The Great Gatsby
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F. Scott Fitzgerald
“His style sings of hope, his message is despair.”
Cyril Connolly, writing of F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Although Fitzgerald came from a middle class family, with his
mother having some wealth behind her, they lived in relative
poverty because his father was never a big success in business,
and consequently did more menial jobs.
This background of poverty had a profound effect on his future
love prospects. In 1915 he met Ginerva King, a girl from a
wealthy family. Ginerva’s family disapproved of Fitzgerald’s
poor background, and consequently Ginerva married the most
eligible bachelor in Chicago at the time. This experience left
Fitzgerald with a feeling of social inferiority and a deep
awareness of his own poverty. It contributed to the awe he felt
towards the rich and warned him of the ruthlessness and careless nature of the upper class.
The next girl he met and wanted to marry (Zelda Sayre) broke off the engagement because
his prospects were not good. Only after “This Side of Paradise” was published in 1920 and
became a best seller did he go back to Zelda who agreed to marry him.
Evidently his experiences with Ginerva and Zelda greatly influenced him and can be seen in
the world he creates for Gatsby, Gatsby’s loss of Daisy and his consequent obsession with
getting her back. Nick Carraway remarks, early on, “High in a white palace the king’s
daughter, the golden girl” (chapt 7), which is possibly an oblique reference to Ginerva.
He wrote “The Great Gatsby” in 1924-5, and this was his most successful novel. He never
quite recaptured the success he attained in writing this novel.
The American Dream
The American Dream was an idea born from the first permanent
settlement in America. In 1620 the Pilgrim Fathers fled England to
escape persecution; in America they hoped for freedom to worship.
They had a dream of a new Eden whereas God’s chosen people they
could create a heaven on earth. This became known as the “Adamic
Myth”; it was as if the first man in America (they ignored the fact the
native Americans were there before them) was the first person in the
world. This new country to them was a new world full of possibilities
and hope. There seemed no limitations; there was just so much space
to be filled, utilised; it was a world of dreams.
It is this idea that Fitzgerald explores in “The Great Gatsby”.
The Great Gatsby Chapter 1
The Roaring Twenties and Prohibition
The 1920’s were known as the “Roaring Twenties”; it was a
time of huge economic growth which gave American the
highest standard of living in the world. Materialism, money
and consumption were the overriding principles. It was a
time of pleasure seeking and of reckless exuberance.
Fitzgerald played a big part in characterising these years as
such. We see youthful hedonism, yet there is foreboding and
a sense of the sinister. This decadence ended finally with the
Wall Street Crash of 1929, but until then hope was high and
the nation just spent, spent, spent. The American Dream had
metamorphosed from its original idea of spiritual freedom to
money grasping and social success. By 1929 it was clear
that poverty, unemployment and misery were still around.
It was also a time of prohibition. In 1920 drinking was banned. But this, instead of raising
moral standards, actually succeeded in creating a booming black market. Illegal drinking
saloons were known as “speakeasies” and thousands of them sprang up. Al Capone, rather
than being a social outcast was rather god-like. It was not difficult for drinkers to find
alcohol. In fact, bootlegging, the illicit production and provision of alcohol, became big
business.
The 1920’s were a decade of moral emptiness, and romantic idealism, and it is no mistake
that Fitzgerald chose to set his novel in this era.
Themes
Materialism; morally bankrupt, superficial world and the
luxurious, glamorous, excessive lifestyle
American dream; its hope and its eventual demise / fragility
History; its continuity, yet inability to be repeated
Appearance / reality
Social hierarchy; old money / new money
Record theme ideas on a separate page with Theme Heading.
Materialism / Conspicuous Consumption
The Twenties was a time of such superfluity and wealth that
people revelled in showing off their wealth. Tom Buchanan has a whole team of polo ponies
he takes with him on his travels. These announce his status to others. Jay Gatsby has a large
mansion, lavish parties and is proud of a new hydroplane. His life is flamboyant is quite the
opposite of the “hot” masses as seen through George Wilson. Their two worlds collide when
Gatsby’s expensive car kills the social climbing Myrtle, and finally leads George to his own
The Great Gatsby Chapter 1
victim; Gatsby himself. The excess sought by and indulged in by Gatsby is doomed to
failure, like the excess and indulgence of the 1920’s. Bootlegging appears to be the principle
source of Gatsby’s wealth, the core of corruption within his lifestyle.
