The Great Gatsby Research Paper

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What are the similarities and differences between the narrator in ‘Fight Club’ and ‘The Great Gatsby’ in their relationship with their hero? Can we justify them as apostolic narrators? As stated, “What I was writing… was ‘apostolic’ fiction,. Palahniuk captures the essence of the second part of the question in his afterword, succinctly wrapping up the relationship between Tyler and the Narrator as one of adoration and following. Unashamedly, he owns up that ‘Fight Club’ is just ‘The Great Gatsby’, “updated a little”. Although both novels have seemingly more differences than similarities, upon closer inspection the reality is vastly different. Throughout ‘The Great Gatsby’, Nick’s adoration for Gatsby is evident. The fact that Nick believed Gatsby’s smile had a “quality of eternal reassurance in it” manifests his opinion on Gatsby and how he portrayed him as a source of comfort and hope, hope which ended with his death. Albeit, the Narrator incipiently describes Tyler as “naked and sweating, gritty with sand, his hair wet and stringy, hanging in his face”. This is competently different to Nick’s initial impression of Gatsby. Nick is…show more content…
‘The Great Gatsby’ is a novel about being American and the failed ‘American dream’, and throughout the novel there is a sense of febrile superficiality as well as a society which is nurturing sycophantic behaviour. America in this era had a laissez faire economy, with a consumerist society powered by greed for which money, wealth and social status were central. Nick, however, is is exempt from this. Despite being rich, which he must have been to be living in the ‘nouveau riche’ society of West Egg, he lives in a small, humble home which he admits ‘was an eyesore, but it was a small eyesore’ neighbouring Gatsby’s great mansion for which he only paid ‘eighty dollars a

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