The Great Gatsby- Critical Interpretations
“Their idiotic pursuit of sensation, their almost incredible stupidity and triviality, their glittering
swinishness-these are the things that go into his book” H.L Mencken
“Fitzgerald gives us a meditation on some of this country’s most central ideas, themes, yearning and
preoccupations: the quest for a new life, the preoccupation with class, the hunger for riches” Jonathan
Yardley
“Even in America, Fitzgerald seems to suggest, society is strictly ordered, and for the elite to retain their
exclusive position at the top of the hierarchy, those below them must also remain in their proper place”
Claire Stocks
“Moments of happiness or triumph from the past can neither be recaptured or repeated, and for that
reason seldom can they be forgotten” Jeffrey Steinbrink
“Nick is to be respected for his moral concern” R. W. Stallman
“In one sense Gatsby is the apotheosis of his rootless society... He really believes in himself and his
illusions” A. W. Dyson
“Fitzgerald seems to have had a brilliant understanding of lives that are corrupted by greed are incredibly
sad and unfulfilled” James Topham
“The Great Gatsby is somehow a commentary on that elusive phrase, the American dream” Marius Bewley
“The corruption of the American Dream emerges in various ways throughout The Great Gatsby” Robert
Johnson Jr
“The impersonal death machine violates Myrtle’s female identity and ravages her: it is a symbolic rape”
Kathleen Parkinson
Gatsby "comes inevitably to stand for America itself" Lionel Trilling
"No woman, no human being, could ever approximate the platonic ideal he has invented" Leland S Person
“Their idiotic pursuit of sensation, their almost incredible stupidity and triviality, their glittering
swinishness-these are the things that go into his book” H.L Mencken
“Fitzgerald gives us a meditation on some of this country’s most central ideas, themes, yearning and
preoccupations: the quest for a new life, the preoccupation with class, the hunger for riches” Jonathan
Yardley
“Even in America, Fitzgerald seems to suggest, society is strictly ordered, and for the elite to retain their
exclusive position at the top of the hierarchy, those below them must also remain in their proper place”
Claire Stocks
“Moments of happiness or triumph from the past can neither be recaptured or repeated, and for that
reason seldom can they be forgotten” Jeffrey Steinbrink
“Nick is to be respected for his moral concern” R. W. Stallman
“In one sense Gatsby is the apotheosis of his rootless society... He really believes in himself and his
illusions” A. W. Dyson
“Fitzgerald seems to have had a brilliant understanding of lives that are corrupted by greed are incredibly
sad and unfulfilled” James Topham
“The Great Gatsby is somehow a commentary on that elusive phrase, the American dream” Marius Bewley
“The corruption of the American Dream emerges in various ways throughout The Great Gatsby” Robert
Johnson Jr
“The impersonal death machine violates Myrtle’s female identity and ravages her: it is a symbolic rape”
Kathleen Parkinson
Gatsby "comes inevitably to stand for America itself" Lionel Trilling
"No woman, no human being, could ever approximate the platonic ideal he has invented" Leland S Person
