Summary of "Fable of the East and West"

Robert Ornstein points out that F. Scott Fitzgerald's Fable of the East and West is "little concerned with twentieth century materialism and moral anarchy" (54) as much as it does romance. Those who are already monetarily secure, no longer focus on their personal ambitions but instead give up and feel their life is a complete oasis. Ornstein makes the connection that Gatsby is the descendant of Dutch sailors and the rest of the characters are also searching for a port of their lives that have vanished.

We agree with Ornstein's approach that the ideology of the frontier is not centralized on materialism and morality but rather on romance and personal ambition. Gatsby is on a romantic quest not one of either of the latter. On the way, we think, he takes sup-paths down both the morality and materialism ways, but Gatsby is not concerned with either of these as much as he is with his romantic fantasies. Along with sub-path into materialism, we think that people who are as secured as the Buchannans and Gatsby are, they are not as concerned as the others, Wilsons.

Shannen Olan
Liam Regan
Susie Klein