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Gatsby: False Prophet of the American Dream

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The American dream, or myth is the belief that every man, whatever his origins, may pursue and attain his chosen goals, be they political, monetary, or social. It is the literary expression of the concept of America: the land of opportunity. American dream has been for Fitzgerald what the theme of the separate peace has been for Ernest Hemingway-the focal point or building block for much, if not all, of his work. However, Fitzgerald's unique expression of the American dream lacks the optimism, the sense of fulfillment, so evident in the expressions of his predecessors. Jay Gatsby as the prophet of the American dream To Fitzgerald the long prophesied American dream had its fulfillment in the "orgiastic" post World War I period known as "the Roaring Twenties" and he gave it its arch-high priest and prophet, Jay Gatsb.

The Gospel of Gatsby by Bernard Tanner Nick Carraway= Nicodemus Saint Nicodemus: He was a Pharisee(were at various times a political party, a social movement, and a school of thought among Jews during the Second Temple period) and a prominent member of the Sanhedrin, who, according to the Gospel of John, showed favour to Jesus. A man of wealth. He lived in Jerusalem in the first century C.E. He is mentioned in John iii. 1-21, vii. 50, xix. 39. In the first of these passages he is represented as "a ruler of the Jews" who learned from Jesus what "rebirth by baptism" meant. Dan Cody= St. John the Baptist John the Baptist : He was an itinerant preacher[2] and a major religious figure[3] who led a movement of baptism at the Jordan River. Most biblical scholars agree that John baptized Jesus at "Bethany beyond the Jordan," by wading into the water with Jesus from the eastern bank. Some of Jesus' early followers had previously been followers of John. Ella Key= Salome Salome: Christian traditions depict her as an icon of dangerous female seductiveness, for instance depicting as erotic her dance mentioned in the New Testament (in some later transformations further iconised to the dance of the seven veils).According to ten verses of Matthew 14, John was imprisoned for criticizing King Herod Antipas's marriage to Herodias, the former wife of Antipas' "brother" Herod Philip I. Herod offered his niece a reward of her

choice for performing a dance on his birthday. Herodias persuaded her daughter to ask for John the Baptist's head on a platter. Against his better judgment, Antipas reluctantly acceded to her request. Meyer Wolfsheim= St. Peter with his three denials Saint Peter or Simon Peter was an early Christian leader, who is featured prominently in the New Testament Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles.According to New Testament accounts, he was one of Twelve Apostles, chosen by Jesus from his first disciples. He was a fisherman assigned a leadership role by Jesus and was with Jesus during events witnessed by only a few Apostles, such as the Transfiguration.[6] Upon his death, he is said to have been martyred by Emperor Nero and crucified upside down on an inverted cross, as he saw himself unworthy to be crucified the same way like Jesus Christ. 3 denials of Peter: Following the arrest of Jesus Peter denied knowing him three times as described in the three Synoptic Gospels of the New Testament.

The Great Gatsby: Thirty-six Years After by A. E. Dyson He maintains that Dr. T. J. Eckleburg "is the only religious reference" in this novel.

Gatsby: False Prophet of the American Dream by Roger L. Pearson I believe that Fitzgerald in his symbolic technique in The Great Gatsby projects a series of variations in his imagery so as to achieve a cumulative effect. he achieves a totality of expression by introducing motifs that give the reader a slightly differing perspective of Gatsby, while always moving in a specific direction. Mammon= Gatsby, or his father Mammon is a term, derived from the Christian Bible, used to describe material wealth or greed, most often personified as a deity, and sometimes included in the seven princes of Hell. Pandemonium/The tower of Babel= Gatsbys house Pandmonium is the capital of Hell in the epic poem Paradise Lost by the 17th century English poet John Milton"Pandmonium" (American English "Pandemonium") stems from Greek "", meaning "all" or "every", and "", meaning "little spirit" or "little angel", or, as Christians interpreted it, "little daemon", and later, "demon" (thus roughly translated as "All Demons"); or it can be interpreted as -- = "all-demon-place". It is the name invented by John Milton for the capital of Hell, "the High Capital, of Satan and his Peers", built by the fallen angels at the suggestion of Mammon at the end of Book I, Paradise Lost (1667). Valley of Hinnon= valley of ashes(?) Hinnon is the Old Testament name for the city dump outside the walls of Jerusalem. Once fertile, it was defiled by the worship of false gods and turned into ashes by God in his wrath. Jay Gatsby's eulogy is spoken by Owl Eyes-"The poor son-of-a-bitch." Gatsby was the bastard of a hedonistic age, spawned by it and killed by it. Nick, at one point, surmised: "his imagination had never really accepted... his parents at all."7

