The Great Gatsby
Chapter One
The Great Gatsby
• Set in a 3 month period
• Main location is Long island, New York
State but does occasionally move to
Manhattan
• Set during the Jazz Age in the 1920’s
Chapter One - Summary
• Nick establishes his reason for recording events.
• He establishes setting – East Coast/Summer/1922.
• He asserts the qualities he has for recording the story
yet contradicts himself.
• His style of prose is both lyrical, dense but also efficient.
• Establishes his own family background.
• We meet some of the main protagonists.
• He alludes to Gatsby but we do not meet him directly,
thereby maintaining a sense of an enigma.
• Importantly, he reveals that he has returned to the West
in order to process the events of this summer.
Fitzgerald invents this
character to write the novel written as an autobiographical
account of events taking place
over a 3 month period in the
summer of 1922.
“I am inclined to reserve all
judgements”
“Reserving judgement is a
matter of infinite hope”
“I wanted the word
to be in uniform”
Contradicts himself
throughout. Is a
stockbroker yet
admires romantic
sensibilities.
Nick’s Function
• Both observer and participant. Be aware of
not only what he discloses about others,
but also about himself.
• What are his values and ideals?
• We must keep this in mind as he is not an
impartial narrator!
Daisy
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“turbulent emotions possessed her”
“breathless thrilling words”
“face was sad, and lonely”
“absurd, charming little laugh”
“low thrilling voice”
Dressed in white! Connotations…
Daisy – First Impressions
• Insubstantial, unable to be held onto. She comes
across simultaneously as somewhat false but
also truthful (“I hope she’ll be a fool”). Daisy’s
main flaw is that she is intelligent enough to see
how aimless and shallow her entire existence is
yet won’t do anything to change. Her growth as
a human has literally been halted and she is
indeed p-paralysed.
• Almost immediately we are made aware that
Tom is having an affair, reinforcing a central
theme that everything from the outside looks
perfect but the real truth is far from perfection.
Daisy First Impressions
• “Our beautiful white girlhood”
Daisy’s only redeemable feature is her willingness to scoff and
undermine her husband’s racism. Her sarcastic remarks about her
‘beautiful white girlhood’ deliberately mocks his fecklessness and
stupidity.
• “I hope she’ll be a fool…a beautiful.”
Her relationship with her daughter seems empty of natural affection and
empathy but she has enough intelligence to accept that her life is
meaningless and she doesn’t want her daughter to realise that her
life will be the same.
• “I’m p-paralysed with happiness”
Seems to be a contradiction. Shows how lifeless she is and has so little
energy to show any real feelings.
Easily influenced and is
driven by fear about losing
his wealth and title.
“Standing with his legs
apart” – alpha male,
masculine stance.
“rather hard
mouth”
Intellectually challenged.
Doesn’t have the mental
capacity to digest information
properly.
“cruel body”
“The Rise of the Coloured
Empire” – Tom’s favourite
book. Racist propaganda.
“I’ve been lying on that sofa for as long as
I can remember”
Reinforces the lack of motivation and
paralysis present in the East Eggers.
Almost overwhelmed by their apathy.
Setting
• Chapter one introduces the reader to the two
main settings: West Egg and East Egg.
• These settings are very important as they help to
establish the characters and also link in with the
main themes of the novel.
• They are also symbolic of different class
systems in America (the supposedly classless
society).
West Egg and East Egg
• Chapter one introduces the reader to both West
Egg and East Egg and establishes the symbolic
significance of both.
• West Egg represents ‘new money’, ostentatious
and mock, whereas East Egg represents ‘old
money’, established and genuine.
• One represents the aspiring class, the other the
established, upper middle-class.
The Eggs and the American Dream
• The eggs are fundamentally different – Nick refers to the ‘sinister
contrast’ between them.
• East Egg (where Tom and Daisy live) is the fashionable suburb
which houses families with long-established generations of wealth –
the ‘royalty’ of New York.
• West Egg, by comparison is no less splendid: white palatial
mansions are dotted along tree-lined avenues and Wealth is
everywhere.
• The reason that West Egg is ‘less fashionable’ than its neighbour is
because the inhabitants have not been born into well-established
‘money’ families.
• Gatsby – among others on West Egg – is part of the ‘nouveau riche’
that is, he has made his fortune from scratch, emerging from a
natural state of poverty to become a ‘self-made man’.
Aligns itself with
American ideals.
Embodies the notion
of the dream
New money lines in
WE
Contains original spirit
of The Land of
Opportunity
Embodies old world
ideals of patronage, class
and heredity values.
They are the antithesis of
‘The Dream’
Full of emotionally
stunted, aimless, shallow
ideals.
Setting and The American Dream
• Snobbery exists because it is a class system within a class system –
a reminder that, no matter how well you do in life, there will always
be someone ‘above’ sneering at your efforts.
• This type of class division is particularly interesting in light of The
American Dream.
• This dream relates to the idea of America as the Land of
Opportunity, and states that any man (note man), if he is willing to
work hard and improve himself, will find the means to do so there.
• One of the founding principles of the country is a firm belief in
reward for hard work, and the idea of the Self Made Man is one
which American values is fundamentally based.
• So the ideas that such ‘winners’ would be seen as second class
citizens in East Egg is a reminder – if any were needed - that the
American Dream is fundamentally flawed.
Gatsby and the Green Light
• At the edge of his dock, Gatsby is seen to be
holding out his arms and trembling. He is
gesturing towards a:
Single green light, minute and far away
coming from the edge of Daisy’s dock on East
Egg.
• This light and Gatsby’s gesture has great
symbolic resonance throughout the rest of the
novel.
Symbolism
• It could represent money – green is the colour of money in America
and this could be a symbol of “the dream” and achieving wealth.
• Alternatively, green can represent jealously and envy and this could
indeed by applied to Gatsby’s desire to be part of East Egg society
and to be just like them, while knowing that he will never be good
enough.
• The light could also represent Daisy, like a beacon calling him
forward and putting him under her spell.
• By placing this episode at the end of the chapter, Fitzgerald
effectively foreshadows and delays Gatsby's introduction to the
novel, and his obsession with Daisy Buchanan – indeed, by painting
a comprehensively damning portrait of her character in this chapter,
he questions the very wisdom of this love.
Main Themes
• East vs. West
• Old world vs. New world ideals
• The fallacy of the American Dream vs. the
inherent hopefulness of it
• Illusion vs. reality