Full Title:
The Great Gatsby
Author:
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Type Of Work
Novel
Genre
Tragedy, Realism, Modernism, Social Satire
Language
English
Time And Place Written
1923–1924, America and France
Date Of First Publication
1925
Publisher
Charles Scribner’s Sons
1.Characters
1.1 Jay Gatsby
The title character and protagonist of the
novel, Gatsby is a fabulously wealthy young
man living in a Gothic mansion in West Egg. He is famous for the lavish parties he throws
every Saturday night, but no one knows where he comes from, what he does, or how he made
his fortune. As the novel progresses, Nick learns that Gatsby was born James Gatz on a farm
in North Dakota; working for a millionaire made him dedicate his life to the achievement of
wealth. When he met Daisy while training to be an officer in Louisville, he fell in love with her.
Nick also learns that Gatsby made his fortune through criminal activity, as he was willing to do
anything to gain the social position he thought necessary to win Daisy. Nick views Gatsby as
a deeply flawed man, dishonest and vulgar, whose extraordinary optimism and power to
transform his dreams into reality make him “great” nonetheless.
The title character of The Great Gatsby is a young man, around thirty years old, who rose from
an impoverished childhood in rural North Dakota to become fabulously wealthy. However, he
achieved this lofty goal by participating in organized crime, including distributing illegal alcohol
and trading in stolen securities. From his early youth, Gatsby despised poverty and longed for
wealth and sophistication—he dropped out of St. Olaf College after only two weeks because
he could not bear the janitorial job with which he was paying his tuition.
Though Gatsby has always wanted to be rich, his main motivation in acquiring his fortune was
his love for Daisy Buchanan, whom he met as a young military officer in Louisville before
leaving to fight in World War I in 1917. Gatsby immediately fell in love with Daisy’s aura of
luxury, grace, and charm, and lied to her about his own background in order to convince her
that he was good enough for her. Daisy promised to wait for him when he left for the war, but
married Tom Buchanan in 1919, while Gatsby was studying at Oxford after the war in an
attempt to gain an education. From that moment on, Gatsby dedicated himself to winning Daisy
back, and his acquisition of millions of dollars, his purchase of a gaudy mansion on West Egg,
and his lavish weekly parties are all merely means to that end.
Fitzgerald delays the introduction of most of this information until fairly late in the novel.
Gatsby’s reputation precedes him—Gatsby himself does not appear in a speaking role until
Chapter 3. Fitzgerald initially presents Gatsby as the aloof, enigmatic host of the unbelievably
opulent parties thrown every week at his mansion. He appears surrounded by spectacular
luxury, courted by powerful men and beautiful women. He is the subject of a whirlwind of gossip
throughout New York and is already a kind of legendary celebrity before he is ever introduced
to the reader.
Fitzgerald propels the novel forward through the early chapters by shrouding Gatsby’s
background and the source of his wealth in mystery (the reader learns about Gatsby’s
childhood in Chapter 6 and receives definitive proof of his criminal dealings in Chapter 7). As
a result, the reader’s first, distant impressions of Gatsby strike quite a different note from that
of the lovesick, naive young man who emerges during the later part of the novel.
Fitzgerald uses this technique of delayed character revelation to emphasize the theatrical
quality of Gatsby’s approach to life, which is an important part of his personality. Gatsby has
literally created his own character, even changing his name from James Gatz to represent his
reinvention of himself. As his relentless quest for Daisy demonstrates, Gatsby has an
extraordinary ability to transform his hopes and dreams into reality; at the beginning of the
novel, he appears to the reader just as he desires to appear to the world. This talent for selfinvention is what gives Gatsby his quality of “greatness”: indeed, the title “The Great Gatsby”
is reminiscent of billings for such vaudeville magicians as “The Great Houdini” and “The Great
Blackstone,” suggesting that the persona of Gatsby is a masterful illusion.
As the novel progresses and Fitzgerald deconstructs Gatsby’s self-presentation, Gatsby
reveals himself to be an innocent, hopeful young man who stakes everything on his dreams,
not realizing that his dreams are unworthy of him. Gatsby invests Daisy with an idealistic
perfection that she cannot possibly attain in reality and pursues her with a passionate zeal that
blinds him to her limitations. His dream of her disintegrates, revealing the corruption that wealth
causes and the unworthiness of the goal, much in the way Fitzgerald sees the American dream
crumbling in the 1920s, as America’s powerful optimism, vitality, and individualism become
subordinated to the amoral pursuit of wealth.
Gatsby is contrasted most consistently with Nick. Critics point out that the former, passionate
and active, and the latter, sober and reflective, seem to represent two sides of Fitzgerald’s
personality. Additionally, whereas Tom is a cold-hearted, aristocratic bully, Gatsby is a loyal
and good-hearted man. Though his lifestyle and attitude differ greatly from those of George
Wilson, Gatsby and Wilson share the fact that they both lose their love interest to Tom.
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us.
1.2 Nick Carraway
The novel’s narrator, Nick is a young man from Minnesota
who, after being educated at Yale and fighting in World War
I, goes to New York City to learn the bond business. Honest,
tolerant, and inclined to reserve judgment, Nick often serves
as a confidant for those with troubling secrets. After moving
to West Egg, a fictional area of Long Island that is home to
the newly rich, Nick quickly befriends his next-door neighbor,
the mysterious Jay Gatsby. As Daisy Buchanan’s cousin, he
facilitates the rekindling of the romance between her and Gatsby. The Great Gatsby is told
entirely through Nick’s eyes; his thoughts and perceptions shape and color the story.
If Gatsby represents one part of Fitzgerald’s personality, the flashy celebrity who pursued and
glorified wealth in order to impress the woman he loved, then Nick represents another part: the
quiet, reflective Midwesterner adrift in the lurid East. A young man (he turns thirty during the
course of the novel) from Minnesota, Nick travels to New York in 1922 to learn the bond
business. He lives in the West Egg district of Long Island, next door to Gatsby. Nick is also
Daisy’s cousin, which enables him to observe and assist the resurgent love affair between
Daisy and Gatsby. As a result of his relationship to these two characters, Nick is the perfect
choice to narrate the novel, which functions as a personal memoir of his experiences with
Gatsby in the summer of 1922.
Nick is also well suited to narrating The Great Gatsby because of his temperament. As he tells
the reader in Chapter 1, he is tolerant, open-minded, quiet, and a good listener, and, as a
result, others tend to talk to him and tell him their secrets. Gatsby, in particular, comes to trust
him and treat him as a confidant. Nick generally assumes a secondary role throughout the
novel, preferring to describe and comment on events rather than dominate the action. Often,
however, he functions as Fitzgerald’s voice, as in his extended meditation on time and the
American dream at the end of Chapter 9.
Insofar as Nick plays a role inside the narrative, he evidences a strongly mixed reaction to life
on the East Coast, one that creates a powerful internal conflict that he does not resolve until
the end of the book. On the one hand, Nick is attracted to the fast-paced, fun-driven lifestyle
of New York. On the other hand, he finds that lifestyle grotesque and damaging. This inner
conflict is symbolized throughout the book by Nick’s romantic affair with Jordan Baker. He is
attracted to her vivacity and her sophistication just as he is repelled by her dishonesty and her
lack of consideration for other people.
