Analysis of Theme Through The Portrayal of The Protagonist in F.Scott Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gatsby'.
ABSTRACT
Dalam tugas akhir ini saya akan menganalisis tema melalui penggambaran
tokoh utama dari novel The Great Gatsby karya F. Scott Fitzgerald. Novel ini
menggambarkan bagaimana obsesi cinta dari seorang pria terhadap wanita yang
berakhir pada kehancuran hidup pria tersebut.
Dalam novel The Great Gatsby sang tokoh utama, Jay Gatsby, seorang
milyader yang telah jatuh cinta pada seorang wanita bernama Daisy selama
bertahun-tahun. Walaupun Daisy telah menikah dengan Tom Buchanan, Gatsby
selalu memikirkan wanita tersebut dan berharap bisa memilikinya kembali. Hal
yang menarik dari novel ini adalah walaupun Gatsby telah memiliki banyak
kekayaan, tetapi diakhir hidupnya dia kehilangan segalanya.
Jay Gatsby digambarkan sebagai seorang yang ambisius, pekerja keras,
obsesif, dan tidak realistis. Dari karakteristik di atas, tema yang bisa didapat
adalah bahwa obsesi terhadap cinta masa lalu bisa menyebabkan sifat
ketidakrealistisan yang bisa menghancurkan kesuksesan dan hasil usaha yang
didapat saat ini. Dengan membahas tema dari novel ini dapat ditarik kesimpulan
bahwa tidak peduli seberapa dalam cinta seseorang, ia seharusnya tidak
menjadikannya sebagai cinta yang obsesif. Seseorang juga harus tetap bisa
menjalani kehidupannya saat ini. Tidak peduli seberapa hebat usaha seseorang dan
seberapa kaya orang tersebut, masa lalu tetap tidak bisa diulang kembali.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS .......................................................................
iii
ABSTRACT ............................................................................................
iii
ii
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study ..............................................................
Statement of the Problem .............................................................
Purpose of the Study ....................................................................
Method of Research ....................................................................
Organization of the Thesis ...........................................................
11
33
33
33
43
CHAPTER TWO: ANALYSIS OF THEME THROUGH
THE PORTRAYAL OF THE PROTAGONIST
IN F. SCOTT FITZGERALD’S THE GREAT GATSBY ..........
54
CHAPTER THREE: CONCLUSION .....................................................
22
BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................
27
26
APPENDICES
Synopsis of The Great Gatsby ........................................................
Biography of Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald .....................................
29
28
30
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APPENDICES
Summary of The Great Gatsby
Jay Gatsby, a wealthy young man who lives in the West Egg district of
Long Island, is deeply in love with a beautiful woman called Daisy.
Unfortunately, she is already married to Tom Buchanan. In order to get her back,
Gatsby holds glamorous parties to impress her. He also asks Nick Carraway, his
new neighbor, who is also Daisy’s cousin, to arrange a meeting with her. Gatsby
wants to reestablish their relationship and makes their love blossom again.
After a short time, Tom suspects his wife’s relationship with Gatsby. Tom is
deeply outraged although he himself is involved in an affair with Myrtle Wilson.
He does not want his wife, Daisy, to have a relationship with Gatsby anymore. He
tells her that Gatsby’s wealth comes from bootlegging and other illegal
businesses. She has already known this fact but does not really care about it.
One day, Nick and Gatsby are invited to Tom’s house and Daisy has an idea
to go to town with them. She also invites Jordan Baker, her best friend. Daisy and
Gatsby are in the same car while Tom, Nick and Jordan are in another car. When
Nick, Jordan and Tom drive through the valley of ashes, however, they discover
that Gatsby’s car has struck and killed Myrtle. Actually, Daisy is the driver at that
time, but Gatsby intends to take the blame for her crime.
28
The next day, Tom tells Myrtle’s husband, George Wilson, that Gatsby is
the murderer of Wilson’s wife. Considering that the news from Tom is true, he
thinks that Gatsby is his wife’s lover. Wilson immediately goes to Gatsby’s
mansion, finding him in the pool, and then Wilson shoots him. After that, Wilson
shoots himself. When Gatsby is buried, no one comes to his funeral, except Nick
Carraway and Gatsby’s real father, Mr. Gatz.
