What techniques are used by the author in disclosing Gatsby's background?

Authors Avatar
The Great Gatsby

7. What techniques are used by the author in disclosing Gatsby's background?

To really understand Gatsby we have to look at how the author gives him two life, one which he was born with and one which he creates for himself. we as readers knows that Gatsby was born poor, but to get what he wants (Daisy) he start to get

involved with illegal money. Fitzgerald are using the other character in his book to describe Gatsby and his background. The

first Gatsby party Nice Carraway attend is where we can get picture of how people actually sees Jay Gatsby. He is a very

mysterious man to them and everyone has their speculations as to how he obtained his money. Some say he was a bootlegger,

some say a spy during the war, and others think that he has the look of someone who's killed a man. Everyone's gossip about

Gatsby shows that no one at the party has any real understanding of who he is. I believe that Fitzgerald chooses to have Gatsby

as this mysterious man because it makes him more interesting, everybody has their own version of how he is and everybody wants to know the "real" version.

He never tells us how he really grew up, the only information we get is that he was brought up poor and that he made new friend and got into the illegal business (bootlegger etc). Instead Fitzgerald uses Nick and Gatsby's other guests to describe him and his background, although there isn't so much information that can tell us about it. In the third chapter many of the guests tells Nick what they think and assume Gatsby's background is, they are not totally wrong. We know that Gatsby is not this nice man which is every girls dream, he is in illegal business and he is not ashamed of it, he did what he could to achieve the status which he is in. Some moment you feel sorry for him because you start to think that he did everything because of love, but then you can also argue about why he didn't choose a decent job?!
Join now!


In the last chapter Gatsby's father turns up to his funeral, Nick and Gatsby's father talks about how Jay was in his childhood, and this is the first time we really get right information about Gatsby's childhood. Gatz shows Nick a schedule that Gatsby wrote out when he was younger that shows a very driven, determined young Gatsby. The first time we actually get to know how Gatsby was when he was a child, which even shows now in his adult life.

To summarize everything F.Scott Fitzgerald is using other characters to describe Gatsby's so called ...

This is a preview of the whole essay