Critical Viewpoints on The Great Gatsby (AO5)

MENCKEN:

- 'no more than a glorified anecdote'

- 'Only Gatsby himself genuinely lives and breathes' 

- 'Their idiotic pursuit of sensation' (in relation to the lives of the rich)

THE PINK ELEPHANT, THE GUARDIAN:

- 'a reflection on the hollowness of a life of leisure'

- 'Gatsby wants to create a beautiful future by restoring the past'

- 'Fitzgerald highlights the horrors of being a careless person' 

O'NEILL:

- Fitzgerald explores 'our enormous capacity to dream, to imagine, to hope and to persevere.'

HIRST:

- 'Fitzgerald's desriptions are terse, vivid and surprising' 

CLARK:

- 'the decay of souls is most tragic'

- feminsit critic may be used to view the position of women in the world in which the novel is set. 

- marxist critic can be applied whenever the deep class divide presented by the Valley of Ashes is discussed - injustices to the most vulnerable members of society.