American Icon: Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby in critical and cultural context

In American Icon: Fitzgerald's The great Gatsby in critical and cultural context, Beuka attempts to trace the novel through its history as the titular "American Icon" and its acceptance into the canon as such, focusing heavily on its reception throughout its early print run from 1925 until its reception at time of publication. It examines the novel's revival following Fitzgerald's death in the 1940s, bringing the novel back into the public eye after many years spent languishing in critical and commercial non-existence.  It focuses strongly on the novel's return to prominence during the 1950s and its induction into the halls of masterworks of American literature and adoption into the canon of great American literature. He examines the social climate in which the novel's resurgence took place, with an eye on what other literary works were en vogue at the time and helped contribute to Gatsby's rise in popularity and critical attention. It continues to focus on criticism given to Gatsby and to Fitzgerald himself with regard to sexual, racial, and economic norms of the time, long after Fitzgerald's death. Beuka also compares the initial tepid reaction to the novel Gatsby and its eventual rise to the character of Gatsby himself, beginning life poor and rising up to become important and regarded.

Beuka's use of cited examples of literary critiques throughout the decades is illuminating (and entertaining) to read, especially in the light of the current plethora of reviews and critiques available now in the wake of the recent big-screen adaptation starring Leonardo DiCaprio in the titular role. It highlights issues of cultural relativism and ethnocentrism when dealing with a work and the issues that work in turn addresses, such as the sexual and racial norms spoken to above. Fitzgerald's work has not changed, all that has changed over the decades is the lens through which we view it. As such these snippets of literary critique and criticism provide not only an apt cross-section of the novel, but of the academic communities of the time as well. Views on the time of economic status and the overconsumption of the old-money upper class, for instance, tends to be viewed with more dislike and disdain in times of economic depression. In the final section, Beuka discusses the larger-than-life status Gatsby has attained education and popular culture, suggesting that it has become part of the fabric of American popular culture.