The Great Gatsby
BY
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
Tidbits
 F. Scott Fitzgerald 1896-1940
 Named after great uncle Frances Scott Key
 From the midwest: St. Paul, MN
 Married to Zelda Sayre - m 1930
 The dominant influences on F. Scott Fitzgerald were
aspiration, literature, Princeton, Zelda Sayre
Fitzgerald, and alcohol.
 Coined “The Jazz Age”
 The Great Gatsby was published in 1925
 Scott Fitzgerald died at the age of 40 from heart
failure as a result of his alcoholism – he died thinking
he was a failure as a writer
Title
 Significance of the title, The Great Gatsby:
 Focus on the “Great” as in a magician trying to
perform magic, “The Great…”
 There is irony in describing Gatsby as Great
Setting
 1922 New York
 Each setting reveals characters/values/personalities
 East Egg – old money
 West Egg – new money
 Valley of the Ashes – working class, poor
 New York City – used to define social status, money
Answers
 Each setting reveals characters/values/personalities
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East Egg – old money: Tom and Daisy Buchanan
West Egg – new money: Jay Gatsby
Valley of the Ashes – working class, poor: George &Myrle
Wilson
New York City – used to define social status, money: Tom and
Myrtle’s apartment, trips with Gatsby, wild immorality of the
Roaring Twenties
Themes
 Outward appearance can be deceptive
 Wealth/love can breed careless and reckless
behavior
 The attainment of a dream may be less satisfying
than the pursuit of that dream
 The “American Dream” is corrupted by the desire for
wealth
 The blind (total, obsessive, all-consuming) pursuit
of a dream is destructive
Chapter One
Characters
 Nick Carraway: narrator, cousin to Daisy and college
friend of Tom’s
 Tom Buchanan: married to Daisy; wealthy business
man
 Daisy Buchanan: unhappy wife of Tom
 Jordan Baker: pro golfer, friend of Daisy, will
become love interest of Nick
Nick Carraway
 Single, 30 something, well to do, Yale graduate 1915,
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from the midwest, fought WWI, went to NY for his
first job - stockbroker
Lives next door to Gatsby
Sees himself as non-judgmental and a keeper of
confidences
Some vague references to a fiancé
Will become involved with Jordan Baker
Tom Buchanan
 Married to Daisy; extremely wealthy, “sturdy, straw
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haired, man of thirty,” former college football player
“hard mouth”, supercilious manner,” “shinny arrogant
eyes,” “great pack of muscle,” “cruel body”
“gruff husky tenor,” has an attitude of “ I am stronger
and more of a man than you are”
“I’ve got a nice place here.”
Tom is a racist, “if we don’t look out the white race will
be-will be utterly submerged.” “It’s up to us who are
the dominant race to watch out or these other races
will have control of things.”
A two-timer, “got some woman in New York.”
Daisy Buchanan
From prominent St. Louis family
“Low, thrilling voice,” “her face was soft and lovely”
“bright eyes, bright passionate mouth,”
Daisy is distracted at dinner, she has, “an unthoughtful
sadness
 Knows her husband is cheating but doesn’t know what to do
about it. Her way of dealing with unpleasantness is to feign
ignorance. Her first words when told she had a daughter, ‘I
hope she’ll be a fool-that’s the best thing a girl can be in this
world, a beautiful little fool.”
 Daisy has “an absolute smirk on her lovely face as if she had
asserted her membership in a rather distinguished secret
society to which she and Tom belonged.”
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Jordan Baker
 “slender, small breasted girl with an erect carriage”
 “grey stained eyes” “wan, charming discontented
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face”
“Autumn-leaf yellow of her hair” “slender muscles in
her arms”
“Time for this good girl to go to bed”
“I thought everybody knew”
Something unpleasant in her past
Jay Gatsby
 “Only Gatsby…was exempt from my reaction-Gatsby
who represented everything for which I have an
unaffected scorn.”
 “…it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic
readiness such as I have never found in any other
person and which it is not likely I shall ever find
again.”
 “Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what
preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of
his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in
the abortive sorrows and short winded elations of
men.
Jay Gatsby con’t
 At the end of the evening, Nick spots Gatsby
standing outside “with his hands in his pockets
regarding the silver pepper of the stars.”
 Nick stops short of meeting him because he seemed
“content to be alone-he stretched his arms toward
the dark water in a curious way”
 “Involuntarily I glanced seaward –and distinguished
nothing except a single green light, minute and far
away, that might have been the end of a dock.”