The Great Gatsby Study Guide
Pages 10 -14
1.
2.
Chapter 1
-Write the answers below.
On page 11 read the description of Tom Buchanan starting ‘He had changed…’
a.
What sort of person is Tom?
a.
In your opinion what does Nick (the narrator) think of Tom?
(Quote a sentence or phrase that gives you this impression.)
Page 12
3.
Read the passage below:
We walked through a high hallway into a bright rosy-colored space, fragilely bound into the house by
French windows at either end. The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside
that seemed to grow a little way into the house. A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one
end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding cake of the ceiling-and then rippled over the wine-colored rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea.
a) Underline all the adjectives.
b) What impression do you have of this room? Does it appeal to you?
4.
Read on:
‘The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were
buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white and their dresses were rippling and
fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house. I must have stood
for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall.
Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died out about the
room and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor.
Write down:
a) Colors
Movements (action verbs)
Sounds
b) List all the things that the room is compared to –the figurative images or pictures
that are not actually there.
The Great Gatsby Study Guide
Chapter 2
This part of the novel takes place in two places which are both symbolic.
Describe both of them as they are depicted in the book
1.
The Valley of Ashes.
2.
New York
Now re-read the section at Tom and Myrtle’s apartment.
1.
In what way are we made aware that Myrtle is from a different social class that Tom?
2.
Read the description of how Tom and Myrtle met –which Myrtle gives Nick
Page 36.
a.
What does Myrtle’s account sound like?
b. What does Nick think of Myrtle (quote and explain)
3.
4.
Look at the argument between Myrtle and Tom.
a.
What seems to have triggered this argument?
b.
How does it end?
How does Nick’s narration manage to convey the idea that he had drunk too much?
Quote and explain.
The Great Gatsby Study Guide
The Great Gatsby Quiz Questions to check reading.
Pages 7 -21
1.
Tom Buchanan had changed since the narrator last met him. He was
a.
b.
c.
d.
2.
filled with enormous dark wood furniture and green rugs
bare, except for a couple of orange silk cushions
cluttered with denim couches and pictures of Rudolph Valentino
a bright rosy colored space with a wine colored rug
The friend that is visiting the Buchanans is called:
a.
b.
c.
d.
5.
surprisingly small for people so rich
a cheerful Georgian colonial style house
a dark and imposing mansion covered in ivy
a daringly modern house with geometric shapes
The room that the two girls were in was
a.
b.
c.
d.
4.
arrogant, aggressive and bad tempered
difficult to hear
willing to accept other people’s faults
interested in Nick’s ideas
The house Tom and Daisy lived in was
a.
b.
c.
d.
3.
more
more
more
more
Pearl
Petal
Jordan
Jasmine
Daisy and Tom have:
a.
b.
c.
Three children
A three year old daughter
Twin girls
d.
No children
Questions on Chapter 2
1.
The valley of ashes is
a.
b.
c.
d.
an area of desolate land
a night club on Long Island
a book Nick likes
a name Daisy gives her garden
2.
The eyes of Dr T J Eckleburg can be seen
a.
b.
c.
d.
on a billboard by the side of the road
on a magazine cover in Gatsby’s house
on a spectacle stand in Nick’s kitchen
on the front of Nick’s car
3.
Tom Buchanan’s mistress lives above
a.
b.
c.
d.
an ice cream parlor
a malt shop
a liquor store
a garage
4.
a.
b.
c.
d.
5.
Tom’s mistress is called
Melanie Gillinghame
Miranda Williams
Myrtle Wilson
Mary Wobblestone
When they get to New York Tom’s mistress insists that he
a.
b.
c.
d.
buy her flowers
take her for a cocktail
buy her an apartment
buy her a dog
Figurative Language in The Great Gatsby
Group One
Identifying metaphors, similes and personification, and explaining the effect.
1. “Their house was even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful red and white Georgian
Colonial mansion overlooking the bay.” (Ch. 1)
figure of speech:
_________________________________________________________________________
____
analysis:
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
________________
2. “A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags...”
(Ch.1)
figure of speech:
_________________________________________________________________________
____
analysis:
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________
3. “... twisting them up toward the frosted wedding cake of the ceiling...” (Ch. 1)
figure of speech:
_________________________________________________________________________
____
analysis:
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________
4. “...and then [the breeze] rippled over the wine-colored rug, making a shadow on it as wind does
on the sea.” (Ch. 1)
figure of speech:
_________________________________________________________________________
___
analysis:
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________
5. “...For a moment the last sunshine fell with romantic affection upon her glowing face; her voice
compelled me forward breathlessly as I listened – then the glow faded, each light deserting her
with lingering regret, like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk.” (Ch. 1)
figure of speech:
_________________________________________________________________________
___
analysis: ___________________________________________________________
Identifying the symbolism of the different settings.
Setting/Symbol
Buchanan's house
East Egg
Gatsby’s House
Hotel in New York
Nick's house
Railroad tracks and motor road
T.J. Eckleberg billboard
Tom and Myrtle's apartment
Valley of Ashes
Page
Number
Group Two
Description
Group Three
Color Symbolism in the novel
Color, especially the following colors, creates a symbolic language throughout the book.
Find at least two examples of each of the colors below:
Color
White
Gold
Green
Page found
Describing
Group Four
The character depictions
What is said
“Her grey sun-stained eyes
looked back at me with polite
reciprocal curiosity out of a
wan, charming, discontented
face.”
