The Great Gatsby was written by francis scott Fitzgerald and was published in 1925. The movement and change are really important in the Great Gatsby: first of all let’s define those two words. Movement can be a “process of changing position or going from one point to another”, but it can also mean a “general tendency”. The word “change” can mean “to make, to become different” and it’s also “substitute one thing for another”.
We will see how movement and change are linked in the story throught :- The historical changes in the great gatsby and then with the instability in their world and finally we’ll see how movement and change are linked to time in this book. The Great Gatsby is a witness of the Roaring twenties, it was a period of great changes. The fashion changed as we can see page 46 with the sentence “and hair bobbed in a strange new way”. ut the dresses were also different, at the beginning of the book we have the exemple of myrtle who changed three time her clothes in a day which shows us that clothes are not anymore used to just cover the body but it’s a way for people to show their wealth and their social rank. This renew in fashion is due to the war like a lot of changes during the jazz age. Music is a part of those changes, the jazz music appears and we can say that it’s linked to movement.
First of all because it’s related to new rhythm and to dance, wich is an important part of the great Gatsby because he organizes a lot of parties and we can’t have a party without music and f s Fitzgerald describes a lot the orchestra and the effect the music has on people. But this new kind of music can also be considered as a movement because it’s a general tendency in the history of music. Finally, the most important historical change in the book is not a superficial one, we can see that the mentalities are about to change.
In the story some people can’t get used to it like tom wich represent the old fashion way to think for exemple page 138 he says “and next they’ll throw everything overboard and have intermarriage between black and white. ”. But times are changing and we can see it with this sentence page 75 “ limousine passed us, driven by a white chauffeur in wich sat three modish negroes”, the situation is reversed it’s a big change because this situation would have been impossible in the past decay and it represents the evolution of the mentalities, and the evolution of black people right.
And if there is historical changes during this decay in a way it’s because it’s a normal evolution due to time. Time is a natural movement wich control people lives and make them change. One of the important change in the book is the unrealistic way Gatsby used to imagine Daisy. They had been separated for 5 years and it’s easy for Gatsby to make daisy more attractive in his mind. Actually people change through the action of life but we also think that they change because we create illusions about them from an old memory.
And that’s what happens to Gatsby, he kept the memory of a pure and perfect woman and can’t imagine her in another way. But he is desapointed because daisy had never been the person he created with his mind and even if she had ever been this kind of person, time had inevitably changed her. (we can see it whan gatsby talk about the past at the end of the chapter 6). People changes also because they experienced things that change the way they see the world. Or the changement comes from them because they need it to live or to escape who they are.
For exemple Gtasby changed his name, it wasn’t to forge ahead, but to hide who he was. He pretend to be someone else and we can have the impression that he want to escape and run away from himself and from his past. The flight is an important term in the Great Gatsby, every character seems to run away from something. Tom tries to escape his marriage, so does his wife daisy, Myrtle tries to escape her social position, and Gatsby tries to escape his past and himself. But they all had a common point, in reality they try to escape from their superficial world.
This superficiality and the unstability are also main themes in the story and it’s always related to escape. So we have seen that Gatsby changed his name wich is a superficial change, He lies about his past, trying and pretending to be someone else. he can change his name but he can’t change who he really is. We can see that Gatsby always seems to be calm but again it’s just an appearance. daisy see him like that, for example page 125 she said “you look so cool” twice .
But page 70 nick caraway sais “he was never quite still, there was always a tapping foot somewhere or the impatient opening and closing of a hand. It shows us that behind his impassiveness, Gatsby is an unstable character. He organises big, enourmous and excessive parties described by nick as something going faster and faster, something that pitch like a boat and wich can be a symbol of the world they are living in, and the faintness they feel in it. So Gatsby organises parties to amuse his guests but it’s also a way to escape the real world and put everything out of his mind.
This unstability is also evocated by the cars and the speed, almost every action in the book is linked to the cars or the train because the characters had to move it’s an irresistible need and the tragic end of the book is imposed by the cars and the notion of speed. We can also see that the characters moved a lot, their first movement was the decision to move from west to east, nick caraway was from the Midwest and moved to new york like other persons in the book. But they also travelled the world wich is again linked to the flight.
So there is really a superficial and unstable feeling in the great Gatsby, the characters can’t find a place where they feel at ease. In conclusion, we have seen that the Great Gatsby is a story in wich we can find the notion of change because it’s a new decay with new fashion and social right. But the notion of movement is also strongly present because of the music, the travels, the speed , the notion of time and the unstability of the characters and of their world. We also saw that the characters live in a superficial world so we can now try to think about the question of reality and unreality in this book.
