Sunday, June 22, 2014

What are some allusions in The Great Gatsby?

One kind of allusion prevalent in The Great
Gatsby
is the allusion to people, places, or events of that era, or
immediately preceding that era.  These allusions give a richness to the novel's setting,
The Roaring Twenties, a decade-long celebration of the end of World War I and also an
era in which organized crime began its stranglehold on
America.


Here are some
examples:


Tom makes reference to a book called
The Rise of the Coloured Nations (17), which is a thinly disguised
allusion to a real book of the era, The Rising Tide of Color
(Stoddard).


There is a reference to Gilda Gray, the star of
the Ziegfield Follies (45), which was a series of Broadway productions of the
era.


Wolfsheim, who is a "friend" and business associate of
Gatsby's (73-75), alludes to his presence the night Herman Rosenthal, a notorious owner
of gambling joints, was gunned down in a gangland
killing.


These sorts of allusions run throughout the entire
book, firmly planting the story in a particular era, but not seeming to limit the
timelessness of its idea.

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