Nick states that there is a “quality of distortion” to life in New York, and this lifestyle makes him
lose his equilibrium, especially early in the novel, as when he gets drunk at Gatsby’s party in
Chapter 2. After witnessing the unraveling of Gatsby’s dream and presiding over the appalling
spectacle of Gatsby’s funeral, Nick realizes that the fast life of revelry on the East Coast is a
cover for the terrifying moral emptiness that the valley of ashes symbolizes. Having gained the
maturity that this insight demonstrates, he returns to Minnesota in search of a quieter life
structured by more traditional moral values.
1.3 Daisy Buchanan
Nick’s cousin, and the woman Gatsby loves. As a young
woman in Louisville before the war, Daisy was courted by a
number of officers, including Gatsby. She fell in love with
Gatsby and promised to wait for him. However, Daisy harbors
a deep need to be loved, and when a wealthy, powerful young
man named Tom Buchanan asked her to marry him, Daisy
decided not to wait for Gatsby after all. Now a beautiful
socialite, Daisy lives with Tom across from Gatsby in the
fashionable East Egg district of Long Island. She is sardonic
and somewhat cynical, and behaves superficially to mask her pain at her husband’s constant
infidelity.
Partially based on Fitzgerald’s wife, Zelda, Daisy is a beautiful young woman from Louisville,
Kentucky. She is Nick’s cousin and the object of Gatsby’s love. As a young debutante in
Louisville, Daisy was extremely popular among the military officers stationed near her home,
including Jay Gatsby. Gatsby lied about his background to Daisy, claiming to be from a wealthy
family in order to convince her that he was worthy of her. Eventually, Gatsby won Daisy’s heart,
and they made love before Gatsby left to fight in the war. Daisy promised to wait for Gatsby,
but in 1919 she chose instead to marry Tom Buchanan, a young man from a solid, aristocratic
family who could promise her a wealthy lifestyle and who had the support of her parents.
After 1919, Gatsby dedicated himself to winning Daisy back, making her the single goal of all
of his dreams and the main motivation behind his acquisition of immense wealth through
criminal activity. To Gatsby, Daisy represents the paragon of perfection—she has the aura of
charm, wealth, sophistication, grace, and aristocracy that he longed for as a child in North
Dakota and that first attracted him to her. In reality, however, Daisy falls far short of Gatsby’s
ideals. She is beautiful and charming, but also fickle, shallow, bored, and sardonic. Nick
characterizes her as a careless person who smashes things up and then retreats behind her
money. Daisy proves her real nature when she chooses Tom over Gatsby in Chapter 7, then
allows Gatsby to take the blame for killing Myrtle Wilson even though she herself was driving
the car. Finally, rather than attend Gatsby’s funeral, Daisy and Tom move away, leaving no
forwarding address.
Like Zelda Fitzgerald, Daisy is in love with money, ease, and material luxury. She is capable
of affection (she seems genuinely fond of Nick and occasionally seems to love Gatsby
sincerely), but not of sustained loyalty or care. She is indifferent even to her own infant
daughter, never discussing her and treating her as an afterthought when she is introduced in
Chapter 7. In Fitzgerald’s conception of America in the 1920s, Daisy represents the amoral
values of the aristocratic East Egg set.
1.4 Tom Buchanan
Daisy’s immensely wealthy husband, once a member of Nick’s
social club at Yale. Powerfully built and hailing from a socially
solid old family, Tom is an arrogant, hypocritical bully. His social
attitudes are laced with racism and sexism, and he never even
considers trying to live up to the moral standard he demands
from those around him. He has no moral qualms about his own
extramarital affair with Myrtle, but when he begins to suspect
Daisy and Gatsby of having an affair, he becomes outraged and
forces a confrontation.
Tom is, above all, characterized by physical and mental hardness. Physically, he has a large,
muscle-bound, imposing frame. Tom’s body is a “cruel body” with “enormous power” that, as
Nick explains, he developed as a college athlete. Tom’s strength and bulk give him an air of
danger and aggression, as when he hurts Daisy’s finger and she calls him a “brute of a man,
a great, big, hulking physical specimen…” Tom’s physical appearance is echoed in his mental
inflexibility and single-minded way of thinking about the world. Just as Tom uncritically repeats
racist things he’s read in books, he remains unshakable regarding his troubled marriage with
Daisy. At the end of the book, even after it becomes clear that both Tom and Daisy have
cheated on each other, Tom stubbornly maintains that they have always loved each other and
that they always will, no matter what. Taken together, Tom’s physical and mental hardness
produce a brutish personality that uses threats and violence to maintain control.
Tom’s brutish personality relates to the larger arc of his life. According to Nick, Tom peaked
very early in his life. He was a nationally known football star in his youth, but after his time in
the spotlight ended and fame faded away, everything else in Tom’s life felt like “an anticlimax.”
In Chapter 1 Nick posits that Tom has always sought to recapture the thrill of his youth, and
his failure to do so infuses his life with a sense of melancholy. It is perhaps this sense of
melancholy that contributes to Tom’s evident victim complex. Early in the book, Tom describes
a racist book he’s read. The book has clearly left him feeling anxious, and he even expresses
his absurd belief that “the white race will be . . . utterly submerged.” A rich man, Tom has no
reason to feel victimized in this way. Nor does he have reasonable cause to feel victimized
when he learns about Daisy’s history with Gatsby, since he himself has engaged in a far worse
extramarital affair. Nevertheless, jealousy gets the better of Tom, and he once again uses
threats and demands to reassert a sense of control.
1.5 Jordan Baker
Daisy’s friend, a woman with whom Nick becomes
romantically involved during the course of the novel. A
competitive golfer, Jordan represents one of the “new
women” of the 1920s—cynical, boyish, and self-centered.
Jordan is beautiful, but also dishonest: she cheated in order
to win her first golf tournament and continually bends the
truth.
From her very first appearance in the novel, Jordan strikes Nick as mysterious, aloof, and
alluring. Jordan belongs to the upper crust of society. Although she moved to the east coast
from somewhere in the Midwest, she has quickly risen among the social ranks to become a
famous golfer—a sport played mainly among the wealthy. Yet Jordan’s rise to social
prominence and affluence is founded on lies. Not only did she cheat to win her first major golf
tournament, she’s also incurably dishonest. According to Nick, Jordan constantly bends the
truth in order to keep the world at a distance and protect herself from its cruelty. Nick senses
Jordan’s nature when he initially encounters her lounging on a couch with Daisy in Chapter 1.
He writes: “She was extended full length at her end of the divan, completely motionless, and
with her chin raised a little, as if she were balancing something on it which was quite likely to
fall.” Here Jordan appears distant, statuesque, and beautiful, even regal with her chin tilted
into the air. Yet Nick’s description also lends her appearance an air of fragility, as if she’s
posing.
Jordan’s cynical and self-centered nature marks her as one of the “new women” of the Roaring
Twenties. Such new women were called “flappers,” and they became famous for flouting
conventional standards of female behavior. Flappers distinguished themselves physically by
bobbing their hair, dressing in short skirts, and wearing a lot of makeup. They also listened to
jazz music, smoked cigarettes, openly drank alcohol, and drove cars. Most scandalous of all,
flappers were known for their casual attitudes toward sexuality. Jordan’s presence in the novel
draws attention to the social and political turbulence of the Jazz Age. In this sense, Jordan
calls forth the larger social and historical background against which the tragic events of the
novel unfold. Unlike Daisy, who leads a conventional life of marriage and children and doesn’t
work (or even drink alcohol), Jordan represents a new path for women. Whereas Daisy is the
object of men’s fantasy and idealism, Jordan exhibits a hard-hearted pragmatism that, for Nick
at least, links her more forcefully to the real world.
