II- Overview

In accordance with Fitzgerald's epic

ambitions to write a novel that expressed
the vital spirit of his country, The Great
Gatsby attempts to explain and evoke
the essence of the fundamental myth at
the heart of the American experience.
Even in the high times of the wild 1920s,
Fitzgerald perceptively sensed that the
original energy of the American dream
was irrevocably vanishing, and he
wanted to record its power before it
faded into memory and fable.
Fitzgerald explores the American dream
through two characters: Nick Carraway,
the narrator, and Gatsby himself, both
young men born in the heartland of the
Midwest at the dawn of the twentieth
century. Like Fitzgerald, they arrive in
New York with some of the innocence
characteristic of middle America, lured to
the great wicked city by its promise of
glamour and success, vulnerable to its
dangers and its corruptions. They bring
some of the classic virtues of the
heartland with them—simplicity,
determination, loyalty, and perhaps most
of all an innate sense of honesty and
decency. For Gatsby, beguiled and
practically enslaved by love, these
virtues have been driven into the deeper
recesses of his character. For Nick, the
temptations of city life are also quite
strong, but he is able to turn back before
he is consumed. A sense of the American
dream's possibilities animates both men,
but Gatsby has allowed the realities of
contemporary American life to distort the
parameters of his romantic vision.

III SETTING
Set in the summer of 1922, most of the
story takes place in the fictitious New
York towns of East and West Egg, Long
Island, and in New York City. Nick
Carraway, who has rented a cottage in
West Egg next door to the rented estate
where the fabulously wealthy Jay Gatsby
lives, renews his acquaintance with his
cousin Daisy Buchanan and her
husband Tom, who live in East Egg.
When Gatsby wishes to meet the
charming Daisy, whose voice rings like
the sound of money, he selects Nick as
his confidant. The glitter and intrigue of
the 1920s permeate the story, and the
details of the setting are important to the
development of the theme.
IV THEMES AND CHARACTERS
Jay Gatsby, the title character of The
Great Gatsby, was born Jimmy Gatz, a
poor boy from an undistinguished
family. Dazzled by Daisy Fay at a party
when he was a young soldier on his way
overseas, he is determined to win her
love by accumulating enormous wealth
and by developing a personal style of
such glowing force that she will be
unable to resist his courtship. Gatsby's
efforts in a way dramatize the myth,
popularized in Horatio Alger's stories of
the late nineteenth century, of self-
improvement through hard work and
fortunate circumstances. But Gatsby
overcomes the limits of his origins only
to eventually succumb to greater limits.
A natural leader of men, he is extremely
poised, physically gifted, understated
about his accomplishments but riveting
in terms of his presence. At the age of
thirty-two, having accumulated his
wealth through shady enterprises
connected with major-league criminality,
he is a bizarre combination of an elegant,
gallant man and a love-struck youth. At
the heart of his character is the
conviction that his love can rescue Daisy
from a bad marriage and redeem his own
life, which has been sliding further into
corruption. His willingness to commit
himself totally to his vision of a bright
future makes his death tragic.
Part of the tragic essence of Gatsby's life
is that the object of his quest is not
entirely worthy of his commitment. Daisy
is extremely attractive, her allure
projected by her voice, which Fitzgerald
describes as 'the kind of voice that the
ear follows up and down, as if each
speech is an arrangement of notes that
will never be played again.' She has a
radiance that Nick sees as 'a wild tonic
in the rain,' and she communicates her
sense of love with extraordinary
intensity. But she sees everything from
the perspective of her own happiness
and well-being, and without being cruel
or evil, she is a little bit too careless. In
fact, her carelessness leads to the death
of Myrtle Wilson, the woman her
husband has been seeing. Daisy's faults
are minor, though, in comparison with
those of her husband, Tom Buchanan.
Very rich and privileged, he is also
physically imposing, a star athlete used
to having his way. He is a thug and a
bully, full of self-importance and
unjustified self-regard. But inside the
'cruel body' he remains a coward with no
moral courage, a quitter with no sense of
perseverance, a man of average
intelligence that he has never developed,
and a man concerned with appearances
