So Fitzgerald uses the dichotomy of Illusion / Reality throughout the entire novel. A very effective way to understand and interpret literature is to locate the different dichotomies, and try to understand why the author is using them. Literature is filled with dichotomies, and authors use them to create meaning: light / dark good / evil war/ peace male / female life / death. Illusion / Reality is known as a “dichotomy,” which means two terms that are opposite to each other, but which create an interpretive tension. He wonders, what if a young, inexperienced man from the Midwest amassed a great amount of wealth, and moved to metropolitan and cosmopolitan New York to impress and win over the aristocratic boyhood girl of his dreams? We will discuss in the next class the issue of literary Naturalism, the sort of fictional laboratory experiements of human behavior certain authors practiced. One of the “exercises” Fitzgerald engages is the “what if” method of writing popular amongst Naturalist writers of the time. In fact, if you were interested in interpreting and writing something concerning money / materialism in The Great Gatsby, you could look at something in your own life and / or the world around you in which money has some influence or effect, and place it in the context of the novel.
As for the theme of money, one could specify many variations: Money creates the illusion of happiness money corrupts moral behavior money has a diffuse influence on everything in life, etc. Money: The effects of money on human behavior is a major issue in the novel. The type of stock ticker Nick would have used to keep track of stocks in 1922.
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