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The Great Gatsby (publ. 1925)

Ms Isabella Marinaro

The Great Gatsby

author: Francis Scott Fitzgerald

type of work: novel

genre: “modernist” novel, Jazz Age novel and novel ofmanners

time & place written: 1923-24, USA and France

date of first publication: 1925

publisher: Charles Scribner’s Sons

narrator: Nick Carraway; his own point of view, as if he werethe author


type of narration: both in the first and in the third person (as itis always Nick’s voice which tells the story). In some points heobserves the situations giving his own interpretations, some othertimes he presents facts objectively

tone: it depends on Nick’s attitude toward Gatsby => ambivalent / contradictory. Sometimes he disapproves Gatsby for his excess, sometimes he admires him for his heroic romanticism

tense: past

setting (time): Summer 1922

setting (place): Long Island (East & West Egg) and New York

protagonist: Gatsby and / or Nick


major conflict: in a mysterious way, J. Gatsby has got a hugefortune to win back her former girl friend, the aristocratic Daisy, who has married a wealthy man, Tom Buchanan, who does not love her. She seems to fall in love with him again, but in the end sheshows all her cynical behaviour.

climax: (a) Gatsby’s meeting with Daisy – chapters 5-6;(b) the confrontation between Gatsby and Tom at the PlazaHotel (7)

falling actions: (a) Daisy’s final rejection of Gatsby; (b) Myrtle’s accidental death; (c) Gatsby’s murder

themes: (a) the decline of the “American dream”; (b) the atmosphere of the Twenties; (c) the gap between social classes;(d) how much past dreams may influence the future; (e) the hollowness of the upper class


motifs: (a) connection between events & weather;(b) connection between geographical location & social values; (c) images of time; (d) extravagant parties; (e) crazy quest for wealth

symbols: (a) the green light on Daisy’s dock (= Gatsby’s and American dream); (b) the eyes of doctor Eckleburg (= a sort of modern God’seyes); (c) the Valley of Ashes (= like Eliot’s “Waste Land”, whatremains of old good values after WW1 and the other side of Twenties’ wealth); (d) Gatsby’s parties (= post war frantic desire for wealth); (e) East & West Egg (= cold and old aristocracy vs newpeople).


SYMMETRY & ASIMMETRY

in The Great Gatsby

chapter 1: presentation of the narrator, Nick; setting of the scene; Nick

quotes his own father

chapter 4: gossips, details of relationships, courtship

chapter 2: adulterous relation

chapter 3: party at Gatsby’s house / there’s an accident

chapter 5: pivot point of the novel => reunion of Daisy and Gatsby;

two songs quoted

chapter 6: gossips, details of relationships, courtship

chapter 7: meeting at plaza Hotel / there’s the accident

chapter 8: adulterous relation

chapter 9 : conclusions of the narrator, Nick. Nick meets Gatsby’s father


The Great Gatsby

analysis of characters

-about 30 y.o.-impoverished childhood in rural North Dakota-despises poverty, longs for wealth and sophistication

-acquires a huge fortune in a mysterious way (ch. 7 we know how) above all to win Daisy back-meets Daisy as a young military officer in Louisville before leaving for WW1 in 1917-he lies to her about his background; Daisy promises to wait for him to marry him but she marries Tom Buchanan in 1919, while Gatsby is studying at Oxford to improve his education-he buys a magnificent mansion on West Egg and gives lavish weekly parties to get a fame and get Daisy back (who lives on East Egg)

Jay Gatsby


-surrounded by powerful men and beautiful women-all New York gossips around him -in the novel his fame precedes him: Fitzgerald delays his main character to underline the theatrical style of life of the hero and to increase also the reader’s curiosity for him

- his real name is James Gatz and he changes his name to reinvent himself – even through criminal activity to make his fortune, gain a new social position necessary to win Daisy.

-he is “great” as great was “The Great Houdini”, e.g.

