V svetu blišča in bede: Čudežni Feliks in Veliki Gatsby

In dealing with the two novels, both of which are prescribed texts for matriculation exams, the article sheds light on splendour and misery by comparing characters with each other and focusing primarily on experience in the first stage of literary interpretation and evaluation in the second. The most obvious catalysts of splendour and misery in both novels are Skobenski and Gatsby, while the most exposed critics of these phenomena are Feliks and Nick. Although Skobenski and Feliks are similar in their intellectual superiority and Ahasuerus-like qualities, Feliks is an honest man who experiences double misery, concerning family and society, under the veil of splendour: at the point of removing masks and veils, the family and historical novel turns into a socially critical novel. The critique of bourgeois double standards in the American novel is not as profound and high quality, as the fascination with splendour is concealed by a veil of naive compassion for Gatsby. Through trivialisation, the novel thus “romanticises” the cunning and ruthlessness of thenouveau riche, while being scornfully critical of the lower classes.