Biography of Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, on September
24, 1896. The name of his father was Edward Fitzgerald. His mother, Mary
(Mollie) McQuillan, was the daughter of an Irish immigrant. Edward Fitzgerald
failed as a wicker furniture business in St. Paul. Then he became a salesman for
Procter and Gamble in Upstate New York but he was dismissed in 1908. Since
that, Fitzgerald starts to work by selling his writing to the school newspaper.
When F. Scott Fitzgerald was thirteen, he attended the St. Paul Academy
and he wrote a detective story in the school newspaper. Then he attended
Newman School from 1911 to 1913. Later, he went to Princeton University
(1917) but he neglected his studies in literary apprenticeship because of his bad
health. He wrote scripts and lyrics for Princeton Triangle Club musicals; in
addition, he was a contributor to the Princeton Tiger humor magazine and Nassau
Literary Magazine.
In the fall-winter of 1919, Fitzgerald became a Post writer of The Saturday
Evening Post story market. During this time he also wrote his first novel, This
Side of Paradise, which was published on March 26, 1920. Then he wrote other
29
novels, including The Beautiful and Damned (1922), The Great Gatsby (his
greatest novel in 1925), Tender is the Night (1934), and The Love of the Last
Tycoon (1939). Besides writing novels, he wrote many short stories which were
divided into collections. Some of them were Flappers and Philosophers (1920),
Tales of the Jazz Age (1922), and All the Sad Young Men (1926). He had also
written a play, The Vegetable (1923).
Fitzgerald married Zelda Sayre in 1920, the youngest daughter of an
Alabama Supreme Court Judge and his only child, Frances Scott (Scottie)
Fitzgerald was born in October 1921. He died of a heart attack on December 21,
1940 in Hollywood, California. He rests in Rockville Union Cemetery in
Rockville, Maryland, with his wife Zelda by his side.
Source: “F.Scott Fitzgerald. Biography Profile”
30
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born on September 24, 1896 in St. Paul,
Minnesota. He is known primarily as a historian of the Jazz Age, and a short-story
writer who wrote more than 150 short stories; many of the stories are about love
between young people, written for the Saturday Evening Post, the mouthpiece of
Middle America in the 1920s and 1930s (Mangun). Furthermore, Fitzgerald is
also a novelist; most of his works were based on his life experience because he
seems to have a brilliant understanding of lives that are corrupted by greed and
that are incredibly sad and unfulfilled (Topham). He wrote five novels. This Side
of Paradise (1920) is his first novel, and the last one is The Love of the Last
Tycoon (1939). He is also the playwright of The Vegetable (1923). During his lifetime, none of Fitzgerald’s works received anything more than modest commercial
or critical success during his lifetime. However, since his death on December 21st,
1940 his works become more famous and he is regarded as one of the most
1
Maranatha Christian University
interesting, capable and insightful writers of the 20th century. Moreover he is also
regarded as one of the truly great Americans storytellers
(“F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Biography Profile”).
In this thesis, I choose to analyze Fitzgerald’s most famous novel, The
Great Gatsby, which was published in 1925. The novel takes place in the West
Egg district of Long Island, New York, in the 1920s. It tells a story of an
enigmatic and lonely millionaire named Jay Gatsby. He has been in love with the
same woman, named Daisy, for years, and tries to win her back. He works hard to
gain wealth to attract her attention, despite the fact that she has married another
man, named Tom Buchanan. Interestingly, although Gatsby manages to gain
much wealth, at the end of the story he gets nothing in his life. This novel is
narrated by Nick Carraway, who is Gatsby’s neighbor as well as the cousin of
Daisy Buchanan. The Great Gatsby is the perfect example of an American novel
in the social history of the Jazz Age; this novel has become required reading for
every American high school student (“F. Scott Fitzgerald. Biography Profile”).
