy balls in wealthy country clubs and was courted by gentlemen. Everyone in the west got married happily, or at least pretended to, and never had affairs. The west was morality and formality, but more than that, it was perfection. â€Å"For Daisy was young and her artificial world was redolent of orchids and pleasant, cheerful snobbery and orchestras which set the rhythm of the year, summing up the sadness and suggestiveness of life in new tunes.† (p. 158) Daisy grew up in a life of too perfect happiness and comfort. Romance also prevailed in the sweetly proper courtship of the west. â€Å"There was a ripe mystery about it, a hint of bedrooms upstairs more beautiful and cool than other bedrooms, of gay and radiant activities taking place through its corridors and of romances that were not musty and laid away already in lavender but fresh and breathing and redolent of this year’s shining motor cars and of dances whose flowers were scarcely withered.† (p. 155-156) Daisy represented mysterious love and passion in all her western ideals to all men who happened upon her innocent trap of obsession. Daisy gave up on her true love for Gatsby in exchange for the new, rich, and exciting Tom Buchanan, who swept down from Chicago to steal Daisy away. They ran off to the east together in search of excitement.