A finely crafted chronicle of fantasy and obsession, dazzling success and hidden failure, The Great Gatsby unfolds around the ultimately unbearable tension between a romantic ideal of the self and a less than ideal world. In his introductory essay Harold Bloom comments that this book "has become part of what must be called the American mythology, just as Fitzgerald himself now possesses mythological status." This volume, part of the Modern Critical Interpretations series, gives a complete critical survey of The Great Gatsby. Essays by such respected scholars as Marius Bewley, David Parker, Keath Fraser, and Kenneth Eble consider the novel's structure and narrative stance, its implicit redefinition of the hero, and its position in both the English and American romantic traditions. Also included are psychoanalytic and sociological analyses of the The Great Gatsby's characters, as well as essays which link Fitzgerald to Joseph Conrad and T.S. Eliot. The Great Gatsby is one of over one hundred volumes in the Modern Critical Interpretations Series, edited by Harold Bloom and published by Chelsea House. These volumes represent a comprehensive collection of the best current criticism of the most widely read poems, novels, stories and dramas of the Western world. - Dust jacket.