Gatsby Power and Conflict

Context

Narration and Presentation

Power in socio-economic hierachy and their embodiment and personification.

Power in gender and lack of equality.

Aspirations of F. Scott Fitzgerald and platonic conception, wealth.

Corrupt American Dream.

Quotes

Form - Nick is limited Omniscient narrator, he is old money and thus believes he knows everything, money is knowledge is power.

Quotes

Favor of characters, Gatsby is favored over Tom, distorted presentation, Old vs New money, justification.

' "Her voice is full of money," he said suddenly.

That was it. I'd never understood before. It was full of money – that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals' song of it… high in a white palace the king's daughter, the golden girl'

“He smiled understandingly-much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced--or seemed to face--the whole eternal world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey.”

“There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired.”

"I'm inclined to reserve all judgements, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores."

"Self-control!" Repeated Tom incredulously. "I suppose the latest thing is to sit back and let Mr. Nobody from Nowhere make love to your wife. Well, if that's the idea you can count me out […] Nowadays people begin by sneering at family life and family institutions, and next they'll throw everything overboard and have intermarriage between black and white."

I couldn't forgive him or like him, but I saw that what he had done was, to him, entirely justified. It was all very careless and confused. They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together and let other people clean up the mess they had made

What is Power

How the Book was Received

The Great Gatsby

Definition of power - Power is the ability to make others do what you would have them do.

Failure at publishing.

Fitzgerald went unheard of most of his life and became depressed by this.

Shortly after his death, his novels become classics.

Types of Power:

• Physical Force
• Wealth
• State action
• Social norms
• Ideas
• Numbers (support)

Conflict

Power

Presiding ways Power is presented in Gatsby

• Tom is macho
• Material wealth of Gatsby and Tom
• Gatsby links to police, Daisy doesn't get blame for murder of Myrtle
• White supremacy, supremacy of wealth
• Gatsby exploits prohibition to make money
• Gatsby holds parties

How it is presented throughout

Comparison to A Room with a View

Film Presentation of Power

Beginning - Toms wealth presented, scrutiny of lower class and East and West Egg

Middle - Introduction to Gatsby, conflict between introducing characters, Myrtle and characters significance

End - Gatsby's power collapses, Old wealth sustains, Daisy chooses Tom

Power in The Great Gatsby -

Power is in the form of wealth and ability have others do what you want them to through individual wealth.

Power in A Room With A View -

Power is in tthe form of social norms, numbers and ideas however the manipulation of wealth in also present.

The film presents very similar aspects of power, except the minor differences in the value of different forms of power, money for example not being as valuable a form of power as it is alluded and presnented as in the novel.

Power And Conflict

THANK YOU!

By Ben Harrison and Peanut Head