How can I improve my essay?

How can I improve this? Dwellings





The home is the place where people live, store items, and find shelter. It is also where our domestic affections are centered, where the householder’s personality is reflected in a contained space. Home is where outside matters can leave us to focus on we care about most. Scott Fitzgerald's book, The Great Gatsby, contains a fictional story by about the decline of the American dream. The characters, Jay Gatsby, Nick Caraway, the Buchanan’s, and the Wilsons all keep homes that reflect their unique characters. Since many key events are chronicled in the homes of the persons, each dwelling is crucial to understanding the setting, story and disposition of the each person in the novel.


The book is set in New York. The majority of the homes are placed on West Egg, "a slender riotous island which extends itself due east of New York". The origin of its name comes from the placement of two egg-shaped islands outside of New York that are parallel to each other on east and west ends. West egg is home to those who have recently come into great wealth, because of this they spend their money frivolously, engage in loose conduct, and have few worries in life. Gatsby and Nick live here. Yet, Nick is the only one who describes it as the “least fashionable of the two”, because of the garish taste of its residents. East egg is where Tom and Daisy Buchanan live. Nick Caraway describes the homes there as “… white palaces of fashionable East egg...”


Nick Caraway, the narrator of the story, lives in West Egg, (at the very tip), in between two much more expensive homes. As a young man (he turns thirty during the course of the novel) from Minnesota, Nick travels to New York in 1922 to learn the bond business. On his right was Gatsby’s home, of which he had a partial view of his lawn. But Gatsby wasn’t the only one richer than him, he was surrounded by millionaires. His home was nothing in comparison to their large mansions. He had ‘a weather beaten bungalow’ that cost eighty dollars a month. Like Nick, the house is small, aging, overlooked, modest, and quiet. His neighbor Mr. Gatsby had weekly parties that lasted till the next morning. But Nick’s house was only visited a few times by Gatsby and had one occasion when he had his cousin and Gatsby over for tea. As his home had been overlooked so had he, but his quiet reflective attitude also made him the perfect candidate for a narrator. Everyone he meets seems to tell him information he did not ask for or did not even want to know.


Whereas Nick is modest, his neighbor, Jay Gatsby, is the complete opposite. Mr. Gatsby owns a home that is “a colossal affair by any standard.” Nick describes it as being an imitation of Hotel de Ville in Normandy. Hotel de Ville is French for, “city hall”, so one could imagine how massive the building was. Gatsby’s house had a brand new tower on one side, under a thin bed of ivy, a marble swimming pool, and more than forty acres of greenery. The whole front of the house is positioned to catch the light. Yet it only took him three years to make the money to buy it. It was filled with, “period bed rooms swathed in silk and floral arrangements, dressing rooms, pool rooms and bathrooms with sunken baths.” Gatsby’s bedroom had a bath with a study area and cupboard in the wall. His own residence was actually quite modest, as the most expensive items were a grooming set on his dresser, which was plated in dull gold. Gatsby’s personal room reveals a lot about his character. His room is simple, yet he keeps a monstrous mansion filled with people. He throws parties, yet doesn’t mingle with the guests. He has a great deal of wealth yet very few know where it really comes from. This shows how he is putting on a sort of façade to impress someone though he only needs little. Nick noted that his “…personality is an unbroken series of gestures.” Nick soon finds out that Gatsby has acquired everything to impress Daisy who did not marry him previously because he was not rich. But rather than move on Jay has tried to recreate the past, which is not possible.


In East egg, Daisy, along with her husband Tom, and their child, lives in a cheerful red-and-white Georgian Colonial mansion overlooking the bay. Their lawn starts at the beach and ends at the front door. The greenery wrapped around the sides of the building. In front was a line of French windows, coated in a reflective gold. There is an assortment of expensive furniture within their home but not much else is explained about the Buchanan’s home in detail. Like their home they are consumed with wealth but have little regard for others. Both husband and wife have affairs. Daisy has a new relationship with Gatsby, and Tom has had many affairs and was recently with his mechanics wife.


Between New York and West Egg lies a desolate land. Nick describes this location as, “a place where ash grows like wheat.” This point is the residence of George and Myrtle Wilson. They live in George’s shop, where he serves gas to Tom whenever they go out to the city. Their home is not even described in detail because of its insignificance. The whole area is described as being made of ash. The only distinctive object is a billboard for an oculist, which has a pair of eyes with large spectacles that seems to watch the valley, which may be a metaphor for God. Obviously this is the flux of poor people left from the figurative burning of money buy the rich. And this reflects its owner perfectly. George is a simple man, but he is overly submissive, and lacks the colorful character that the others possess. His wife, Myrtle, longs to escape this grey land and looks forward to each meeting with her affair, Tom.


Throughout the book the great Gatsby homes play a crucial role in telling the story. The author mentions in fragments details about each dwelling which is placed each time at the proper moment of present action, for maximum effectiveness. The homes kept by the persons involved reinforce the established personalities of the characters. Gatsby is eventually assassinated in his marble pool, by Myrtles husband after Daisy runs over her in Gatsby’s car. The façade created Mr. Gatsby is shown to be superficial when no one comes his funeral, but his home revealed this previously by the number of people who are there as moochers, leeching off Gatsby’s wealth but not proving to be true friends. The Buchanan’s retreat back into their carefree lifestyle and Nick returns to the Midwest where he is more accustomed.

How can I improve my essay?
I feel that your essay was very well thought out and provided evidence, but may be considered too simplistic. I think the only thing you could do to make your essay stronger is to change your wording up a bit. Make it much more complex. Trying using an online thesaurus to make smaller words seem more effective. I tried to help you get what I am saying but changing your first paragraph up a bit. Here it goes:





A home may defined as a place where people reside, hoard their possessions, and find refuge. It is also where most domestic affections are centered and the householder’s personality is reflected in a confined space. Home is where outside matters can force us to focus on we care about most. F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby contains a fictional story revolving around the decline of the American dream. Most of the novel’s essential characters, including Jay Gatsby, Nick Caraway, the Buchanans, and the Wilsons, all keep homes that reflect their individual unique characters. Because many of the novel’s significant events are chronicled in the homes of these characters, each dwelling is crucial to understanding the setting, story, and disposition of the each person in the novel.





I hope I didn't give you the impression that you are a bad writer or that I am better. I was just trying to give an honest opinion.
Reply:omg we are reading this exact boook. the great gatsby. it sounds fine to me. but its really long