As the portrayal of Gatsby has a close relationship with the theme of the
story, I am going to analyze the theme of the novel through the portrayal of the
protagonist. “The theme of a piece of fiction is its controlling idea or its central
insight” (Perrine 102). A protagonist is “the main character in a play, film/movie
or book (“Protagonist”). By analyzing the portrayal from the theme, I hope that
readers can know the story of The Great Gatsby more clearly. Then the readers
will be able to learn from the life of the protagonist, Jay Gatsby. The readers can
also learn from the event of the death of the protagonist.
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Statement of the Problems
The problems I am going to discuss are:
1. What is the theme of the novel The Great Gatsby?
2. How does the portrayal of the protagonist help in revealing the theme?
Purpose of the Study
The purposes of the study are:
1. To reveal what the theme of the novel The Great Gatsby is.
2. To show how the portrayal of the protagonist helps in revealing the theme.
Method of Research
In writing the thesis, I use library research. I began the study by reading
the primary text, which is The Great Gatsby. Then I read several reference books
and articles in the Internet which are relevant to the topic to support my analysis. I
also read several books in the library to get some theories to complete the
analysis. Finally, I draw conclusion from the research I have done.
Organization of the Thesis
This thesis consists of three chapters, preceded by the Acknowledgements,
the Table of Contents, and the Abstract. Chapter One is the Introduction, which
consists of the Background of the Study, the Statement of the Problem, the
Purpose of the Study, the Method of Research, and the Organization of the Thesis.
Chapter Two is the Analysis of Theme through the Portrayal of the Protagonist of
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Chapter Three is the Conclusion, followed
by the Bibliography and the Appendices, which consist of the Summary of The
Great Gatsby, and the Biography of Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald.
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CHAPTER THREE
CONCLUSION
After analyzing the theme through the portrayal of the protagonist in F.
Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, I would like to draw some conclusions in
this chapter. Jay Gatsby, the protagonist of the novel, comes from a lower income
family background in North Dakota. Because of his poor condition, Gatsby has to
work at a young age to support his daily needs. This situation makes Gatsby
dream about his future. He starts to have an ambition to become a wealthy person
and tries to reach his dream. Unfortunately, because of his love toward a rich
woman, he gets nothing at the end of his life.
Firstly, Jay Gatsby is portrayed as an ambitious person. His being
ambitious can be seen when he tries to do anything to be a wealthy and successful
man. Gatsby tries to present himself with a new image as a wealthy and successful
man by changing his name from James Gatz to Jay Gatsby. When Gatsby works
for Dan Cody, a millionaire who owns yachts along the Lake Superior’s shore,
Cody states that Gatsby is extravagantly ambitious. Later, Gatsby’s father, James
Gatz, tells Nick, Gatsby’s neighbor, how ambitious his son was since Gatsby was
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a boy. All the indications above show that Gatsby is being ambitious to become a
successful, rich and powerful person.
Gatsby is also portrayed as a hard-working person. His ambition drives
him to work hard to gain wealth. His being a hard-working person can be seen
when he tries to do many jobs to earn money so that he can become a wealthy
person. Gatsby has worked as a clam-digger and a salmon fisher in the Lake
Superior for over a year to get food and bed. Then Gatsby works for Dan Cody as
his steward, mate, skipper, secretary, and even jailor for five years. Later, he starts
to manage his drug and oil businesses. All the indications of his being hardworking show that Gatsby makes great effort in his jobs and has already been
doing them well, so he becomes a successful person who has gained great wealth.
After Gatsby becomes a wealthy person, he focuses his attention on
reuniting with Daisy Buchanan. In spite of the fact that now Daisy is already
married to Tom Buchanan, Gatsby still loves her and is obssessed with her. Thus,
Gatsby is portrayed as an obsessive person. Actually, his obsession towards Daisy
is one of the reasons why he becomes ambitious and hard-working. At first, his
motivation to become rich is because he wants to change his financially poor
condition. However when he met Daisy and found out that she actually comes
from a rich family, he becomes more motivated to be successful and rich so that
he can be financially equal with her.