1.6 Myrtle Wilson
Tom’s lover, whose lifeless husband George owns a run-down
garage in the valley of ashes. Myrtle herself possesses a fierce
vitality and desperately looks for a way to improve her
situation. Unfortunately for her, she chooses Tom, who treats
her as a mere object of his desire.
Myrtle Wilson desperately seeks a better life than the one she
has. She feels imprisoned in her marriage to George, a
downtrodden and uninspiring man who she mistakenly
believed had good “breeding.” Myrtle and George live together
in a ramshackle garage in the squalid “valley of ashes,” a pocket of working-class desperation
situated midway between New York and the suburbs of East and West Egg. Myrtle attempts
to escape her social position by becoming a mistress to the wealthy Tom Buchanan, who buys
her gifts (including a puppy) and rents her an apartment in Manhattan, where Myrtle play-acts
an upper-class lifestyle, dressing up, throwing parties, expressing disgust for servants. Myrtle
seems to believe Tom genuinely loves her, and would marry her if only Daisy would divorce
him. Nick knows that Tom would never marry Myrtle, and the lopsidedness of the relationship
makes Myrtle a more sympathetic character than she would be otherwise. To Tom, Myrtle is
just another possession, and when she tries to assert her own will, he resorts to violence to
put her in her place. Tom at once ensures and endangers her upwardly mobile desires.
Although The Great Gatsby is full of tragic characters who don’t get what they want, Myrtle’s
fate is among the most tragic, as she is a victim of both her husband as well as people she’s
never met. Myrtle is a constant prisoner. In the beginning of the book she’s stuck in the
figurative prison of her social class and her depressing marriage. Midway through, however,
this immaterial prison becomes literal when George, suspicious that she’s cheating on him,
locks her in their rooms above the garage. This situation only amplifies her desperation to
escape, which leads to her death in Chapter 7. When she escapes and runs out in front of
Gatsby’s car, she does so because she saw Tom driving it earlier in the day; she thinks he’s
behind the wheel. Daisy, who doesn’t know Myrtle, is driving the car when it strikes Myrtle
down; Daisy doesn’t even stop to see what happened, and escapes without consequences.
The lower class characters – Gatsby, Myrtle, and George – are thus essentially sacrificed for
the moral failings of the upper class characters of Tom and Daisy.
1.7 George Wilson
Myrtle’s husband, the lifeless, exhausted owner of a run-down
auto shop at the edge of the valley of ashes. George loves and
idealizes Myrtle, and is devastated by her affair with Tom.
George is consumed with grief when Myrtle is killed. George is
comparable to Gatsby in that both are dreamers and both are
ruined by their unrequited love for women who love Tom.
1.8 Owl Eyes
The eccentric, bespectacled drunk whom Nick meets at
the first party he attends at Gatsby’s mansion. Nick finds
Owl Eyes looking through Gatsby’s library, astonished
that the books are real.
1.9 Klipspringer
The shallow freeloader who seems almost to live at
Gatsby’s mansion, taking advantage of his host’s
money. As soon as Gatsby dies, Klipspringer
disappears—he does not attend the funeral, but he
does call Nick about a pair of tennis shoes that he
left at Gatsby’s mansion.
1.10 Meyer Wolfsheim
Gatsby’s friend, a prominent figure in organized crime. Before the
events of the novel take place, Wolfsheim helped Gatsby to make
his fortune bootlegging illegal liquor. His continued acquaintance
with Gatsby suggests that Gatsby is still involved in illegal business.
2. Literary Devices
2.1 Themes
Long considered a great work of literature, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald has several
interesting themes, which are topics central to the overall message of the book. Discover five
of the key themes in The Great Gatsby to enhance your understanding of this 1922 novel.
2.1.1 The American Dream
The American Dream is one of the major themes in The Great Gatsby. The life of Jay Gatsby
himself is an embodiment of the American Dream, as he's a poor farm boy who changes his
name and reinvents himself to become wealthy and successful, at least financially. His story
is a 1920s jazz age take on the classic rags to riches story, transitioning from a simple life
where money is scarce to the riches and extravagance that become possible once one has
money.
2.1.2 Society and Class
Of course, being a self-made man, Jay's entry into a wealthy lifestyle is via "new money." Even
though he can live an extravagant lifestyle that puts him in contact with people who have been
wealthy their whole lives, he can never truly be part of the "old money" crowd. Jay can run with
them, but he'll never be one of them. Those who come from wealth continue to look down on
Jay and others with "new" money, even as they make space for the newcomers to the
extravagant social scene in their lives, at least on the surface.
2.1.3 Dissatisfaction
Even after achieving a version of the American Dream and living the lifestyle to which he
aspired, Jay Gatsby remained dissatisfied with his success. Despite all he has done, Jay
desperately wants what he can't have. He reaches one milestone or goal only to find that there
is always another level, to a point where further advancement is elusive or impossible. Too
late, Jay realizes that enough will never be enough; that no matter what he accomplishes, he
will always yearn for more and grasp for what is out of his reach. The book's green light is
an example of a motif that links to the theme of dissatisfaction.
2.1.4 Love and Marriage
In The Great Gatsby, we see how love and marriage are intertwined with society and class, as
well as dissatisfaction. Jay Gatsby will never win the love of his life, the upper-crust Daisy
Buchanan, away from her husband Tom. Earlier in life, Daisy and Jay had dated, but when it
was time to marry she chose someone from her own social class (Tom Buchanan). Of course,
it may be that Jay really only wants Daisy because she's out of reach and represents what he
cannot have, both in terms of love and social status
Marriage is not portrayed in a positive way. Throughout the book, Tom is cheating on Daisy.
Ironically, Tom's mistress (Myrtle) is working-class and married to someone in her same class.
Tom has the "it" girl of the upper class, yet seems to be searching below his social station for
something that is missing from his marriage. It's important to note that Daisy remains with the
spouse who shares her social status rather than walking away him for the love of the nouveauriche Gatsby. Daisy eliminates the threat to her marriage via a hit-and-run incident rather than
walking away from her cheating spouse.
2.1.5 Power
The theme of power is integral to The Great Gatsby, and it's intertwined with the other themes.
The power Tom has over Daisy is why she continues to stay with him, even after his infidelity
and knowledge of Jay's feelings for her. That's because Daisy's position in society is linked
inextricably to her identity as the wife of Tom Buchanan. He also controls the money in the
marriage, which provides him with another form of power over Daisy.
Without Tom, Daisy might find loyalty and true love with Jay, and she wouldn't be penniless.
While Jay doesn't have old money or a spot in the upper class of society, he still has money.
However, Daisy ultimately cares more about status and social standing than she cares for Jay
or even herself. Tom knows he wields this power and relishes it, as it gives him power not only
over Daisy but also over Jay. Tom relishes the fact that Jay wants Daisy, but can't have her.