American Dream and Jay Gatsby
The American dream dies in the novel; the novel traces America’s
evolution from “fresh green breast of a new world” to the “valley of
ashes”.
Gatsby is the symbol of the American Dream. The dream is the
individual versus society and the group. He is a mythical character;
Gatsby tries to subvert society; beat what is expected; he is from a
poor background and makes money. The dream relieves man from
their insecurity over their own identity and continuity. In attaining
the dream, he makes the dream the reality, but ironically, the dream
is only an illusion, and in effect he escapes the reality.
History; past, present and future:
Jay Gatsby wants to repeat history, or recapture it, but in the end, cannot. Gatsby isn’t really
aware of history and the fact it is continuous yet gone and past. He cannot therefore perceive
or predict the impossibility of his dream. Gatsby and Carraway lack the sense of history’s
paradox; that history is final and yet on-going. Gatsby thinks that he can change history;
recapture his love with Daisy; he lives the past in the present. Carraway does not enlighten
Gatsby. Carraway: “so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the
past”. Jay Gatsby and Americans want to return to the past in order to attain the future.
Gatsby represents the irony of American history and the corruption of the American dream.
Is any one person really to blame for his eventual downfall, or is it a combination of factors
that meant the end was unavoidable? He effectively acts out the tragedy of the American
vision. As a mythical character he is the embodiment of the conflict between illusion and
reality. He is the heir of the American dream, a romantic hero, destined to destruction. Is
there a tragic flaw? Is it his own, or society’s?
Appearance / Reality
What appears to be and what actually is, is a theme which runs through every aspect of the
novel; through Gatsby’s blindness to what Daisy actually is as compared to what she portrays
herself to be, to his inability to see history as unrepeatable yet still continual, to Jordan
Baker’s supposed success in the tennis world, to Carraway’s belief in Gatsby and the
American Dream, to the belief in the American Dream itself which has become sordid and
corrupt, to Gatsby’s apparent popularity, even to the illusion that Gatsby was the driver of the
car which killed Myrtle.
The Great Gatsby Chapter 1
Social Hierarchy
East Egg and West Egg are microcosms of the difference in social terms between the East
coast and the West coast that Carraway alludes to. Whereas the west is seen as backward and
parochial, the east is seen as civilised and socially advanced. We also see the attempt by
Gatsby to come from a poor and impoverished background to enter into the elite and
moneyed world of Tom and Daisy. He achieves the status, supposedly, but it is a sham, as is
proved by his eventual death; the guests attended his parties for their own selfish reasons;
they did not truly see Gatsby as part of their ‘set’. Myrtle Wilson too tries to enter into the
‘set’, but we see her goal quickly as unrealistic; Tom is not, and never has been, willing to
‘downgrade’; he is content in his own lifestyle with Daisy; he is married to who he is meant
to be; they ‘go together’. It would be inconceivable for him to give this up for such a social
outcast as Myrtle.
CHAPTER 1
Take notes to make a short summary of each chapter.
a) What do we learn about Nick from the first page of text? Is he trustworthy?
b) Read p 7-10. From ‘In my younger …’ to ‘… from a single window, after all.’) (N.B.
Page numbers taken from Penguin edition.) What do we learn about the narrator from
this section?
c) The novel is called ‘The Great Gatsby.’ What do we know about him by the end of
this section?
d) Read p 10-13 description of West and East Egg and houses. From ‘It was a matter of
chance…’ to ‘…ballooned slowly to the floor.’
e) Create two lists about the two communities:
West Egg
new money
tasteless/ostentatious
East Egg
old money
tasteful
f) Briefly look at description of Nick’s house, Gatsby’s mansion and then concentrate on
the more detailed description of the Buchanan’s house. What point is Fitzgerald trying
to make about the houses and their inhabitants?
g) Record character ideas on separate pages with Character Headings : Nick, Tom,
Daisy and Jordan. Trace development of the characters throughout the text.
The Great Gatsby Chapter 1