His being obsessive can be seen when he tries many ways to win her back
to his side. One day, Gatsby tells Nick how deep his feelings are for Daisy, that
nothing is more important than getting Daisy’s love. Then Gatsby intentionally
bought a great mansion which is located across the bay from Daisy’s house so that
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he can feel closer with her. Moreover, he spends a lot of money for holding
glamorous parties and invites a lot people to the parties, only for the sake of
meeting Daisy. He also starts to ask people questions in order to get information
about Daisy. Furthermore, Gatsby is willing to sacrifice his own life by taking the
blame for Daisy’s accidentally killing Mrs. Wilson. In the end, the consequence of
his action causes his death by murder, and he therefore loses both his wealth and
love. The fact that he is willing to do anything for Daisy shows that he always
thinks about her. All the actions that he did, he did for Daisy’s sake, even though
he has to sacrifice his own life.
Gatsby’s obsession towards Daisy also makes him continue to live in the
moment when they fell in love with each other. He wants to get Daisy back in his
life, which makes him become an unrealistic person. His being unrealistic can be
seen when he wants to repeat his past moments with Daisy and he hopes that
everything can return to the way it was five years earlier when they met in
Louisville. Gatsby also hopes that Daisy will go back to him in spite of the fact
she has married Tom Buchanan. All the indications show that Gatsby is being
unrealistic because he cannot accept his present life without Daisy.
From the discussion above, it is shown that Gatsby’s ambition and hardworking attitude make him become a successful person with a high level of
wealth. But, because of his obsession toward Daisy, he is not able to enjoy his
wealth in the present life. He spends so much money only to feel closer with her
and meet her again. His obsession toward Daisy also makes him to be an
unrealistic person because he tries to regain his relationship with her like it was
five years earlier when they met for the first time. In the end, Gatsby’s obsession
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with love for Daisy makes him behave in an unrealistic way which ruins the result
of his ambition and hard-work. He sacrifices his own life: in the end he loses his
wealth, his love and everything he has by his death. Thus, the theme of the story is
“Obsession about the past love may cause unrealistic behavior that ruins one’s
present success and effort.”
From the portrayal of Jay Gatsby, I find that Gatsby’s ambition and his
hard-working attitude make him successful to gain wealth. He shows great efforts
to get his wealth. However, on the other hand, his obsession towards Daisy makes
him lose everything that he has achieved in his life. He does not realize that his
obsession of love with her brings many problems to his present life. He does not
hesitate to spend a great deal of money even to feel closer with her and meet her.
Even when she accidentally kills a person, he is willing to sacrifice his own life by
taking the blame for it. As the consequence, he loses everything due to his death;
thus, all his efforts during his lifetime become useless. Furthermore, his
unrealistic behavior in his relationship with Daisy also makes him continue to live
in those past moment because he cannot accept his present life without her. Thus,
from the portrayal of the protagonist, I conclude that no matter how deep one’s
love is to someone, one should not make it an obsessive love. One also has to live
in the present moment because no matter how great one’s efforts and how wealthy
one is, it is still impossible to repeat the past.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary Text
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. England: Penguin Popular Classics, 1994.
Print.
References
“Ambitious.” Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 8th ed. 2010. Print.
“F. Scott Fitzgerald. Biography Profile.” Bio True Story. A&E Television
Networks, LLC, 2014. Web. 24 Apr. 2014.
“F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Jazz Age.” Shmoop We Speak Student. Shmoop
University, Inc. 2014. Web. 22 Feb. 2014.
“Hard Working.” Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 8th ed. 2010. Print.
Mangun, Bryant. “F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940).” Encyclopedia of the Novel.
ed. Paul Schellinger, London and Chicago: Fitzroy-Dearborn, 1998, pp.
416-417. Web. 22 Feb. 2014.
“Obsessive.” Cambridge Dictionaries Online. 2014. Web. 09 Apr. 2014.
Perrine, Laurence. Story and Structure. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,
Inc. 4th ed. 1974. Print.
“Protagonist.” Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 8th ed. 2010. Print.
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Topham, James. “The Great Gatsby Review.” Classic Literature. About.com.
2014. Web. 05 Mar. 2014.
“Unrealistic.” Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 8th ed. 2010. Print.
