He Knows He Was There :: essays papers

He Knows He Was There Human beings have a tendency to need some sort of tangible or perceivable proof in order to fully understand a concept. Most people will not take what is being told to them as true unless they are shown somehow that it is true. In a work of fiction, the author strives to create a tangible setting for the reader to captivate him in his reading experience. The author uses believable scenes to reveal character traits and various themes by showing how the characters act and react in different situations. This is apparent in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s greatest work, The Great Gatsby. This novel is set during the 1920’s in the New York City area. It revolves around the events and lives of a group of individual. These few people are of higher social rank. Fitzgerald takes the reader into this high society through the eyes of Nick, the narrator. His use of a first hand narrator aids him greatly in revealing the wasteful and greedy moral values of the characters and the soci ety in which they live in his novel, The Great Gatsby. During the 1920’s, wasteful use of money by the elite was rampant. In The Great Gatsby, there is a scene that depicts a sort of social gathering in a New York apartment. Tom and Nick, wealthy residents of the ‘Eggs’, are present. Myrtle and her sister Catherine are also present. Tom is currently having an affair with Myrtle, so she has a connection with the rich culture. Her sister Catherine, on the other hand, does not have any connection with such people. Nick, the narrator of the novel, provides us with a first hand account of the scene: â€Å"The bottle of whisky - a second one - was now in constant demand by all present, excepting Catherine who ‘felt just as good on nothing at all’† (39). This scene, depicted by a narrator who was present, reveals many details about the characters that otherwise could have not been displayed. It shows a group of people being dependent on a substance to have fun. The people participating are mainly the ri ch or individuals with some connection to the rich. To many, alcohol is a symbol of escape. Somebody abuses alcohol in order to run away from reality and to seclude himself from society. It seems silly that such an apparently well off group of individuals would want to escape reality.