He believes in the “green light” (coming from Daisy’s house on the other side of the harbour), that “orgastic

future” that any human being struggles for to get a better tomorrow by re-creating a past

= THE AMERICAN DREAM

- nobody knows his real past


-Gatsby is an innocent, hopeful young man who has the courage to believe in his own dreams

Gatsby is SMILE

-he symbolizes one of the main themes of the novel, which is the SUPERIORITY OF IMAGINATION AS OUR REALITY IS ALWAYS DISAPPOINTING

-Gatsby’s dream of Daisy disintegrates => reveals the corruption of wealth, just like Fitzgerald sees the US’s dream crumbling in the 1920s

-Gatsby is the contary of Tom Buchanan who is “muscle”, cold-hearted, aristocratic bully, but unfaithful to everyone and selfish


Nick Carraway- the narrative voice of the novel

- he reflects one part of Fitzgerald’s personality; sometimes expresses F.’s point of view

- he plays the same role as Marlow in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (F. was very fond of Conrad); his thoughts / perceptions give shape to the story

- he is the reflective Midwesterner adrift in the East; he is from Minnesota

- young man, turns 30 during the narration

- goes to NY to learn the bond business and lives on the West Egg next door to Gatsby

- tolerant, open-minded, honest, quiet, good listener, people treat him as a confidant.

- educated at Yale – where he meets Tom Buchanan – fights in WW1


- a romantic affair with Jordan Baker, Daisy’s friend

- Daisy’s cousin, he helps Gatsby to meet Daisy again

- attracted by NY’s style, at the same time he finds it grotesque and dangerous

- one of the few people who partecipates at Gatsby’s funeral

- at the end of the book he realizes the lifestyle on the East Coast is a cover for the terrifying moral emptinesssymbolized in the book with the Valley of Ashes.

- got his maturity, goes back to Minnesota, where life is still according to traditional values


Nick sees Gatsby as a man full ofdefects, deeply dishonest and evenvulgar

but

Gatsby’s extraordinary optimism, his will and powerto transform his dreams into reality make him “great”

nonetheless.


Daisy Buchanan

Tom Buchanan’s wife; loved byGatsby

partially based on Fitzgerald’s wife, Zelda Sayre , for her

desire for wealth, fun and herdelaying their marriage until

Fizgerald became rich and famous.

Just like the novel’s two heroes, Fitzgerald met Zelda during his military service

beautiful young woman from a rich family of Kentucky

Gatsby lied to her about his background to convince her to marry him


they made love before he left forthe WW1

she promised to wait for hisreturn to get married

but while he was studying at Oxford to make a learning, in 1919 Daisy marries Tom Buchanan, from an aristocraticfamily and who promised her a very wealthy lifestyle

Gatsby dedicates his life to win Daisy back = she becomes his single goal of allhis life and dreams => he needs an immense wealth even if through criminal activity (maybe bootlegging during “Prohibitionism” – 18th Amendment tothe Constitution, from 1919 to 1933)

she behaves superficially to mask her disillusionment with Tom’s constantinfidelity


Daisy becomes a myth for J. Gatsby: perfection, charm, wealth, sophistication, grace, aristocracy.

Daisy represents all that he had longed for when he was a poor boy in North Dakota

but how is Daisy actually?

In spite of her charm and beauty, she is fickle, shallow, sardonic,

cynical, bored, indifferent, pitiless, with her “voice full of money”…

…Daisy is the metaphor of America, Fitzgerald’s idea of the US in the

1920s, a country marked by thoseamoral values of the aristocratic

East Egg set.


Tom Buchanan

Daisy’s wealthy husband, hebetrays her with Myrtle Wilson

arrogant, hypocritical, racist and sexist

Tom is MUSCLE

he shared Nick’s social club at Yale University

he has no qualm about his love affair with Myrtle –who he does not actually love, but being male

chauvinist, he gets angry when he suspects aboutDaisy and Gatsby’s affair


Jordan Baker

Daisy’s best friend, a famous golf player

Nick has a romantic involvement withher

the symbol of the “new woman” of the Twenties: boyish, self-centred, cynical

beautiful but dishonest; she cheats during golf matches, she bends the truth


Myrtle Wilson

Tom’s lover, she carries out a double life, one in a NY flat

belonging to Tom, the other withhis lifeless husband running a garage in the Valley of Ashes

she is a desperately unsatisfied woman, longing for improving her situation

for Tom she is simply an object of desire as she is vital, fierce, beautiful

she will be killed in an awful accident while Daisy was driving Gatsby’s yellow car

her husband, George, has idealized her: even if he knows she betrays him,he is helpless