who, as Nick observes, has no real
reason for doing anything. He competes
with Gatsby through deception and
treachery. It is a mark of Fitzgerald's
achievement that one actually feels sorry
for him at times.
Jordan Baker, a golf champion Nick
almost falls in love with, is lively and
attractive in a kind of brittle,
ultramodern way. Her apparent
spontaneity masks a careful and
calculating nature. She fascinates Nick
because she seems so much the exciting
woman of the city, but he describes her
as 'incurably dishonest' and unable to
'endure being at a disadvantage.' Her
controlled aloofness convinces many
people of her 'breeding,' but Nick sees
past her charming availability.
Nick Carraway, the narrator of The Great
Gatsby, is a version of Fitzgerald's ideal
self-image. A thirty-year-old Yale
graduate, his integrity intact, Nick
rightly wins the admiration of everyone
he meets because of the obviously
substantial nature of his character. Low-
key but caring, introspective, an idealist
with few illusions, he can look into the
abyss without plunging to his doom. As
Fitzgerald describes him, he is
'simultaneously enchanted and repelled
by the inexhaustible variety of life.'
Unafraid to commit himself to what he
believes in, he becomes Gatsby's only
friend in a world where friendship is
rare. He admits without displeasure that
he is 'on Gatsby's side and alone.'
Fitzgerald's ambitions as a writer
paralleled those of his spiritual ancestors
of the nineteenth century—Herman
Melville, Walt Whitman, Henry David
Thoreau—who rendered in imaginative
literature the emergence of America as a
nation. Like them, he believed in the
capacity of the American people to
perpetually rediscover the promise of
their country. Like them, he recognized a
continuous clash between the reality of
life in the United States and a mythic
vision of what it might be. But unlike his
forebears, he felt that he was living in
the twilight of a golden era. Still, he
believed that he could share their
vocation; that he, too, could serve as a
witness to the struggle, an artistic
conscience reminding Americans of near-
forgotten dreams. He considered the
artist's role primarily one of inspiration,
and felt an obligation to help people
recover their vision and continue the
quest.
Fitzgerald was also a thoroughly
romantic artist in the most traditional
sense, and for him, women like Daisy
represented the deepest seductive power
of the American dream as well as its
greatest dangers. Even if pursuing the
dream—or the woman—doomed a man,
the undertaking was worth the risk;
indeed, the pursuit was essential for the
exceptional man who wished to fully
realize his character. Thus, Gatsby's
(and possibly America's) greatness lay in
the ability to put aside the lessons of
bitter experience. As Gatsby says when
Nick tells him he cannot recapture the
past, 'Of course you can, old sport.'
Gatsby's full participation and heedless
pursuit make him the quintessential
American hero. His death, in a sense,
serves as a warning, but it also ennobles
him. Fitzgerald hoped that there would
always be men such as Gatsby whose
nature it was to 'beat on, boats against
the current,' to make the gorgeous
gesture that animates existence.
Nick, the observer and artistic
conscience, serves as a necessary
counterweight to Gatsby's wild
extravagance. His support of Gatsby, his
participation to some extent in Gatsby's
heart-driven surge toward romantic
beauty, and his ability to judge other
people's actions with compassion
exemplify fundamental decency carried
beyond complacency. As Gatsby
reanimates the dream, Nick conserves it.
His appreciation of beauty is as vital to
its existence as is Gatsby's immediate
celebration. 'Reserving judgment,' he
says, 'is a matter of infinite hope.' That is
what The Great Gatsby is ultimately
about

THE SCARLET LETTER

II OVERVIEW
The Scarlet Letter is one of the few
American works of literature that has
justifiably earned the accolade 'classic.'
Primary among the novel's virtues are its
tightly structured plot and sophisticated
exploration of character and motivation.
Through the tale of Hester Prynne's and
Arthur Dimmesdale's transgressions of
conventional morality, Hawthorne offers
an assessment of the Puritan
consciousness, a code of thought and
action that helped form the American
psyche. He uses historical materials to
create a novel about universal, timeless
human problems: the struggle of the
individual to achieve freedom in a society
that imposes considerable restraints,
and the dilemma individuals face in
balancing personal feelings against
social or moral norms.