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Dalam tugas akhir ini saya akan menganalisis tema melalui penggambaran
tokoh utama dari novel The Great Gatsby karya F. Scott Fitzgerald. Novel ini
menggambarkan bagaimana obsesi cinta dari seorang pria terhadap wanita yang
berakhir pada kehancuran hidup pria tersebut.
Dalam novel The Great Gatsby sang tokoh utama, Jay Gatsby, seorang
milyader yang telah jatuh cinta pada seorang wanita bernama Daisy selama
bertahun-tahun. Walaupun Daisy telah menikah dengan Tom Buchanan, Gatsby
selalu memikirkan wanita tersebut dan berharap bisa memilikinya kembali. Hal
yang menarik dari novel ini adalah walaupun Gatsby telah memiliki banyak
kekayaan, tetapi diakhir hidupnya dia kehilangan segalanya.
Jay Gatsby digambarkan sebagai seorang yang ambisius, pekerja keras,
obsesif, dan tidak realistis. Dari karakteristik di atas, tema yang bisa didapat
adalah bahwa obsesi terhadap cinta masa lalu bisa menyebabkan sifat
ketidakrealistisan yang bisa menghancurkan kesuksesan dan hasil usaha yang
didapat saat ini. Dengan membahas tema dari novel ini dapat ditarik kesimpulan
bahwa tidak peduli seberapa dalam cinta seseorang, ia seharusnya tidak
menjadikannya sebagai cinta yang obsesif. Seseorang juga harus tetap bisa
menjalani kehidupannya saat ini. Tidak peduli seberapa hebat usaha seseorang dan
seberapa kaya orang tersebut, masa lalu tetap tidak bisa diulang kembali.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS .......................................................................
iii
ABSTRACT ............................................................................................
iii
ii
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study ..............................................................
Statement of the Problem .............................................................
Purpose of the Study ....................................................................
Method of Research ....................................................................
Organization of the Thesis ...........................................................
11
33
33
33
43
CHAPTER TWO: ANALYSIS OF THEME THROUGH
THE PORTRAYAL OF THE PROTAGONIST
IN F. SCOTT FITZGERALD’S THE GREAT GATSBY ..........
54
CHAPTER THREE: CONCLUSION .....................................................
22
BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................
27
26
APPENDICES
Synopsis of The Great Gatsby ........................................................
Biography of Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald .....................................
29
28
30
29
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APPENDICES
Summary of The Great Gatsby
Jay Gatsby, a wealthy young man who lives in the West Egg district of
Long Island, is deeply in love with a beautiful woman called Daisy.
Unfortunately, she is already married to Tom Buchanan. In order to get her back,
Gatsby holds glamorous parties to impress her. He also asks Nick Carraway, his
new neighbor, who is also Daisy’s cousin, to arrange a meeting with her. Gatsby
wants to reestablish their relationship and makes their love blossom again.
After a short time, Tom suspects his wife’s relationship with Gatsby. Tom is
deeply outraged although he himself is involved in an affair with Myrtle Wilson.
He does not want his wife, Daisy, to have a relationship with Gatsby anymore. He
tells her that Gatsby’s wealth comes from bootlegging and other illegal
businesses. She has already known this fact but does not really care about it.
One day, Nick and Gatsby are invited to Tom’s house and Daisy has an idea
to go to town with them. She also invites Jordan Baker, her best friend. Daisy and
Gatsby are in the same car while Tom, Nick and Jordan are in another car. When
Nick, Jordan and Tom drive through the valley of ashes, however, they discover
that Gatsby’s car has struck and killed Myrtle. Actually, Daisy is the driver at that
time, but Gatsby intends to take the blame for her crime.
28
The next day, Tom tells Myrtle’s husband, George Wilson, that Gatsby is
the murderer of Wilson’s wife. Considering that the news from Tom is true, he
thinks that Gatsby is his wife’s lover. Wilson immediately goes to Gatsby’s
mansion, finding him in the pool, and then Wilson shoots him. After that, Wilson
shoots himself. When Gatsby is buried, no one comes to his funeral, except Nick
Carraway and Gatsby’s real father, Mr. Gatz.
