Saturday, June 21, 2008

After Reading 2

Scott Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby in 1925, and here we are reading
it so many years later. Why? What makes this book a "classic"?

12 comments:

Min Jae said...

As of today, the Great Gatsby is still read throughout the world and it is considered a classic in American history. This book is a classic because as someone reads this, they can relate somehow or know how it feels to be in a situation like the narrator. It is a great novel which shows the true nature of the human being. Such things as loyalty, affairs, commitments, and social differences which happened sometime in the 1920s and it is still seen today.

kristeena said...

Ever since the 1900's novel authors have written about reoccurring themes in history. The Great Gatsby, like many others, expresses contemptuous events and feelings that help provide relations to the story. Some emotions that the Gatsby approaches are love, entertainment, real life marriages, past relationships, and friendships. This novel by Scott Fitzgerald is still being read in modern times becomes of its unique way of presenting events that happen still today.

Unknown said...

I searched some online definitions on the web and I found many people find classics to be printed novels published before 1900. To me, however, a classic is timeless. People from any background and experience can relate to the struggles and themes and emotions in the novel.

Its quality of universality makes The Great Gatsby a classic.

JinA said...

Related to what MinJae and Kristeena said, The Great Gatsby is considered a classic because people can relate from the content. Similar to the novel Don Quijote by Cervantes, people still read these two books because the symbols and critics in them are still shown or reflected today. Besides, The Great Gatsby also demonstrates the life people in US had during the 1900’s. How people were affected after the Great War and the Great Depression. This book lets readers see a real point of view of this society during this period of time because Fitzgerald went through almost everything he wrote on The Great Gatsby.

Young Eui Hong said...

This novel is truly a classic because even though The Great Gatsby was written in 1925, many conflicts that happen in the book are still present today. Only the setting is what could be different from now. This book is read even after 75 years of being published due to its depiction of events being so similar, or exact to the happenings in society today. Sacrifice, revenge for love, and jealousy will always exist in human lives. These factors, being present in The Great Gatsby, will make the book a "classic" ever long.

Janique said...

A classic can be read over and over again revealing something new every time. The Great Gatsby is one of those classics and that is probably why it is still read today although written so long ago. The Great Gatsby is able to keep one's mind thinking, guessing, and discovering. There are so many messages about different aspects relating to not only the people during the time period in which it was written, but to the reader's today. Like stated by some of my classmates, The Great Gastby is able to connect with its readers in an understanding way, making it easy, for the readers, to enjoy and want to read again and again.

Unknown said...

What makes this book a “classic” is it’s valuable and excellent portrayal of a theme. The Great Gatsby seems superficially a story about a man in search for love and success, but it actually portrays the era during the 1920’s where everything was related to materialism and wealth. It was a time when there was corruption among the aristocrats. This book is a “classic” because its theme can also be applied to us even now. It depicts a perfect story of a society declining because of moral corruption. This book allows one to connect not only to the theme but also with the characters making it a contemporary classic.

dani.k said...

It’s a classic because after reading it, different people retreat different things from it, and of course, it is the quintessence of a timeless read. See, The Great Gatsby is the epitome of social life in our western world. We can believe ourselves above everything the story depicts, but even now, 85 years later, we live in similar circumstances as the characters did in 1925, especially here in Guatemala. Topics that are rendered by the book are very close to our hearts and existence. Fitzgerald wrote the story in such a way that basically anyone could identify and relate with it, and at the same time, he makes it all seems silly and childish (and of course, it is, but it doesn’t stop being the reality we chose).

dani.k said...

We’re reading it today because even though it’s been 85 years, a huge part of humanity hasn’t matured; we still play the same inane games and we still live by the same standards and the same belief systems. We keep reading it for the same reason some people are so engrossed with soap operas and high school drama – its entertaining as can be, and we all know, this type of stuff is addicting, and as repetitive as it is, it never seems to grow old. The Great Gatsby can play a big role in opening our eyes and giving us an insight to the frivolous lives we fall into. It warns us of the dangers of society, non-the-less, it’s the perfect mix between history, entertainment, human nature, and ethics.

Maria S. said...

At first I did not understand why we were reading a book about a man who had spent many years looking for his long lost love. I know you can always find something valuable in a book but the message I retrieved from The Great Gatsby wasn’t the one I thought. People still read this book today because it shows human nature. It gives us a story about a few people who made a mess out of their emotions. In the end there is a lonely dead man and many blind eyes. Humans did it then and still do it now. They act before thinking, they get selfish and aren’t happy with what they have, they forget the life is full of changes. Thanks to Daisy and Tom’s lack of satisfaction with each other Tom starts having an affair with Myrtl and Daisy with Gatsby. It all turns into a mess yet in the end Tom and Daisy get away, completely ignore what has happened and continue living the lives they had lived. Gatsby’s death is practically their fault but they are so selfish they don't want it to alter their comfortable lives. We continue reading this book today because we still continue seeing this shameful selfishness in many people.

Norberto said...

This book is still a classic because we not only learn some of the things people did back in the 1920’s, but we can also learn about how people acted and what stimulated them to do things. This book is really good because it includes a lot of the human nature. There is a lot of emotion, secrets, mystery, fear, confusion, and in my opinion all these things are still caused by very similar situations: money, revenge, fear, status. We learn from the roots of what we are today, we can understand why we act how we act and why we do what we do. Most of the values we have today are branches of what happened in the earlier generations. We can speculate how the human nature hasn’t matured yet and how dreadful that can be because we still don’t learn from the mistakes of our ancestors.

Unknown said...

First of all, The Great Gatsby can be considered a classic for many different reasons. If I had to choose a reason for why I would read this book is because of how Fitzgerald, even almost a century ago, wrote about issues we still face today. The corruption and arrogance of the wealthy is still present in contemporary society; the divorce rate is higher than ever, a lot of it due to affairs. All the small stories and details in the book are manifested in such a way that we can easily relate to, and future people will be able to relate to them just as well as long as these issues continue.