Introduction to The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald is stated to be one of the greatest American novelists of all time, one of his novels ‘The Great Gatsby’ written in 1925 is particularly commended. The plot focuses on a young man named Nick Carraway who moves to Long Island in 1922 to learn the Bond business and becomes re-acquainted with his distant cousin Daisy Buchanan. In rekindling his friendship with Daisy and her wealthy husband Tom, Nick finds himself involved in the lavish lifestyle of his elusive wealthy neighbour – Jay Gatsby. Nick discovers Tom’s infidelity and when it is revealed to him that Gatsby and Daisy are in love and have been for years, he helps to bring them together despite Daisy’s marriage to Tom and Gatsby’s illegal activities. Tragedy soon unfolds when Daisy learns of Gatsby’s true upbringing as a farmer’s son and low social status and his deception leaves her heartbroken and disgusted, resulting in the death of her husband’s mistress and subsequently a misunderstanding that leads to Gatsby’s murder.
For my analysis I will be focusing on three remakes of Fitzgerald’s novel, the 1974 version The Great Gatsby directed by Jack Clayton, the 2002 hip-hop adaptation G directed by Christopher Scott Cherot and the 2013 version The Great Gatsby directed by Baz Luhrrman. Luhrrman and Clayton’s versions follow Fitzgerald’s original story almost exactly, however Cherot’s hip hop adaptation focuses on a slightly altered version. In each of these remakes I aim to look at the ways that the historical context in which they have been made has affected their content. In particular I will be analysing the way gender, sexuality and the representation of minorities within these remakes have changed in accordance to each of their historical contexts. The representation of minorities will include analyses of things such as race and class, for example the roles played by ethnic minorities and the difference between classes. When approaching the issue of gender representation in this essay I will focus on the roles of women in the narrative, the amount of screen time given to both genders, binary opposition between the two as well as the concepts of masculinity and femininity. With sexuality the main thing I will be analysing is the extent to which sexuality is shown in each film and how it is shown in relation to the different genders.