III SETTING
Set during the mid-seventeenth century,
The Scarlet Letter takes place in Boston,
Massachusetts, and the surrounding
countryside. Any reader familiar with
American history will no doubt be
predisposed to view critically the high-
handed and intolerant attitudes directed
toward Hester Prynne by the people of
Boston. The placement of the action in
an intolerant Puritan community permits
Hawthorne to introduce suggestions of
other-worldly powers at work: witches,
spirits, demons, and even the Devil.
Nevertheless, the suggestion that
supernatural powers may be responsible
for events in the novel is always couched
in less-than-definitive language;
Hawthorne counters the fantastic
explanations that he places in the
mouths of his characters with more
commonsensical explanations of his
own.
 IV THEMES AND CHARACTERS
In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne explores
two important themes, the first of which
has been described by critics as the
conflict between 'heart' and 'mind.'
Hawthorne contrasts the feelings of the
more sympathetic characters, such as
Hester Prynne, with the harsh rules of
conduct established by those, such as
the Puritan magistrates, who seem
incapable of any emotional response
whatsoever to their fellow human beings.
This conflict is dramatized within the
context of the Puritan moral and social
code: individuals who are predestined for
salvation exhibit their election by living
in strict accordance with 'God's laws.'
These laws are interpreted by Puritan
elders who have rigid attitudes toward
dress, decorum, and above all, sexual
conduct. Men and women who commit
acts of sexual misconduct are branded—
literally, in Hester's case, with the decree
that she wear the letter 'A' over her
heart. Hawthorne demonstrates that
individuals who have sinned in the eyes
of their fellow citizens are still capable of
exceptional goodness, while those who
relentlessly pursue the exposure and
punishment of sinners are often the real
villains.
Hawthorne's second major theme is the
nature of sin itself. His examination is
complex and heavily shaded with irony:
although Hester and Arthur are guilty of
committing adultery, it is clear that they
turned to each other because they both
found themselves in loveless, emotionally
barren situations. Hester and Arthur feel
guilty for having transgressed the moral
order but gradually come to realize that
Puritan society shares part of the blame.
Hawthorne concentrates on four
characters in his dramatization of these
themes. Hester Prynne, a woman of great
courage and pride, suffers the disgrace of
wearing the scarlet 'A' as a sign of her
sin. Although she is a devoted mother to
her daughter Pearl and is genuinely
repentant for her transgressions, Hester
feels that she and Arthur are not totally
culpable for their actions. She seems to
take pride in being set apart from
society, and is willing to make a life for
herself and Pearl despite her ostracism.
On the other hand, Hester's lover, the
minister Arthur Dimmesdale, suffers
tremendously but silently. Unable to
expiate his sin by making a public
declaration of his guilt, he suffers inner
torments until he finds the strength to
confess to the community in Boston.
Pearl, the offspring of Arthur and
Hester's unlawful union, is depicted as a
child of nature, more at home in the
forest than the city and often unwilling
to heed the strictures of society.
Hawthorne develops Pearl more as a
symbol than as a realistic, engaging
child.
Roger Chillingsworth, Hester's husband
who is living in Boston incognito, proves
the most problematic character in the
novel. Obsessed with discovering the
father of Hester's child, Chillingsworth
seems to associate himself with the
forces of evil. Though his motives seem
understandable—he wants the man who
cuckolded him to pay for his sin—
Chillingsworth never gains the reader's
sympathy. Hence, the suggestion that
characters such as Chillingsworth are
less admirable than the sinners they
pursue lurks beneath the surface of the
work.