Biography of Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, on September
24, 1896. The name of his father was Edward Fitzgerald. His mother, Mary
(Mollie) McQuillan, was the daughter of an Irish immigrant. Edward Fitzgerald
failed as a wicker furniture business in St. Paul. Then he became a salesman for
Procter and Gamble in Upstate New York but he was dismissed in 1908. Since
that, Fitzgerald starts to work by selling his writing to the school newspaper.
When F. Scott Fitzgerald was thirteen, he attended the St. Paul Academy
and he wrote a detective story in the school newspaper. Then he attended
Newman School from 1911 to 1913. Later, he went to Princeton University
(1917) but he neglected his studies in literary apprenticeship because of his bad
health. He wrote scripts and lyrics for Princeton Triangle Club musicals; in
addition, he was a contributor to the Princeton Tiger humor magazine and Nassau
Literary Magazine.
In the fall-winter of 1919, Fitzgerald became a Post writer of The Saturday
Evening Post story market. During this time he also wrote his first novel, This
Side of Paradise, which was published on March 26, 1920. Then he wrote other
29
novels, including The Beautiful and Damned (1922), The Great Gatsby (his
greatest novel in 1925), Tender is the Night (1934), and The Love of the Last
Tycoon (1939). Besides writing novels, he wrote many short stories which were
divided into collections. Some of them were Flappers and Philosophers (1920),
Tales of the Jazz Age (1922), and All the Sad Young Men (1926). He had also
written a play, The Vegetable (1923).
Fitzgerald married Zelda Sayre in 1920, the youngest daughter of an
Alabama Supreme Court Judge and his only child, Frances Scott (Scottie)
Fitzgerald was born in October 1921. He died of a heart attack on December 21,
1940 in Hollywood, California. He rests in Rockville Union Cemetery in
Rockville, Maryland, with his wife Zelda by his side.
Source: “F.Scott Fitzgerald. Biography Profile”
30
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born on September 24, 1896 in St. Paul,
Minnesota. He is known primarily as a historian of the Jazz Age, and a short-story
writer who wrote more than 150 short stories; many of the stories are about love
between young people, written for the Saturday Evening Post, the mouthpiece of
Middle America in the 1920s and 1930s (Mangun). Furthermore, Fitzgerald is
also a novelist; most of his works were based on his life experience because he
seems to have a brilliant understanding of lives that are corrupted by greed and
that are incredibly sad and unfulfilled (Topham). He wrote five novels. This Side
of Paradise (1920) is his first novel, and the last one is The Love of the Last
Tycoon (1939). He is also the playwright of The Vegetable (1923). During his lifetime, none of Fitzgerald’s works received anything more than modest commercial
or critical success during his lifetime. However, since his death on December 21st,
1940 his works become more famous and he is regarded as one of the most
1
Maranatha Christian University
interesting, capable and insightful writers of the 20th century. Moreover he is also
regarded as one of the truly great Americans storytellers
(“F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Biography Profile”).
In this thesis, I choose to analyze Fitzgerald’s most famous novel, The
Great Gatsby, which was published in 1925. The novel takes place in the West
Egg district of Long Island, New York, in the 1920s. It tells a story of an
enigmatic and lonely millionaire named Jay Gatsby. He has been in love with the
same woman, named Daisy, for years, and tries to win her back. He works hard to
gain wealth to attract her attention, despite the fact that she has married another
man, named Tom Buchanan. Interestingly, although Gatsby manages to gain
much wealth, at the end of the story he gets nothing in his life. This novel is
narrated by Nick Carraway, who is Gatsby’s neighbor as well as the cousin of
Daisy Buchanan. The Great Gatsby is the perfect example of an American novel
in the social history of the Jazz Age; this novel has become required reading for
every American high school student (“F. Scott Fitzgerald. Biography Profile”).
