Although the authors us fictitious characters and events, novels are often surprisingly accurate portraits of their time. To what extent do you think The Great Gatsby is a novel of this type?
The Great Gatsby, written in the early 1920’s, by F. Scott Fitzgerald portrays the type of high class life the rich were living during this time. Extravagance was the key to everything, parties, drinking, cars, relationships, and life. Everybody seemed to have money. This time was known as “The Roaring 20’s”, or “The Golden 20’s.” We see this type of culture in its extremity in The Great Gatsby. We can also assume that it was this type of life that Fitzgerald himself led. He was born into a fairly well-to-do family. In 1896 he attended, but never graduated from, Princeton University. It was here he mingled with the moneyed classes from the Eastern Seaboard who created an obsession for the rest of his life. In 1917 he was drafted into the army, but he never saw active service abroad. He married the beautiful Zelda Sayre and together they embarked on a rich life of endless parties. Dividing their time between America and fashionable resorts in Europe, the Fitzgerald’s’ became as famous for their lifestyle as for the novels he wrote. “Sometimes I don't know whether Zelda and I are real or whether we are characters in one of my novels”, which he wrote to pay for his extravagant lifestyle.
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Peer Reviews
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Quality of writing
The Quality of Written Communication is good. The candidate has quoted properly using the correct quotation marks (and not, like some candidates sometimes do, inverted commas). The range of punctuation is limited to full-stops, commas, quotation marks and anything else that the quotes bring in, so their is room for improvement in terms of varying the sentence structure with the use of more complex punctuation (colons, semi-colons). It must also be noted that, when writing the name of the text, their is no abbreviation - 'Great Gatsby' is not an acceptable substitute for the title of this book.
Level of analysis
The Level of Analysis is accetpable, though further insight could be given into particular moments like when the candidate talks about the "jealousy" felt between Gatsby and Tom. I would argue that it is not jealousy that these two characters feel, as the other sees the other as a nuisance and an inferior human being (Gatsby despises Tom for being unfaithful to Daisy; Tom despises Gatsby for interfering with what he thinks is a happy marriage). Where the candidate succeeds is there appreciation of the author and how they integrate it into Gatsby's character. This shows that the candidate has a sound understanding of the author, which exmainers love to see as it is evidence of independent, external research. However, the understanding of Gatsby's character as a reflection of Fitzgerald is slightly skewed - Fitzgerald portrays himself in the novel as a combination of Jay Gatsby AND Nick Carraway - a sort of limbo between two extremes of morality; Gatsby's ostentation and flamboyance mixed with Carraway and his "provincial squeamishness". The candidate also succeeds when they comment on how The American Dream features in the novel - their commentary on it is the only section where the analysis of the context is seamlessly aligned with the text. To some extent, the candidate achieves this in their paragraph about the changing appearance of women and the liberation they felt after the end of WWII, but the connection to Fitzgerald's text is once again, limited, relagating just two/three lines towards the end of the paragraph to tie the context to Jordan Baker, when she - and Daisy and Myrtle - can be referred to throughout the essay. Doing this would show a consistent reference the text and an ability to tie every point made to a piece of evidence, rather than relying on a few lines towards the end of a paragraph to try and do the hard work.
Response to question
The Response to the Question here - a very difficult question, admittedly - suggests a candidate who safely operates at a high B grade for GCSE. There is consistent focus on the question, or at least an attempt to, but on occasion the analysis made isn't tied back to the question or how the points the candidate makes ties back to the period the novel is set in. To answer this question, candidates must have an extensive knowledge of The Roaring Twenties, The American Dream and the degradation of traditional, moral and social virtues that had existed a generation before. The candidate does extremely well to appreciate this, though as stated earlier, the links back to the text and how Fitzgerald actually incorporates such thematic realisms into 'The Great Gatsby' are limited, meaning this becomes a very obvious analysis of the time period, with some emphasis on how it was mirrored in Fitzgerald's novel.