Background of the Study

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

History, mystery, and fact of the life are always interested to be discussed. This is not only because everyone has his or her own life in various ways, but also because life has its answer for each individual question. Therefore, life and literature have a close connection. Literature can be defined as the attempt to describe human experience by means of written language. The authors can convey their expression of ideas or mind and their imagination of life to the readers through literary works. Taylor 1981: 1 says, “Literature like other arts is essentially an imagination act of the writer’s imagination in selecting, ordering, and interpreting life experience.” Thus, literary work is able to enlarge human knowledge about life, social problems, and philosophy because there are some literary works describe certain situation and illustrate something important for us, as Wellek and Warren 1956:111 say that to be sure, literature can be treated as a document in the history of ideas and philosophy, for literature parallels and intellectual history. Frequently either explicit statements of allusion show the allegiance of a poet to a specific philosophy once well known or at least that he is aware of their general assumption. Literature, as a discipline, has its own characters, which makes it different from other disciplines. It has literary elements, which convey direct object of sense and perception such as color, shape, and texture. Literature also has its complex expression of actions, characters, setting, point of view, and style. These elements arranged in such a way in order to make sense and have a direct relation to actual life. Taylor in Understanding the Elements of Literature 1981:2 says that more than, any other arts, literature reflects or comments on actual experience; social, philosophical, psychological, and more concern. By analyzing a literary work, we also learn about moral lesson. It describes about human attitude more than psychologist can do as what is written in Theory of Literature by Wellek: The novelist can teach you more about human nature. Literature is mainly divided into three genres classified in accordance with certain characters and features. The common genetic divisions are prose, poetry, and drama. And in Richard Taylor’s opinion, that narrative fiction including novel is the only genre that is meant to be written down for private reading. Jealousy plays a huge part in The Great Gatsby. Not only is it a theme, but it is what the whole story is based upon. The definition of jealousy is a jealous resentment against a rival, a person enjoying success or advantage, or against anothers success or advantage itself. It is wanting or desiring something that is not yours or something that you cannot have. In The Great Gatsby, different types of jealousy exist such as jealousy with money, jealousy with other peoples spouses, and jealousy of being wealthy. In the story, jealousy is heated up in the affairs that the characters have. In the beginning, Tom receives a call from his mistress, Myrtle and Daisy follows right after him. She acts like nothing is happening when it is obvious that he is having an affair. Daisy is oblivious even though she knows something fishy is going on with her husband. Unaware of his wifes past relationship with Jay Gatsby, Tom breaks off when he finds out about Daisy and Gatsbys affair as well. In the end, jealousy is in each of the characters hearts and also regrets with having an affair and cheating on their spouses. Jealousy with money and wealth is also another big theme in The Great Gatsby. Most of the people are not content with what they have even if its already a luxurious life because they just want more and more. For example, the West Egg people are jealous of the inherited wealth of the East Egg because they didnt have to work for it to earn it. While on the other hand, the West Egg people had to obtain all their riches some way of working or illegal business. Nick is also another good example for jealousy. At first, he meets Gatsby and envies Gatsbys mansion and luxurious life. Then later on, he accepts it and becomes very close to Gatsby. Although Nick has a very beautiful home, he wishes he had a little more riches, though he is a content person and grateful for what he has. Jealousy plays a big part on the Great Gatsby because it truly shows the true colors of people. Whether its jealousy of other peoples wealth and riches, or desiring some other elses spouse, we learn that we should be content with what we were given and not envying others.

1.2 Problem of the Study