A Piagetian Reading of "The Great Gatsby". Gatsby's Character and Augmented Reality

Seminar paper from the year 2014 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,7, RWTH Aachen University (Institut für Anglistik, Amerikanistik und Romanistik), language: English, abstract: The paper at hand will focus especially on Piagets second development stage: the preoperational stage, which covers children around the age of three. Subsequently, the character of Jay Gatsby will be analyzed. Does Gatsby act like a three year old boy, and in how far does this affect his reality?

One question, answered in the conclusion is, if it is possible to analyze Gatsby only considering his egocentrism, and is Piaget is the right theorist to use as a base. In how far can Gatsby be reduced to only one of his attributes?

The most important literature that will be used is the novel The Great Gatsby by Fitz-gerald, as well as three publications written by Piaget: Meine Theorie der Geistigen Entwicklung (eng. My Theory of Mental Development), Possibility and Necessity Vol. 1: the Role of Possibility in Cognitive Development, and Theorien und Methoden der Modernen Erziehung.(eng. Theories and Methods of Modern Education). Those three publications are used, because they are primary literature, as well as relevant to the topic, since they cover almost everything needed for this term paper.

This literature and such more will first give a definition of what the preoperational stage includes, especially focusing on the egocentrism, which will then build the base for the character analysis.

By analyzing Gatsby¿s character I want to ascertain his obvious egocentrism.. All in all I believe, that Piaget is a start to analyze Gatsby¿s psyche. He is not the usual theorist used for character analysis, since he focused his research on children. Yet, I believe Piaget is the right choice for this topic. I chose him as the foundation of the paper, to point out Gatsby¿s inner child.