The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, initial thoughts

This masterpiece, by Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, is by far one of the best novels that I have ever read. From the first page, Fitzgerald's beautiful prose shows itself in full colors. His style is simply amazing and I could name multiple lines that caught my attention for their unique beauty.

Some things that especially caught my eye right off the bat is his insistent use of colors in describing almost everything there is to describe in the novel. For example: he uses yellow to describe Gatsby's car, Dr. T. J. Eckleburg's glasses, the women's dresses, hair of Daisy's child and the light among other things; he uses pink to describe the light in Daisy's room and Gatsby's suit among other things; he uses both black and white in a lot of descriptions and in Tom's racism; he uses green to describe the light from Daisy's dock as viewed by Gatsby and to describe the cars of Mr. Wilson and Tom, among many other things; he uses blue to describe Tom's coupe as well as Dr. T. J. Eckleburg's enormous retinas; finally, he uses grey to describe the region between "West Egg" and Queens along with describing all of the ash that is another important motif in the area. All of these motifs of color, ash and especially the billboard of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg bother me because I have absolutely no inkling as to their importance, if there exists any.

Finally, something that I have been thinking about is what Fitzgerald's inspiration was to create what he did. First, I thought that Fitzgerald's life was that of Nicks, then that of Toms, then that of Gatsby's; but, I recently came to the conclusion that all three have been influenced by bits and pieces of Fitzgerald's life. First, Tom was on an Ivy League football team as Fitzgerald was. Also, Tom goes to France with his wife as Fitzgerald does as well. Then, Daisy has an affair with a WWI veteran as Fitzgerald's wife Zelda did. Then, there is the story of Nick who was born in the Midwest, as Fitzgerald was. Nick then goes to school out east, lives most of his life there and serves in WWI, as Fitzgerald did as well. Finally, Nick returns back to the Midwest, disappointed and with much contempt for the upper class, as Fitzgerald did as well. Finally, there is the most interesting character of Gatsby. I think that the idea of Gatsby dives the deepest into Fitzgeralds life and his struggles with the upper class, though it has been said the Fitzgerald based this character loosely upon an infamous bootlegger of the time.

Overall, I love this book a lot and have not found any problems with.