LP3
The Construction of Jay Gatsby:
Creating Identity
 Real Name: James Gatz
 Age: 17
 From: North Dakota
 Parent’s occupation: Farmers
Creating Identity
 “I suppose he’d had the name ready for a long time, even
then. His parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm
people — his imagination had never really accepted them
as his parents at all. The truth was that Jay Gatsby of West
Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of
himself. He was a son of God — a phrase which, if it means
anything, means just that — and he must be about His
Father’s business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and
meretricious beauty. So he invented just the sort of Jay
Gatsby that a seventeen-year-old boy would be likely to
invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end.”
(Chapter 6)
Deconstructing the Passage
 We will be coming back to this passage may times
throughout the novel, but after your first reading, what are
some terms that are difficult?
 Platonic:
1.
of, pertaining to, or characteristic of Plato or his doctrines: the
Platonic philosophy of ideal forms.
2.
pertaining to, involving, or characterized by Platonic love as a
striving toward love of spiritual or ideal beauty.
3.
( usually lowercase ) purely spiritual; free from sensual desire,
esp. in a relationship between two persons of the opposite sex.
 Meretricious:
1.
alluring by a show of flashy or vulgar attractions; tawdry.
2.
based on pretense, deception, or insincerity.
3.
pertaining to or characteristic of a prostitute.
“a son of God”
 He was a son of God — a phrase which, if it means
anything, means just that — and he must be about His
Father’s business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and
meretricious beauty.

Meretricious:
1.
alluring by a show of flashy or vulgar attractions; tawdry.
2.
based on pretense, deception, or insincerity.
3.
pertaining to or characteristic of a prostitute.
“a son of God”
 Does this statement have a positive or negative
connotation?
 What is Fitzgerald’s meaning?
 What purpose does this provide to our understanding
of Jay Gatsby?
Platonic Conception
 “The truth was that Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long
Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of
himself.”
 Platonic:
1.
2.
3.
of, pertaining to, or characteristic of Plato or his doctrines:
the Platonic philosophy of ideal forms.
pertaining to, involving, or characterized by Platonic
love as a striving toward love of spiritual or ideal beauty.
( usually lowercase ) purely spiritual; free from sensual
desire, esp. in a relationship between two persons of the
opposite sex.
Forms Activity
 On a piece of paper draw one animal and one object.
Plato’s Theory of Forms
 Plato splits up existence into two realms:
1. the material realm
2. the transcendent realm of Forms.
 Humans have access to the realm of Forms through

the mind, through reason, given Plato's theory of the
subdivisions of the human soul. This gives them
access to an unchanging world, invulnerable to the
pains and changes of the material world.
Why did Plato focus on such a topic?
Plato’s Problem
 How can humans live a fulfilling, happy life in a
contingent, changing world where everything they
attach themselves to can be taken away?
 Plato’s response: Theory of Forms
 Christianity’s response: The gift of Faith
Plato’s Theory of Forms
The six main properties of the forms are:
1.
Transcendent - the forms are not located in space and time. For example, there is no
particular place or time at which redness exists.
2.
Pure - the forms only exemplify one property. Material objects are impure; they
combine a number of properties such as blackness, circularity, and hardness into one
object. A form, such as circularity, only exemplifies one property.
3.
Archetypes - The forms are archetypes; that is, they are perfect examples of the
property that they exemplify. The forms are the perfect models upon which all
material objects are based. The form of redness, for example, is red, and all red objects
are simply imperfect, impure copies of this perfect form of redness.
4.
Ultimately Real - The forms are the ultimately real entities, not material objects. All
material objects are copies or images of some collection of forms; their reality comes
only from the forms.
5.
Causes - The forms are the causes of all things. (1) They provide the explanation of
why any thing is the way it is, and (2) they are the source or origin of the being of all
things.
6.
Systematically Interconnected - The forms comprise a system leading down from
the form of the Good moving from more general to more particular, from more
objective to more subjective. This systematic structure is reflected in the structure of
the dialectic process by which we come to knowledge of the forms.
“Platonic Conception of himself”
 “The truth was that Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long
Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of
himself.”
 What does this reveal about Jay Gatsby’s true identity?
 What is the problem with creating oneself in this
manner?
Platonic Perfection
 No one has ever seen a perfect circle, nor a perfectly
straight line, yet everyone knows what a circle and a
straight line are.
 Perceived circles or lines are not exactly circular or
straight, and true circles and lines could never be
detected since by definition they are sets of infinitely
small points.
 But if the perfect ones were not real, how could they
direct the manufacturer?