2.1.6 Lessons learned from the Great Gatsby Themes
These themes are illustrated in many quotes from The Great Gatsby. The book makes a
powerful statement about the human condition and the social environment of the 1920s. It
shined a light on the unique combination of excess and disillusionment of the 1920s in the
United States. These themes and symbols from The Great Gatsby are still valid and applicable
to society today. Often, people strive for what is out of reach only to realize that what they
thought they wanted wouldn't truly make them happy. All the money in the world can't replace
the emptiness that comes from unrealized dreams and living in a way that is based more on
appearances than substances. While theme is on your mind, dig a little deeper by reviewing
some more examples of theme in literature.
2.2 Symbols
Symbols
Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or
concepts.
The Green Light
Situated at the end of Daisy’s East Egg dock and barely visible from Gatsby’s West Egg lawn,
the green light represents Gatsby’s hopes and dreams for the future. Gatsby associates it with
Daisy, and in Chapter 1 he reaches toward it in the darkness as a guiding light to lead him to
his goal. Because Gatsby’s quest for Daisy is broadly associated with the American dream,
the green light also symbolizes that more generalized ideal. In Chapter 9, Nick compares the
green light to how America, rising out of the ocean, must have looked to early settlers of the
new nation.
The Valley of Ashes
First introduced in Chapter 2, the valley of ashes between West Egg and New York City
consists of a long stretch of desolate land created by the dumping of industrial ashes. It
represents the moral and social decay that results from the uninhibited pursuit of wealth, as
the rich indulge themselves with regard for nothing but their own pleasure. The valley of ashes
also symbolizes the plight of the poor, like George Wilson, who live among the dirty ashes and
lose their vitality as a result.
The Eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg
The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are a pair of fading, bespectacled eyes painted on an old
advertising billboard over the valley of ashes. They may represent God staring down upon and
judging American society as a moral wasteland, though the novel never makes this point
explicitly. Instead, throughout the novel, Fitzgerald suggests that symbols only have meaning
because characters instill them with meaning. The connection between the eyes of Doctor T.
J. Eckleburg and God exists only in George Wilson’s grief-stricken mind. This lack of concrete
significance contributes to the unsettling nature of the image. Thus, the eyes also come to
represent the essential meaninglessness of the world and the arbitrariness of the mental
process by which people invest objects with meaning. Nick explores these ideas in Chapter 8,
when he imagines Gatsby’s final thoughts as a depressed consideration of the emptiness of
symbols and dreams.
2.3 Antagonist
Antagonist
Tom Buchanan is the main antagonist in The Great Gatsby. An aggressive and physically
imposing man, Tom represents the biggest obstacle standing between Gatsby and Daisy’s
reunion. For much of the novel Tom exists only as an idea in Gatsby’s mind. In fact, the reader
meets Tom long before Gatsby does, and understands that Tom will not back down from Daisy
gracefully. Tom’s own adultery would seem to make it easier for Gatsby to steal Daisy away,
but Tom maintains a strong need to keep order among his possessions—including his women.
Tom is also deeply invested in maintaining the social order. He feels threatened by the idea of
the lower classes encroaching on his privileged life. He objects to Gatsby not only because
Gatsby is in love with Daisy, but also because Gatsby comes from a poor background. When
he says Daisy wouldn’t leave him “for a common swindler who’d have to steal the ring he put
on her finger,” he implies that he’d understand Daisy leaving him for another wealthy man, but
can’t accept her betraying him with someone of lower status. Tom’s antagonism, then, is not
just an attempt to thwart Gatsby in his specific quest, but to fight against class mobility in
general.
While Tom most clearly stands in the way of Gatsby’s love for Daisy, Daisy herself functions
as an antagonist as well. Years prior to the events of the novel, when Gatsby left to join the
war effort, Daisy decided to give up on her love for Gatsby and run with a fast and rich crowd.
Her decision to marry Tom widened the social gap between Daisy and Gatsby, thwarting
Gatsby in his quest to be with her. Even once Tom learns about Daisy and Gatsby’s affair,
Daisy prevents Gatsby from attaining his goal of being with her when she refuses to say she
never loved Tom. Like Tom, Daisy is deeply attached to her upper class lifestyle. After the
accident, even though Gatsby takes responsibility for Myrtle’s death, Daisy once again
chooses Tom over Gatsby. All that Gatsby wants is Daisy, but Daisy repeatedly prevents him
from attaining this goal of possessing her completely. Even though she loves him, Daisy plays
a crucial role in Gatsby’s downfall.
Daisy’s passive role in Gatsby’s death signals a broader, more abstract antagonist that also
haunts the novel: the American Dream of upward mobility. All of the characters in the book—
even Nick, as he discloses in the opening pages—seek financial improvement in the hopes of
securing a better life. Yet none of these characters achieves anything like happiness. Nick is
the book’s most astute commentator on the illusory nature of the American Dream. On the
novel’s final page, Nick specifically addresses what he considers the elusive nature of the
American Dream. Even though hopeful dreaming like Gatsby’s seems to be oriented toward
the future, Nick claims that such dreaming is stuck in the past. More specifically, he argues
that the American Dream hearkens back to the time before America was even born, when it
existed purely as an idea in some Dutch sailors’ minds. Nick’s point is that reality always falls
short of the dream, and so striving to stay in the dream can just as easily lead one into a
nightmare.
2.4 Genre
Genre
Tragedy, Realism, Modernism, Social Satire
Tragedy
The Great Gatsby can be considered a tragedy in that it revolves around a larger-than-life hero
whose pursuit of an impossible goal blinds him to reality and leads to his violent death.
According to the classical definition of tragedy, the hero possesses a tragic flaw that compels
him to reach for something or attempt something that precipitates a disastrous result. Writers
employ the conventions of tragedy to explore characters’ relationship to fate and free will, and
provide catharsis, or emotional release, in audiences. Gatsby’s tragic flaw is his inability to
wake up from his dream of the past and accept reality. His obsession with recapturing his past
relationship with Daisy compels him to a life of crime and deceit. He becomes a bootlegger,
does business with a gangster, and creates a false identity. He is rumored to have killed a
man. He briefly attains his goal of being reunited with the object of his obsession, but willfully
blinds himself to the reality of the situation: that Daisy is no longer the young woman he fell in
love with in Louisville. Rather, she is a married mother with no real intention of leaving her
husband. While Gatsby’s criminal behavior is self-destructive, his tragic refusal to see reality
ultimately leads to his death.
Despite telling the story of Gatsby’s downfall, Nick does not present him as a particularly dark
character, instead expressing admiration for Gatsby’s “extraordinary gift for hope” and
“romantic readiness.” But Gatsby’s romantic hopefulness functions as a flaw, rather than a
virtue. It leads him to crime, violence, and ultimately a form of suicide, when he takes the blame
for Myrtle’s death.
One could argue that the rigidity of the American class system means Gatsby is fated to fail to
achieve his dream, an example of tragedy being determined by fate. Another interpretation is
that Gatsby willfully chooses his dream over reality, a counter example of tragedy being
impelled by free will. Nick suggests this interpretation when he says, about Gatsby’s last
moments, “he must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living
too long with a single dream.” Either way, Gatsby’s inherent flaw leads to his ruin and the death
of several characters, as in the classic definition of tragedy.
Realism
The Great Gatsby is an example of literary realism because it depicts the world as it really is.
