Essay on Gatsby? Here's a quick rundown of relevant criticism.

A brief list on the stances main critics took on Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gastby'. A great starter point to begin your own research...

Harold Bloom

• Carraway Frequently gets in the way of the story’s progress (unreliable narrator), “his consciousness dominates the novel”
• Carraway has his own dream of Gatsby the romantic hero - verging on the homoerotic.

Jonathan Fortescue

·        In the valley of ashes, Dr T. J Eckleberg’s eyes “embody an attitude of eyes-wide-open realism and modern disenchantment”

·        In chapter three with the car crash “Fitzgerald ties the recklessness of the rich to the mishandling of automobiles, foreshadow[ing] events to come.”

Joan M. Allen

• Gatsby as a Christ figure – particularly becomes apparent at the time of his death…
• “Refusing help, Gatsby carries to his pool a pneumatic mattress which will bear the burden of his dead body. He is killed about three in the afternoon, the hour of Christ's death.  Like Christ, Gatsby is left among strangers during a three-day vigil and on ‘the third day’ his true identity is resurrected with the telegram of Henry C. Gatz of Minnesota.”

Judith Fetterly

• Men compete for Daisy, Gatsby’s desire for her is enhanced by the fact that other people want her “it excited him too, that many men had already loved Daisy – it increased her value in his eyes”

Maxwell E. Perkins

• The vagueness of the character of Gatsby, “the reader’s eyes can never quite focus upon him, his outlines are dim”
• His physical features are not described in as much detail as, say, Tom or Daisy.

H. L. Mencken

• “Only Gatsby himself genuinely lives and breathes” the rest of the characters are “mere marionettes” lifelike, but not quite alive.
• The story has “a fine texture, a careful and brilliant finish. The sentences move along smoothly, sparklingly, variously”.
• Fitzgerald is more interested in the people with too much money and too much time to spend it, with their “idiotic pursuit of sensation”.