As the portrayal of Gatsby has a close relationship with the theme of the
story, I am going to analyze the theme of the novel through the portrayal of the
protagonist. “The theme of a piece of fiction is its controlling idea or its central
insight” (Perrine 102). A protagonist is “the main character in a play, film/movie
or book (“Protagonist”). By analyzing the portrayal from the theme, I hope that
readers can know the story of The Great Gatsby more clearly. Then the readers
will be able to learn from the life of the protagonist, Jay Gatsby. The readers can
also learn from the event of the death of the protagonist.
2
Maranatha Christian University
Statement of the Problems
The problems I am going to discuss are:
1. What is the theme of the novel The Great Gatsby?
2. How does the portrayal of the protagonist help in revealing the theme?
Purpose of the Study
The purposes of the study are:
1. To reveal what the theme of the novel The Great Gatsby is.
2. To show how the portrayal of the protagonist helps in revealing the theme.
Method of Research
In writing the thesis, I use library research. I began the study by reading
the primary text, which is The Great Gatsby. Then I read several reference books
and articles in the Internet which are relevant to the topic to support my analysis. I
also read several books in the library to get some theories to complete the
analysis. Finally, I draw conclusion from the research I have done.
Organization of the Thesis
This thesis consists of three chapters, preceded by the Acknowledgements,
the Table of Contents, and the Abstract. Chapter One is the Introduction, which
consists of the Background of the Study, the Statement of the Problem, the
Purpose of the Study, the Method of Research, and the Organization of the Thesis.
Chapter Two is the Analysis of Theme through the Portrayal of the Protagonist of
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Chapter Three is the Conclusion, followed
by the Bibliography and the Appendices, which consist of the Summary of The
Great Gatsby, and the Biography of Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald.
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CHAPTER THREE
CONCLUSION
After analyzing the theme through the portrayal of the protagonist in F.
Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, I would like to draw some conclusions in
this chapter. Jay Gatsby, the protagonist of the novel, comes from a lower income
family background in North Dakota. Because of his poor condition, Gatsby has to
work at a young age to support his daily needs. This situation makes Gatsby
dream about his future. He starts to have an ambition to become a wealthy person
and tries to reach his dream. Unfortunately, because of his love toward a rich
woman, he gets nothing at the end of his life.
Firstly, Jay Gatsby is portrayed as an ambitious person. His being
ambitious can be seen when he tries to do anything to be a wealthy and successful
man. Gatsby tries to present himself with a new image as a wealthy and successful
man by changing his name from James Gatz to Jay Gatsby. When Gatsby works
for Dan Cody, a millionaire who owns yachts along the Lake Superior’s shore,
Cody states that Gatsby is extravagantly ambitious. Later, Gatsby’s father, James
Gatz, tells Nick, Gatsby’s neighbor, how ambitious his son was since Gatsby was
22
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a boy. All the indications above show that Gatsby is being ambitious to become a
successful, rich and powerful person.
Gatsby is also portrayed as a hard-working person. His ambition drives
him to work hard to gain wealth. His being a hard-working person can be seen
when he tries to do many jobs to earn money so that he can become a wealthy
person. Gatsby has worked as a clam-digger and a salmon fisher in the Lake
Superior for over a year to get food and bed. Then Gatsby works for Dan Cody as
his steward, mate, skipper, secretary, and even jailor for five years. Later, he starts
to manage his drug and oil businesses. All the indications of his being hardworking show that Gatsby makes great effort in his jobs and has already been
doing them well, so he becomes a successful person who has gained great wealth.
After Gatsby becomes a wealthy person, he focuses his attention on
reuniting with Daisy Buchanan. In spite of the fact that now Daisy is already
married to Tom Buchanan, Gatsby still loves her and is obssessed with her. Thus,
Gatsby is portrayed as an obsessive person. Actually, his obsession towards Daisy
is one of the reasons why he becomes ambitious and hard-working. At first, his
motivation to become rich is because he wants to change his financially poor
condition. However when he met Daisy and found out that she actually comes
from a rich family, he becomes more motivated to be successful and rich so that
he can be financially equal with her.