George Wilson

Myrtle’s husband

lifeless man, unhappy, in love with hiswoman. He has idealized her, he is

devastated by her affair with Tom Buchanan

he gets mad when Myrtle has the accident and he looks for his revenge againsther killer. Opportunely misadvised by Tom himself, he tries to get rid of his wife’s killer. But he is wrong

George kills Gatsby, the yellow car’s owner, without knowing Daisy was the driver

then he commits suicide maybe because his life without Myrtle is meaningless

the victim (Gatsby) and his killer (George) have something in common:both of them are dreamers in love with women that Tom Buchanan “owns”


Meyer Wolfsheim

Gatsby’s long-standing friend

an important man in organized crime

it is Wolfsheim who has helped Gatsbyto become so rich by bootlegging illegal liquor

in the novel Gatsby still meets him frequently, that suggests he is still involvedin some illegal business

he does not attend Gatsby’s funeral, like all the others, becausea “dead friend” is useless


Klipspringer

a strange character who lives at Gatsby’s mansion, a sort of

freeloader who takesadvantage of Gatsby’s richness

he does not attend Gatsby’s funeral, but he cannot help phoning Nick to get back a pair of tennis shoes he has left at Gatsby’s house


Dr Eckleburg’s eyes

a fading bespectacled blank stare paintedeyes to advertise the activity of that oculist

they are situated just in front of the Wilsons’ house, in the hollow Valley of Ashes

George Wilson is particularly obsessed by that picture, seen his grief-stricken mind and depression

they may represent a modern God staring and judging that waste land thatthe US have become


What is the real meaning of The Great Gatsby?

beyond a thwarted love between two peoplethere is a less romantic goal:

a meditation on 1920s US as a country which has started the

disintegration of its dreamin a period of excessive

material prosperity

a portrait of a historicalmoment of decayed social

and moral values, ofcynicism, of search for

wealth at any cost whichovercomes any noble goal

newfound materialism, social climbers, ambitious speculators, the clash

between old money and new moneyGatsby’s dream fails for the

unworthiness of his object just likethe American dream fails for the

unworthiness of its object = MONEY & PLEASURE and the “ dream” finally

collapses on October 23rd 1929, the “Black Thursday” of Wall Street


DISPLACED SPIRITUALITY IN

THE GREAT GATSBY

Fitzgerald tackles over the theme of SPIRITUALITY in a subtle way:

NOT WHAT IS THERE

but WHAT IS MISSING

WHY?


Fitzgerald reflects on the US society BEFORE & AFTER WW1, its values

b e f o r e a f t e r

the novel takes place in summer 1922, “the jazz age” (F.S.F.), published in 1925

traditional religious teachings

basic tenets of human compassion

charity

growing moral decrepitude

misreading the material world

busy life which makes people losetouch with any sort of morality:

breaking laws

cheating

killing

timeworn values

staid conservatism


So The Great Gatsby ‘s partiers live ina world lacking order and structure represented by

East Egg West Egg

West Eggers are somewhatabove the East Eggers

(Jay Gatsby, Nick Carraway)

East Eggers are an élite out of touch with reality, treating people as objects.

They lack pureness. (the Buchanans, Jordan Baker)

Fitzgerald seems to suggest that the Midwest is the land of promise, the land Nick and James Gatz both came from,

( the former from Minnesota, the latter from North Dakota)

“We possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life” (Nick Carraway)


After the Buchanans’ dinner party, the book presents EXCESS only and every one of the seven deadly sins:

pride

envy

wrath

sloth

avarice

gluttony

lust

while the seven cardinal virtues are nearly visible:

faith hope charity prudence

justicefortitude

temperance


But Fitzgerald is not proposing a Christian message

He is rather ecouraging readers to stopand take inventory of their lives

Fitzgerald is urging a reconsideration of where society is and where it is going

A highly symbolic meditation on 1920s US , in particular the disintegration of the American dreamin an era of unprecedented prosperity and material

excess (which will collapse in 1929)


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