Free Great Gatsby Essays: Genre :: Great Gatsby Essays

The Genre of The Great Gatsby If you want to find out, into which literary corner F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece, the "Great Gatsby", belongs, you’ve got to take a look at two main genres of novel-writing, the so-called "novel of manners" on the one hand and the romance on the other. The novel of manners gives, using most of the time a rather satirical tone, a sharp portrayal of the actual life as it really is and also of the social behaviour and attitudes that are closely related with it. This type of novel concentrates on people of a certain class, time and place are clearly defined. The individual attitudes of those people, their inner desires, get into conflict with the more conventional values, which are defined by the society they live in. The result is, that the protagonist has the problem of combining himself and his desires with the rules (the manners) of society, that he himself as a part of this society helped to establish, involuntarily. Examples for this special kind of novel are creations of authors like Henry Fielding and Jane Austen. On the other hand there is the romance, not aiming at a detailed description of life, but wanting to show it as it is imaginatively seen. The romance concentrates on the inner aspects of human nature, it is not concerned with ordinary events. It is difficult to decide to which literary type the "Great Gatsby" belongs. It is possible to read it as a novel of manners for it presents life and atmosphere of the Roaring Twenties in America, the Jazz Age, marked by prohibition, the organised crime, the new woman as well as the wealthy upper-class and their carelessness in most affairs. Fitzgerald is also using a satirical and comic tone most of the time. But the book could as well be read as a romance. This seems to be even more appropriate for the book is concerned with the portrayal of a man's idealism in all its glory but as well in all its unreality and unworldliness. Gatsby is presented as a mysterious figure, fitting well within the fantasy and magic of his naive dream. He is Prince Charming, the gallant knight, trying to get his Princess in white, it's a perfect example for a sad and tragic fairy-tale. While writing the "Great Gatsby", Fitzgerald got influenced by several other books, such as "The Decline of the West" by Oswald Spengler, published 1918-1922, which is portraying the Western civilisation as being in a state of decay.