Realist novels employ geographically precise settings and locations, factual historic events,
and accurate descriptions of social systems to reflect and implicitly critique contemporary
society. Realist writers strive to reflect a world the reader recognizes, and provide insight into
how human nature functions in this reality.
In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald’s characters move through Manhattan landmarks such as the
Plaza Hotel, Pennsylvania Station, and Central Park. East and West Egg are recognizable as
fictionalized versions of the real towns of East and West Hampton. References to the First
World War and Prohibition situate the novel in a specific time and place. The great economic
disparity of the early 1920s, presented in the contrast between Gatsby’s extravagant parties
and the destitute families living in the valley of ashes, also realistically portray the social order
of the novel’s time. Fitzgerald’s frank acknowledgement of sex, adultery, and divorce further
ground the plot in reality.
Modernism
The Great Gatsby is also an example of modernism, a literary and artistic movement that
reacted against the romantic, often sentimental novels and art of the Victorian period, and
reached its height during and after World War I. Modernist writers were concerned with the
individual’s experience in a rapidly industrializing society, and rallied to modernist poet Ezra
Pound’s declaration “Make it new!” Fitzgerald, who was part of the same group as Pound, said
his goal for The Great Gatsby was to write “something new.”
In the novel, the encroachment of modernity is seen in the descriptions of the valley of ashes,
as well as the “red-belted ocean-going ships,” trains, and most of all, automobiles. The
sardonic descriptions of the latest innovations, such as “a machine which could extract the
juice…of two hundred oranges…if a little button was pressed two hundred times,” implies a
certain amount of anxiety about the increasing automation of everyday life. Fitzgerald portrays
both the exhilaration of urban landscapes – “the satisfaction that the constant flicker of men
and women and machines gives to the restless eye” – and the lonely anonymity of workers in
the “white chasms” of the city.
In some aspects, however, Fitzgerald deviates from modernist writers such as Virginia Woolf
and James Joyce. Their novels Mrs. Dalloway and Ulysses both follow one or two characters
over the course of a single day and are narrated in a stream-of-consciousness style of interior
monologue, while Gatsby has a more traditional plot and narrative style.
Social Satire
Fitzgerald’s use of irony, exaggeration, and ridicule to mock hypocritical social types also
qualifies The Great Gatsby as a social satire. Characters in social satires are frequently
unsympathetic, functioning as emblems of social problems in order to highlight inequality and
injustice.
In Gatsby, many of the minor characters serve as symbols of the mindless excess and
superficiality of the Jazz Age. Fitzgerald catalogues the many guests at Gatsby’s parties with
humorous disdain: the three Mr. Mumbles, the man in the library who is shocked to discover
the books on the shelves are real, the group who “flipped their noses up like goats at
whosoever came near,” the girls whose last names were “either the melodious names of
flowers… or the sterner ones of the great American capitalists.”
Fitzgerald satirizes capitalism in general with the figure of the man selling puppies outside the
train station who bears “an absurd resemblance to John D. Rockefeller.” By comparing a
powerful tycoon to a street vendor, Fitzgerald satirizes the self-importance of the American
ruling class.
But while some social satire retains a superficial tone throughout, The Great Gatsby goes
deeper into human fallibility. The tragedy at the book’s end, in which Myrtle Wilson, Gatsby,
and George Wilson all die in quick succession, is treated without humor. This chain of events
illustrates the heartlessness of the characters involved, but also reveals Gatsby’s humanity,
and treats him as a character worthy of the reader’s sympathy after Daisy abandons him. Nick’s
comment that Gatsby is “better than the whole damn bunch put together,” and his loyalty after
Gatsby is killed suggests that Gatsby’s death has true consequence. This solemn tone
contrasts with the lighter, more satiric tone of the book’s beginning.
Satire is often limited in its ability to engage emotions of sadness, sympathy, and melancholy,
and Fitzgerald uses a more serious tone to communicate these emotions. He expands his
main characters, especially Nick and Gatsby, beyond caricature into fully realized, believable
individuals.
2.5 Style
Style
The style of The Great Gatsby is wry, sophisticated, and elegiac, employing extended
metaphors, figurative imagery, and poetic language to create a sense of nostalgia and loss.
The book can be read as an extended elegy, or poetic lament, for Gatsby – “the man who gives
his name to this book… who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn.”
Throughout the novel Nick references the fact that he is creating a written account of a time
past – one he remembers with nostalgia and fondness. One of the most frequently occurring
words in the book is ‘time,’ and the word ‘past’ appears often, as well, suggesting the act of
remembrance and recollection. Fitzgerald describes Gatsby as an exceptionally graceful,
stylish, and elegant character, and the novel’s flowing, musical sentences underscore this
impression. When talking about other characters, however, the elevated, metaphoric language
often creates ironic contrast with the crude nature of the characters themselves. Many of his
descriptions contain an undertone of ridicule, with the most sympathetic, wistful passages
reserved for the character of Gatsby and for Nick’s lost innocence.
While an elegy is often written in a reverential style, Fitzgerald undercuts the sense of mourning
in Gatsby with sharp, sardonic wit. Nick’s narration of Gatsby’s parties and Long Island society
contains many subtly satiric observations. “Instead of rambling, this party had preserved a
dignified homogeneity, and assumed to itself the function of representing the staid nobility of
the countryside—East Egg condescending to West Egg, and carefully on guard against its
spectroscopic gayety.” The ornate words “homogeneity” and “spectroscopic” point toward
Nick’s high level of education and suggest that the novel speaks to a highly educated reader.
In describing the relationship between East and West Egg as “condescending” and “on guard,”
Fitzgerald also imbues the passage with a sense of elitism. Nick’s rarified tone is juxtaposed
against the behavior of the guests themselves, who grow increasingly less sophisticated as
the party wears on and the Champagne flows. By the end of the evening, the last guests are
nearly incoherent – “wonder’ff tell me where there’s a gas’line station?” – their inelegant speech
thrown into relief against the elegance of Nick’s description of the party.
The sophisticated style is also indicated by the extended metaphors and elaborate imagery
that characterize the novel. For example, in the description of the same party, Nick observes:
“The groups change more swiftly, swell with new arrivals, dissolve and form in the same breath;
already there are wanderers, confident girls who weave here and there among the stouter and
more stable, become for a sharp, joyous moment the center of a group, and then, excited with
triumph, glide on through the sea-change of faces and voices and color under the constantly
changing light.” Held together by semicolons and conjunctions, this lengthy descriptive
sentence gives the reader a vivid vision of the scene. We get a strong sense of continual
movement (“dissolve and form,” “wanderers,” “glide on,” “constantly changing”), much like a
dance, implying that the partygoers are accustomed to moving effortlessly through life. The
passage also includes a subtle extended metaphor of the ocean (“swell,” “dissolve and form,”
“sea-change”), adding to the sense of ceaseless motion.
