gatsby

[monouver18]

i have to write this report/essay on gatsby about hy it wouldn't make a good one-act play? i need 3 but i can't think of three???

[Wilde woman]

Actually, I found one analysis that briefly analyzed Gatsby's plot structure as a three-act play: http://www.shmoop.com/analysis/literature/f-scott-fitzgerald/the-great-gatsby/three-act-plot-analysis.html

But I think one of the most obvious reasons it wouldn't make a good play is that it has a narrator that is also a character - Nick Carraway. We see everything through his eyes and it's unclear whether or not he's a biased or reliable narrator. Most plays don't have an explicit narrator, and that's what allows the audience to make moral judgments about the characters for themselves; when you focalize a work through a biased narrator, it skews the depiction of what's actually happening.