F. SCOTT FITZGERALD’S THE GREAT GATSBY AN ANALYSIS OF THE NOVEL AS A TRAGIC ROMANCE
Abstract
This research explores the displacement of romance by tragedy in Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby. Taking its theoretical bearings from the archetypal approach developed by Northrop Frye, supplemented by insights borrowed from Georg Lukacs, Aristotle, Hegel and many other scholars, the research aims to show how the romantic hero lands in a tragic situation because of his belief in ideals that are no longer viable in the consumerist American society of the 1920s. Among other arguments, it also seeks to illustrate how The Great Gatsby plays a thematic and stylistic variation on romance such as Shakespeare’s Midsummer Nights’ Dream and tragedy as elaborated around the House of the Atreus by Greek playwrights like Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus.
Keywords: The Great Gatsby, Displacement, Romance, Tragedy, Shakespeare, Greek Tragedy.
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