Fitzgerald uses rhetorical devices such as alliteration and repetition to contribute to the text’s
evocative mood. For example, when Gatsby and Tom visit Myrtle in the city, Nick imagines
someone looking up at them illuminated in a window, saying: “Yet high over the city our line of
yellow windows must have contributed their share of human secrecy to the casual watcher in
the darkening streets, and I was him too, looking up and wondering. I was within and without,
simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.” The list of contrasts
(“within” and “without,” “enchanted” and “repelled”) illustrate Nick’s restlessness and
fascination with the city. Even the most casual observations are highly stylized, often more
poetic than literal, like Nick’s description of an enraged wife who appears “like an angry
diamond,” or the city “rising up out of the river in white heaps and sugar lumps.” These
metaphoric descriptions are contrasted with the vernacular speech of many of the lower class
characters, such as the Wilsons. “I just got wised up to something funny… that’s why I been
bothering you about the car,” Mr. Wilson tells Tom. Whereas some other writers of the time
period, such as Ernest Hemingway, preferred to use simple language, Fitzgerald delights in
the poetic capacities of his prose, and in juxtaposing elevated, imagistic language with the
rough voices and brutish nature of many of his characters.
2.6 Tone
Tone
The tone of The Great Gatsby veers between scornful and sympathetic, with caustic scorn
gradually giving way to melancholic sympathy toward the end. The tone of the opening
paragraphs of the novel is also melancholic because Nick narrates these paragraphs from a
later perspective, as part of the framing of the narrative. Once he’s established his framing
device, Nick becomes wry and satiric in describing the Long Island social scene. Nick is both
impressed and disturbed by his neighbors’ hedonistic lifestyles. He extensively details the
decadence of Gatsby’s extravagant parties and comments on Tom and Daisy in a tone of aloof
reproach. When Nick finds out about Tom’s affair with Myrtle, he says, “To a certain
temperament the situation might have seemed intriguing—my own instinct was to telephone
immediately for the police.” He does not actually phone the police, or even tell Daisy about the
affair, preferring to remain passive and confine his concerns to critical observations. He
continues to visit Daisy, Tom, and Gatsby and enjoy their benevolence. In these opening
chapters, the tone remains coolly bemused by the excesses and romantic entanglements of
others.
As the book proceeds, and Nick becomes friendly with Gatsby, he gets drawn into the love
triangle between Tom, Daisy, and Gatsby, and the tone becomes both more emotional and
more melancholy. Nick is less sardonic, and more earnest in his storytelling. His tone becomes
sympathetic, even admiring, as he begins to know Gatsby and understand the source of his
obsession with Daisy. The tone then becomes even more intimate, as Nick starts to identify
with Gatsby: “Through all he said… I was reminded of something – an elusive rhythm, a
fragment of lost words, that I had heard somewhere a long time ago.” In the famous final line
of the book, the extent of this melancholic tone reaches its climax as Nick concludes, “So we
beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” Here, the tone is one
of complete identification as Nick includes himself (and the reader) as susceptible to the pull
of the past. The alliteration of “b” sounds reinforces this impression of circularity and makes us
further feel the pain and helplessness of the characters.
2.7 Metaphors and Similes
Metaphors and Similes
Chapter 1
Instead of being the warm center of the world, the Middle West now seemed like the ragged
edge of the universe.
Nick uses this simile, comparing the Midwest to the far edges of the universe, to explain how
his hometown no longer felt like home after he returned from World War I, and why he felt
compelled to move East.
Twenty miles from the city a pair of enormous eggs, identical in contour and separated only by
a courtesy bay, jut out into the most domesticated body of salt water in the Western
hemisphere, the great wet barnyard of Long Island Sound.
In this metaphor, Nick compares Long Island Sound to a barnyard and East Egg and West
Egg to a pair of actual eggs, suggesting that humans have tamed and domesticated this area
for their own purposes.
She was extended full length at her end of the divan, completely motionless, and with her chin
raised a little, as if she were balancing something on it which was quite likely to fall. . . . Miss
Baker’s lips fluttered, she nodded at me almost imperceptibly, and then quickly tipped her head
back again—the object she was balancing had obviously tottered a little and given her
something of a fright.
Nick uses an extended simile to characterize the condescending way that Jordan looks down
her nose at him when they first meet, comparing her snobbish posture to that of a person trying
to balance something on her chin.
. . . wedging his tense arm imperatively under mine, Tom Buchanan compelled me from the
room as though he were moving a checker to another square.
Here Nick uses a simile to convey Tom’s brute strength and commanding nature, likening
himself (Nick) to a piece in a game of checkers that Tom can push around the board with
minimal effort.
As for Tom, the fact that he “had some woman in New York” was really less surprising than
that he had been depressed by a book. Something was making him nibble at the edge of stale
ideas, as if his sturdy physical egotism no longer nourished his peremptory heart.
In this metaphor, Nick derides Tom’s obsession with the white-supremacist book “The Rise of
the Colored Empires,” comparing the book’s ideas to stale bread that Tom is using to feed his
sense of entitlement.
Chapter 2
At 158th Street the cab stopped at one slice in a long white cake of apartment houses.
This metaphor compares a row of apartment buildings in New York to a white cake in which
each building is a slice, suggesting that all of the buildings are identical and white.
Chapter 3
My incredulity was submerged in fascination now; it was like skimming hastily through a dozen
magazines.
Nick compares Gatsby’s far-fetched yet fascinating life story to the sensational stories often
found in magazines, and his own interest to that of a person gobbling up these magazine
stories.
Chapter 6
"Perhaps you know that lady." Gatsby indicated a gorgeous, scarcely human orchid of a
woman who sat in state under a white-plum tree. Tom and Daisy stared, with that peculiarly
unreal feeling that accompanies the recognition of a hitherto ghostly celebrity of the movies.
"She’s
lovely,"
said
Daisy.
"The man bending over her is her director."
In this metaphor, Nick conveys the beauty and elegance of a movie star by comparing her to
an orchid (a tall, slender flower) sitting under a white-plum tree. The tree may be another
metaphor for her director, who is said to be “bending over her.”
Chapter 7
The prolonged and tumultuous argument that ended by herding us into that room eludes me,
though I have a sharp physical memory that, in the course of it, my underwear kept climbing
like a damp snake around my legs and intermittent beads of sweat raced cool across my back.
In this simile, Nick compares the uncomfortable clinging of his sweaty undergarments to the
feeling of a wet snake crawling up his legs. This simile may also speak to his displeasure at
becoming entangled in arguments between Tom, Daisy, and Gatsby.
Chapter 9
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
In this metaphor, Nick likens humans to rowers unsuccessfully paddling against the current,
struggling to reach an unattainable future while being carried backward toward past failures.
2.8 Motifs
Motifs
Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary devices that can help to develop and
inform the text’s major themes.
Geography
Throughout the novel, places and settings epitomize the various aspects of the 1920s
American society that Fitzgerald depicts. East Egg represents the old aristocracy, West Egg
the newly rich, the valley of ashes the moral and social decay of America, and New York City
the uninhibited, amoral quest for money and pleasure. Additionally, the East is connected to
the moral decay and social cynicism of New York, while the West (including Midwestern and
northern areas such as Minnesota) is connected to more traditional social values and ideals.
Nick’s analysis in Chapter 9 of the story he has related reveals his sensitivity to this dichotomy:
though it is set in the East, the story is really one of the West, as it tells how people originally
from west of the Appalachians (as all of the main characters are) react to the pace and style
of life on the East Coast.
Weather
As in much of Shakespeare’s work, the weather in The Great Gatsby unfailingly matches the
emotional and narrative tone of the story. Gatsby and Daisy’s reunion begins amid a pouring
rain, proving awkward and melancholy; their love reawakens just as the sun begins to come
out. Gatsby’s climactic confrontation with Tom occurs on the hottest day of the summer, under
the scorching sun (like the fatal encounter between Mercutio and Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet).
