even elevated aspect of the society in which he lives. Gatsby does not see the falseness of this social milieu and aspires to be part of it, and at the same time he is alienated from that society. The character of Gatsby is somewhat enigmatic, especially as perceived by other characters in the novel, and he is illuminated by his interactions with other characters who represent different aspects of the society to which he aspires. He is also symbolic in many of his actions. He has a huge library, but Nick finds that none of the books have been opened. Gatsby believes he can acquire certain characteristics and social qualities by owning their outward manifestation--the books, his house, his clothes. In truth, though, he cannot acquire social graces by buying them. Gatsby is central to the novel that bears his name, and yet his consciousness is not the one through which the story is told. The story is told through the eyes of Nick Carraway, and how Carraway relates to Gatsby is especially important for what it conveys to the reader and for what it says about Gatsby as a person. Gatsby represents elements of American life in the period between the two World Wars, and the contrasts between him and other characters bring out different aspects of the time period and of American life.
F. Scott Fitzgerald is considered one of the most important American writers of the 1920s and is usually considered in tandem with Ernest Hemingway:
Through both men's novels written during the decade [the 1920s] ran a thread of rejection of dominant American values. Their books were peopled by characters who were lost and despairing, who found no meaning in life beyond animal pleasures, who rejected the world as it was but had no solution and no theory about what had gone wrong. They reflected the feeling that the war had overturned Western civilization and left the world upside down.
Both men were Americans who escaped to Europe and who we...