The Great Gatsby Literary Criticism

Lionel Trilling- Gatsby 'comes inevitably to stand for America itself' 

Taylor S. Murtaugh- Nick was 'the embodiment of the American identity of the West, able to resist the temptation of material wealth that crept into the understanding of the American dream' (why we should trust him)

William Rose Bennet- 'the queer charm, colour, wonder and drama of a young and reckless world'

Jonathan Yardly- 'Fitzgerald gives us a meditation on some of this country'a most central ideas... the quest for new life, the preoccupation with class, the hunger for riches'

David O'Rourke- 'Nick is considered to be quite reliable, basically honest and ultimately changed by his contact with Gatsby'

Thomas Flanagan- 'Gatsby is somewhat vague. The reader's eyes can never quite focus upon him, his outlines are dim'

Alfred Kazin- Daisy is 'vulgar and unhuman'

Christine Ramos- 'Tom has reduced whole people to ashes without any thought of consequences'

H. L. Menecken- 'only Gatsby himself genuinly lives and breathes. The rest are mere marionettes'

Kathleen Parkinson- 'in all his fiction women characters are decorative characters of seemingly fragile beauty'

Edwin Clark- 'they are dumb in their insensitive selfishness'