7 In a short story, "Absolution," 1924, Rudolph Miller confesses the sin of not believing that he was his parents' son. When questioned by the priest as to why, he replies "just pride." Both "Absolution" and "Winter Dreams," 1922, foreshadow much of what is in The Great Gatsby. Background facts: The 1919 World Series: The events of the series are often associated with the Black Sox Scandal, when several members of the Chicago franchise conspired with gamblers to throw (i.e., intentionally lose) World Series games. The conspiracy was the brainchild of White Sox first baseman Arnold "Chick" Gandil, who had longstanding ties to petty underworld figures. He persuaded Joseph "Sport" Sullivan, a friend and professional gambler, that the fix could be pulled off. New York gangster Arnold Rothstein supplied the money through his lieutenant Abe Attell, a former featherweight boxing champion. Hopalong Cassidy is a fictional cowboy hero created in 1904 by the author Clarence E. Mulford,In his early writings, Mulford portrayed the character as rude, dangerous, and roughtalking. Beginning in 1935, the character as played by movie actor William Boyd in films adapted from Mulford's books was transformed into a clean-cut, on-screen hero. A total of sixty-six immensely popular films were released, only a few of which relied on Mulford's original story lines. Mulford would later revise and republish his earlier works to be more consistent with the character's new, polished, on-screen persona. Life Magazine's one sentence review: "Fantastic proof that chivalry, of a sort, is not dead." (May 7, 1925) -> romanticism Who could be the real Gatsby? Introduction [to the New essays on The Great Gatsby] by Matthew J. Bruccoli Professor and Fitzgerald biographer Matthew Bruccoli actually hired a private investigator, Howard Comen, to track down the history of Max von Gerlach (or Max Stark Gerlach) whom he thought was the inspiration for Gatsby. Gerlach may have been a bootlegger and Comen found a newspaper clipping with a note from Gerlach to Fitzgerald, where Gerlach called Fitzgerald "Old Sport," something Gatsby says many times in the novel. In the end, Bruccoli concludes that so far, he can at best say that Gatsby was based on many sources and it will probably not be proven that Geralch was THE source for Gatsby.
Matthew J. Bruccoli is Jefferies Professor of English at the University of South Carolina. A leading authority on Fitzgerald, he is the author of Some Sort of Epic Grandeur: The Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald. http://news.google.com/newspapers? id=STofAAAAIBAJ&sjid=GtAEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6775%2C2608617 http://fitzgerald.narod.ru/critics-eng/bruccoli-intro_newess.html

This link is a story on CNN where a professor named Carlyle V. Thompson speculates that Gatsby was black, which would change the question about the character's inspiration.
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/books/news/08/14/salon.gatsby/index.html

Zelda Fitzgerald(= Daisy Buchanan?)

She was an icon of the 1920sdubbed by her husband "the first American Flapper". After the success of his first novel, This Side of Paradise (1920), the Fitzgeralds became celebrities. The newspapers of New York saw them as embodiments of the Jazz Age and the Roaring Twenties : young, seemingly wealthy, beautiful, and energetic. Shortly after finishing high school,
she met F. Scott Fitzgerald at a dance. A whirlwind courtship ensued. Though he had professed his infatuation, she continued seeing other men. Despite fights and a prolonged break-up, they married in 1920, and spent the early part of the decade as literary celebrities in New York. Their marriage was a tangle of jealousy, resentment and acrimony. Scott used their relationship as material in his novels, even lifting snippets from Zelda's diary and assigning them to his fictional heroines. Seeking an artistic identity of her own, Zelda wrote magazine articles and short stories, and at 27 became obsessed with a career as a ballerina, practicing to exhaustion. The strain of her tempestuous marriage, Scott's increasing alcoholism, and her growing instability presaged Zelda's admittance to the Sheppard Pratt sanatorium in 1930. She was diagnosed with schizophrenia. While in the clinic, she wrote a semi-autobiographical novel, Save Me the Waltz, which was published in 1932. Scott was furious that she had used material from their life together, though he would go on to do the same, as in Tender Is the Night, published in 1934; the two novels provide contrasting portrayals of the couple's failing marriage. Back in America, Scott went to Hollywood where he tried screenwriting and began a relationship with the movie columnist Sheilah Graham. Scott died in Hollywood in 1940, having last seen Zelda a year and a half earlier. She spent her remaining years working on a second novel, which she never completed, and she painted extensively. In 1948, the hospital at which she was a patient caught fire, causing her death. After a popular 1970 biography portrayed her as a victim of an overbearing husband, she became a feminist icon.

The Great Gatsby (2012 film) The Great Gatsby is an upcoming drama romance film adaptation of writer F. Scott Fitzgerald's highly praised 1925 novel of the same name. It will be directed by Baz Luhrmann, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby and Carey Mulligan as Daisy Buchanan, as well as Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway. Amitabh Bachchan as Meyer Wolfsheim and Brendan Maclean as Klipspringer are set to make their Hollywood debuts in this film.Filming began on September 5, 2011 in Australia.[2] The film is set to be released on December 25, 2012 by Warner Bros. Pictures

Sources:
Gatsby: False Prophet of the American Dream Author(s): Roger L. Pearson Reviewed work(s):Source: The English Journal, Vol. 59, No. 5 (May, 1970), pp. 638-642+645 Published by: National Council of Teachers of English Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/813939

http://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/11525-nicodemus http://en.wikipedia.org http://reading.cornell.edu/reading_project_06/gatsby/great_gatsby_resources.htm http://fitzgerald.narod.ru/critics-eng/bruccoli-intro_newess.html