Wilson kills Gatsby on the first day of autumn, as Gatsby floats in his pool despite a palpable
chill in the air—a symbolic attempt to stop time and restore his relationship with Daisy to the
way it was five years before, in 1917.
2.9 Protagonist
Protagonist
Although Nick Carraway is the narrator of The Great Gatsby, and we only see things he
witnesses or is told about, Jay Gatsby is the protagonist of the novel. In addition to lending his
name to the book’s title, Gatsby also serves as the novel’s focal point. Gatsby’s quest to win
back Daisy incites all the action of the book, as well as the tragic conclusion. Unlike Nick, who
seems to not know what he wants, or else to not want more than to be an observer, Gatsby is
clear and determined about his goal. From the moment he first kissed Daisy, Gatsby has
aspired to attain her. This aspiration drives all his subsequent choices, and those choices in
turn affect the other characters in the novel. Mildred’s death, George’s suicide, and Gatsby’s
murder are all the result of Gatsby’s quest to have Daisy for himself. Tom, Daisy, and Nick’s
decisions to leave the east are also caused by Gatsby’s actions. Despite his power to change
his life and the lives of others, Gatsby fails to attain his goal. He dies without having won Daisy
back from Tom. In fact, we can infer that Gatsby’s presence in their lives served to draw the
couple closer together – the exact opposite of what Gatsby wanted.
2.10 Setting
Setting
The action of The Great Gatsby takes place along a corridor stretching from New York City to
the suburbs known as West and East Egg. West and East Egg serve as stand-ins for the reallife locations of two peninsulas along the northern shore of Long Island. Midway between the
Eggs and Manhattan lies the “valley of ashes,” where Myrtle and George Wilson have a rundown garage. This corridor between New York and the suburbs encompasses the full range
of social class. Whereas the valley of ashes is a place of evident poverty, both the city and the
two suburbs represent bastions of affluence. Nick describes the profound optimism he feels
when arriving in the city by train: “The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city
seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world.”
He goes on to assert, “Anything can happen now that we’ve slid over this bridge.” Yet for all
that New York appears full of possibility, Nick often finds his actual experience there sad, as
when, in Chapter 3, he observes “young clerks . . . wasting the most poignant moments of the
night and life.”
While both East and West Egg are wealthy communities, families with inherited wealth, or “old
money,” live in the more fashionable East Egg. In West Egg, by contrast, residents whose
wealth is new, like Gatsby, conspicuously mimic European aristocracy to appear established.
Gatsby’s house is modeled on the Hotel de Ville (French for city hall) in Normandy, France,
and was built by a brewer who offered to pay the neighbors to live in thatched cottages, like
peasants. While many of the descriptions of the houses in the novel seem over the top, they
are in fact based on real mansions that existed on Long Island in the 1920s. For example, an
estate named Harbor Hill was also modeled on Hotels de Ville, and included farms, a
blacksmith, a casino, and Turkish baths on its 650 acres. Despite such opulent displays of
wealth, the novel suggests that the city, the suburbs, and the valley of ashes all share a sense
of spiritual desolation and psychological desperation. In the end, then, it seems to matter little
where the characters find themselves along the corridor between New York and the twin Eggs.
Nobody in The Great Gatsby is happy about their lot in life.
2.11 Allusions
Allusions
Chapter 1
I bought a dozen volumes on banking and credit and investment securities, and they stood on
my shelf in red and gold like new money from the mint, promising to unfold the shining secrets
that only Midas and Morgan and Mæcenas knew.
This quote contains several allusions: The name Midas is an allusion to the Greek god Midas,
who turned everything he touched to gold, and “Morgan and Mæcenas” are allusions to the
financier J. P. Morgan and the wealthy Roman patron Mæcenas.
They are not perfect ovals—like the egg in the Columbus story, they are both crushed flat at
the contact end—but their physical resemblance must be a source of perpetual confusion to
the gulls that fly overhead.
This is an allusion to the story in which Christopher Columbus flattened the end of an egg to
get it to stand on its own.
Chapter II
Well, they say he’s a nephew or a cousin of Kaiser Wilhelm’s. That’s where all his money
comes from.
This is an allusion to Kaiser Wilhelm II, the last German emperor and the King of Prussia, who
abdicated right before the end of World War I.
Chapter III
The last swimmers have come in from the beach now and are dressing upstairs; the cars from
New York are parked five deep in the drive, and already the halls and salons and verandas
are gaudy with primary colors, and hair shorn in strange new ways, and shawls beyond the
dreams of Castile.
This is an allusion to the former powerful kingdom of Castile in Spain.
Suddenly one of these gypsies, in trembling opal, seizes a cocktail out of the air, dumps it
down for courage and, moving her hands like Frisco, dances out alone on the canvas platform.
A momentary hush; the orchestra leader varies his rhythm obligingly for her, and there is a
burst of chatter as the erroneous news goes around that she is Gilda Gray’s understudy from
the Follies.
These are allusions to the jazz dancer Joe Frisco, the actress and dancer Gilda Gray, and the
theatre revue the Ziegfeld Follies.
Taking our skepticism for granted, he rushed to the bookcases and returned with Volume One
of the ‘Stoddard Lectures.’
This is an allusion to the American writer John Stoddard, who wrote accounts of his travels
throughout the world.
It’s a bona-fide piece of printed matter. It fooled me. This fella’s a regular Belasco.
This is an allusion to the theatre producer David Belasco.
Chapter IV
One time he killed a man who had found out that he was nephew to Von Hindenburg and
second cousin to the devil.
This is an allusion to Paul von Hindenburg, a German general during World War I and eventual
president of Germany.
Meyer Wolfsheim? No, he’s a gambler.” Gatsby hesitated, then added coolly: “He’s the man
who fixed the World’s Series back in 1919.
This is an allusion to the incident in which eight members of the Chicago White Sox
intentionally lost the World Series in exchange for money, an undertaking actually organized
by Arnold Rothstein.
Chapter V
‘Your place looks like the World’s Fair,’ I said.
This is an allusion to the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893, the first to be powered by electricity.
Gatsby looked with vacant eyes through a copy of Clay’s “Economics,” staring at the Finnish
tread that shook the kitchen floor, and peering toward the bleared windows from time to time
as if a series of invisible but alarming happenings were taking place outside.
This is an allusion to the British economist Sir Henry Clay.
That’s the secret of Castle Rackrent. Tell your chauffeur to go far away and spend an hour.
This is an allusion to Maria Edgeworth’s 1800 novel Castle Rackrent, in which the ending is a
mystery to readers.
There was nothing to look at from under the tree except Gatsby’s enormous house, so I stared
at it, like Kant at his church steeple, for half an hour.
This is an allusion to the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, who would gaze at a church
steeple while deep in thought.
And inside, as we wandered through Marie Antoinette music-rooms and Restoration salons, I
felt that there were guests concealed behind every couch and table, under orders to be
breathlessly silent until we had passed through.
This is an allusion to the last queen of France, Marie Antoinette, who was known for her
expensive taste.
Chapter VI
The truth was that Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception
of himself.
This is an allusion to the Greek philosopher Plato’s idea of truth as an abstraction.
Chapter VII
It was when curiosity about Gatsby was at its highest that the lights in his house failed to go
on one Saturday night—and, as obscurely as it had begun, his career as Trimalchio was over.