His being obsessive can be seen when he tries many ways to win her back
to his side. One day, Gatsby tells Nick how deep his feelings are for Daisy, that
nothing is more important than getting Daisy’s love. Then Gatsby intentionally
bought a great mansion which is located across the bay from Daisy’s house so that
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he can feel closer with her. Moreover, he spends a lot of money for holding
glamorous parties and invites a lot people to the parties, only for the sake of
meeting Daisy. He also starts to ask people questions in order to get information
about Daisy. Furthermore, Gatsby is willing to sacrifice his own life by taking the
blame for Daisy’s accidentally killing Mrs. Wilson. In the end, the consequence of
his action causes his death by murder, and he therefore loses both his wealth and
love. The fact that he is willing to do anything for Daisy shows that he always
thinks about her. All the actions that he did, he did for Daisy’s sake, even though
he has to sacrifice his own life.
Gatsby’s obsession towards Daisy also makes him continue to live in the
moment when they fell in love with each other. He wants to get Daisy back in his
life, which makes him become an unrealistic person. His being unrealistic can be
seen when he wants to repeat his past moments with Daisy and he hopes that
everything can return to the way it was five years earlier when they met in
Louisville. Gatsby also hopes that Daisy will go back to him in spite of the fact
she has married Tom Buchanan. All the indications show that Gatsby is being
unrealistic because he cannot accept his present life without Daisy.
From the discussion above, it is shown that Gatsby’s ambition and hardworking attitude make him become a successful person with a high level of
wealth. But, because of his obsession toward Daisy, he is not able to enjoy his
wealth in the present life. He spends so much money only to feel closer with her
and meet her again. His obsession toward Daisy also makes him to be an
unrealistic person because he tries to regain his relationship with her like it was
five years earlier when they met for the first time. In the end, Gatsby’s obsession
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with love for Daisy makes him behave in an unrealistic way which ruins the result
of his ambition and hard-work. He sacrifices his own life: in the end he loses his
wealth, his love and everything he has by his death. Thus, the theme of the story is
“Obsession about the past love may cause unrealistic behavior that ruins one’s
present success and effort.”
From the portrayal of Jay Gatsby, I find that Gatsby’s ambition and his
hard-working attitude make him successful to gain wealth. He shows great efforts
to get his wealth. However, on the other hand, his obsession towards Daisy makes
him lose everything that he has achieved in his life. He does not realize that his
obsession of love with her brings many problems to his present life. He does not
hesitate to spend a great deal of money even to feel closer with her and meet her.
Even when she accidentally kills a person, he is willing to sacrifice his own life by
taking the blame for it. As the consequence, he loses everything due to his death;
thus, all his efforts during his lifetime become useless. Furthermore, his
unrealistic behavior in his relationship with Daisy also makes him continue to live
in those past moment because he cannot accept his present life without her. Thus,
from the portrayal of the protagonist, I conclude that no matter how deep one’s
love is to someone, one should not make it an obsessive love. One also has to live
in the present moment because no matter how great one’s efforts and how wealthy
one is, it is still impossible to repeat the past.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary Text
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. England: Penguin Popular Classics, 1994.
Print.
References
“Ambitious.” Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 8th ed. 2010. Print.
“F. Scott Fitzgerald. Biography Profile.” Bio True Story. A&E Television
Networks, LLC, 2014. Web. 24 Apr. 2014.
“F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Jazz Age.” Shmoop We Speak Student. Shmoop
University, Inc. 2014. Web. 22 Feb. 2014.
“Hard Working.” Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 8th ed. 2010. Print.
Mangun, Bryant. “F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940).” Encyclopedia of the Novel.
ed. Paul Schellinger, London and Chicago: Fitzroy-Dearborn, 1998, pp.
416-417. Web. 22 Feb. 2014.
“Obsessive.” Cambridge Dictionaries Online. 2014. Web. 09 Apr. 2014.
Perrine, Laurence. Story and Structure. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,
Inc. 4th ed. 1974. Print.
“Protagonist.” Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 8th ed. 2010. Print.
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Topham, James. “The Great Gatsby Review.” Classic Literature. About.com.
2014. Web. 05 Mar. 2014.
“Unrealistic.” Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 8th ed. 2010. Print.
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