Choose any topic of interest that we have discussed in class (or not discussed, if you have a new one) in relation to The Great Gatsby and explore it further. Use textual evidence to support your ideas.
One thing that I’ve thought about all throughout reading The Great Gatsby is how closely the movie follows it. I saw the movie when it first came out in theaters, in the summer of 2013, and it was a pretty great experience. The film definitely takes style over substance in a few places, often coming off as grandiloquent, and doesn’t really deliver the exact same message as the book (a part of me doesn’t care, though, simply because Baz Luhrmann did such a great job with it). With that said, the instances that I can recall in which great changes were made that compromised the general story were few and far in between- points serving to illustrate the disillusionment of the young members of high society or things like that in the book would be shrouded by unspecificity in the movie, as words can explicitly describe emotions and other things that imagery just can’t. There were also shortenings of certain scenes to keep pacing tight- one that I distinctly remember is the gossip and small talk that takes place at Tom and Daisy’s house in the first chapter. The reason that Myrtle runs out in the street is also changed in the film. Just by those two examples, you can see how little there is to pick through- it’s a faithful, well-made adaptation of a significant piece of American literature.
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