This is an allusion to the ancient Roman satire Trimalchio, written by Petronius, in which the
title character is a former slave who dresses up as a rich man.
Chapter VIII
He had intended, probably, to take what he could and go—but now he found that he had
committed
himself
to
the
following
of
a
grail.
This is an allusion to the grail from which Jesus was said to have drunk at the Last Supper,
which has been the subject of many failed quests throughout history and literature.
2.12 Point of View
Point of View
The Great Gatsby is written in first-person limited perspective from Nick’s point of view. This
means that Nick uses the word “I” and describes events as he experienced them. He does not
know what other characters are thinking unless they tell him. Although Nick narrates the book,
in many ways he is incidental to the events involved, except that he facilitates the meeting of
Daisy and Gatsby. For the most part, he remains an observer of the events around him,
disappearing into the background when it comes time to narrate crucial meetings between
Gatsby, Tom, and Daisy. In several extended passages his voice disappears completely, and
he relates thoughts and feelings of other characters as though he is inside their heads. When
Gatsby tells Nick about his past with Daisy, Nick writes directly from Gatsby’s point of vie “His
heart beat faster as Daisy’s white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this
girl… his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited…” These passages
are presented as recollections Gatsby has told Nick, so they don’t violate the first-person
narration.
Whenever a novel is narrated in the first person by one of the characters, a key question for
the reader is how much faith we should put in the narrator’s reliability. When a story is told from
one person’s perspective, the narrator will almost always be unreliable in some way, simply
because the narrator brings his or her own biases to bear on the situation. Some narrators
deliberately lie to the reader. We call these narrators, or any narrator whose words can largely
not be trusted, “unreliable narrators.” Nick Carraway is not a classically unreliable narrator,
because Fitzgerald gives no indications that Nick is lying to the reader or that his version of
events directly contradicts anyone else’s. He apparently tries to be as truthful as possible. He
tells us right away that he has an uncanny ability to reserve judgment and get people to trust
him, which encourages us to see him as a reliable narrator. At the same time, he also says “I
am one of the few honest people I have ever known.” His very need to describe himself this
way makes the reader question how much Nick can actually be trusted.
Nick is also unreliable because of his fondness for Gatsby, which affects his view of the story
and is contrasted by his clear distaste for the other characters in the book. He sees Gatsby as
a symbol of hope, which makes his perspective biased and occasionally makes us question
his representation of Gatsby or Daisy as characters. Nick’s bias becomes clear in the earliest
pages of the book, when he tells us that “there was something gorgeous about him [Gatsby],
some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life.” We are inclined to see Gatsby as a
sensitive genius and to side with him in the romantic triangle between Gatsby, Daisy, and Tom.
The less appealing aspects of Gatsby’s character – the fact that he is involved in adultery, or
that his wealth comes from unsavory sources, and he may be mixed up in organized crime –
are justified as the romantic lengths to which he’ll go to be reunited with Daisy. Nick feels
contempt for Tom, and, to a lesser degree, Daisy, and his personal feelings for the characters
similarly color his presentation of events.
2.13 Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing is a significant technique in The Great Gatsby. From the book’s opening
pages, Fitzgerald hints at the book’s tragic end, with the mysterious reference to the “foul dust
that floated in the wake of (Gatsby’s) dreams.” Fitzgerald also employs false foreshadowing,
setting up expectations for one thing to happen, such as saying “Gatsby turned out all right at
the end,” then reversing it. Throughout the novel, foreshadowing enforces the sense of tragic
inevitability to events, as though all the characters are doomed to play out their fates. The use
of foreshadowing heightens the sense that no character can escape his or her predetermined
role in life.
Daisy’s unattainability
The first time we (and Nick) see Gatsby, he is standing with his arms outstretched, “trembling,”
reaching for the green light, which Fitzgerald describes as insubstantial – it is “minute and far
away,” and “might have been the end of a dock.” In this way, he suggests that Gatsby’s quest
is toward something ephemeral. When Nick looks again, Gatsby has disappeared into the
“unquiet darkness” – foreshadowing his disappearance into death at the end of the book. The
inaccessibility of the green light tells us to expect a narrative in which the object of desire will
never be obtained. Despite being reunited with Daisy, Gatsby is unable to fully attain her, just
as the green light will never come closer to his grasp.
Tom’s relationship with Myrtle
Another subtle instance of foreshadowing comes when Tom takes Nick to Myrtle’s apartment
and the reader comes to understand Tom’s attachment to Daisy. After Myrtle enrages Tom by
repeating Daisy’s name, Tom hits her and breaks her nose. This attack reveals Tom’s brutal
nature and pinpoints the relationship between Myrtle and Tom as a stressor for the story. When
Myrtle’s sister tells Nick that Daisy won’t divorce Tom because she’s Catholic, Nick is “shocked
at the elaborateness of the lie,” suggesting Daisy and Tom are more enmeshed than Myrtle
knows. This revelation foreshadows Daisy’s later refusal to say she never loved Tom. The
passage also sets up the scene after Myrtle is killed, when Nick sees Daisy and Tom together
and remarks on the “unmistakable air of natural intimacy about the couple.” Daisy’s
manslaughter of Myrtle is the resolution of the foreshadowing of both violence and the strength
of the bond between Tom and Daisy in the party scene. The surprising element is that Daisy,
not Tom, kills Myrtle, which reverses our expectations. In this way, Fitzgerald manipulates
foreshadowing in order to surprise the reader.
Gatsby’s fate
In a more misleading instance of foreshadowing, Nick implies that Gatsby will have a happy
ending; only after the reader has finished the book does the true meaning of Nick’s words
become clear. In the opening pages Nick says that “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.” The reader may
take the first proclamation as proof that Gatsby survives the story or ends up with Daisy, but
in fact Gatsby dies at the end of the novel. The red herring increases the reader’s surprise
when this occurs. Upon re-reading the passage, we understand another meaning of the
phrase, which is that Gatsby turns out to be a hero rather than a villain of the story. In the
second part of the quotation Nick tells us that the story will end sorrowfully and will have a
lasting negative impact on him; this also turns out to be true.
Myrtle killed by a car
Myrtle’s death in a hit-and-run car accident is both directly and indirectly foreshadowed.
Automobiles are a preoccupation of the novel, with many references to cars and driving. Early
in the book, Nick leaves Gatsby’s party and sees a car in a ditch, “violently shorn of one wheel,”
an image echoed later by the sight of Myrtle's “left breast swinging loose like a flap” after she
is hit by the car. Next, Jordan nearly runs over a workman with her car, then tells Nick she’s
not concerned about being a careless driver because “it takes two to make an accident.” These
scenes foreshadow the scene when Daisy hits Myrtle, who has run out into the road – an
accident caused by both Daisy and Myrtle’s carelessness. Direct foreshadowing appears near
the end of the book, when Nick and Tom and Jordan leave New York. Nick has just realized
it’s his birthday; he is thirty, and the years ahead of him promise only “a thinning briefcase of
enthusiasm, thinning hair.” Nick is suddenly aware of his own mortality, so when he says, “we
drove on toward death through the cooling twilight,” the sentence can be read as a general
reference to mortality. But in fact the line is a specific foreshadowing of Myrtle’s death, which
will happen soon down the road.