‘He was standing with his hands
in his pockets regarding the
silver pepper of the stars'
“It was a body of enormous
leverage – a cruel body”
The instant her voice broke off
ceasing to compel my attention,
my belief, I felt the basic
insincerity of what she had
said.”
“He’s so dumb he doesn’t know
he’s alive.”
“Neither of them can stand the
person they’re married to.”
“The only crazy I was was when
I married him.”
Page No.
Character being discussed
Chapter Three
There was music from my neighbor’s house through the summer nights. In his blue
gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the
champagne and the stars. At high tide in the afternoon I watched his guests diving from
the tower of his raft, or taking the sun on the hot sand of his beach while his two
motor-boats slit the waters of the Sound, drawing aquaplanes over cataracts of foam.
On week-ends his Rolls-Royce became an omnibus, bearing parties to and from the city
between nine in the morning and long past midnight, while his station wagon scampered
like a brisk yellow bug to meet all trains. And on Mondays eight servants, including an
extra gardener, toiled all day with mops and scrubbing-brushes and hammers and
garden-shears, repairing the ravages of the night before.
Every Friday five crates of oranges and lemons arrived from a fruiterer in New
York—every Monday these same oranges and lemons left his back door in a pyramid of
pulpless halves. There was a machine in the kitchen which could extract the juice of two
hundred oranges in half an hour if a little button was pressed two hundred times by a
butler’s thumb.
At least once a fortnight a corps of caterers came down with several hundred
feet of canvas and enough colored lights to make a Christmas tree of Gatsby’s enormous
garden. On buffet tables, garnished with glistening hors-d’oeuvre, spiced baked hams
crowded against salads of harlequin designs and pastry pigs and turkeys bewitched to a
dark gold. In the main hall a bar with a real brass rail was set up, and stocked with gins
and liquors and with cordials so long forgotten that most of his female guests were too
young to know one from another…
Paired work
Chapter 3
1. What make of car does Gatsby use to transport guests?
2. How do the guests behave?
3. What does Nick wear to the party?
4. How does Gatsby interact with the guests?
5. What observation does Owl-Eyes make about Gatsby’s library?
6. What is Nick’s first opinion of Gatsby?
7. What happens at the end of the party as the guests are leaving?
8. What does Gatsby’s formal gesture of waving farewell remind us of?
9. What story does Nick recall about Jordan, and what is the catalyst for his
remembering?
Choose one of the phrases Nick uses to describe Jordan – explain its
significance.
Why does Nick describe the couples as “women with men said to be their
husbands”?
10.
What has Gatsby told Jordan? Speculate.
10
Jay Gatsby Profile
How does Fitzgerald introduce us to his central character?
1.
By having other characters talk about him
Read the following and then explain what is being said about Gatsby.
Read the section which begins (Page 2)
‘Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction –
Gatsby, who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn… 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.’
a.
b.
What is Nick’s evaluation of Gatsby at this point?
‘He’s a bootlegger… One time he killed a man…
2.
By what Gatsby does:
‘he stretched out his arms towards the dark water in a curious way, and as far as I was
from him, I could have sworn he was trembling.’ (page 21)
‘it was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may
come across four or five times in life.’
(page 48)
a.
What impression does Gatsby create on those around him?
3.
By what Gatsby says of himself:
‘I am the son of some wealthy people in the Middle West all dead now. I was brought up
in America but educated at Oxford, because all of my ancestors have been educated
there for many years. (page 65)
I lived like a young rajah…collecting jewels, chiefly rubies, hunting big game, painting a
little, things for myself only, and trying to forget something very sad that had happened
to me long ago. (Page 65 –66)
a.
What sort of life does Gatsby say he had in his youth?
11
Jay Gatsby Profile
Using this information, and any other information you can find in chapters 1 –6, complete
the following Chart for Jay Gatsby.
Character Name:
Facets of his life
Jay Gatsby
What he looks like
What impression he makes
on strangers
What he says about himself
How he seems to live
His friends
His weaknesses
His secrets?
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Page no’s
Chapter 4
Groupwork
1. Look at some of the people Nick lists as being at Gatsby’s parties
What sort of people so they appear to be?
2. What do you think Nick thinks of Gatsby’s car,? (page 64)
3.
What phrase does Gatsby repeatedly use to address Nick and others?
4. In what country did Gatsby receive a medal “For Valour Extraordinary”?
7. Who fixed the World Series in 1919, according to Gatsby?
Page 69
1. What kind of person is Wolfsheim?
Explain why you think this.
2. What does Gatsby apologize to Nick for? (page 71)
3. What does Gatsby tell Nick about Wolfsheim?
4. If Nick had to give an honest description of Gatsby at this point what do
you think he would say?
13
Jordan Baker Profile
Using pages 57 -59, and 74-78, complete the chart below Jordan Baker
Character Name:
What we learn about her
Page no’s
Jordan Baker
Page 11
What she looks looks, and
acts like:
Page 50
Page 57
Nick’s first impression of
her
What he says she is
concealing about herself.
Page 57
-58.
Page 58
What her attitude towards
breaking rules seems to be.
What Nick decides he must
do
Page 58
Page 74- 77
What Jordan tells him about
Daisy.
1.
She knew her when they were girls in
__________
2. She admired Daisy because
___________________________________
3. She met Daisy with a soldier called _________
4. She was a bridesmaid at Daisy’s wedding to
_____
5. She found Daisy drunk before her wedding,
crying over a ____________
14
Vocabulary list
conscientious
charming
imperceptibly
self sufficiency
passionate
ecstatically
irrelevantly
restlessly
decisively
incredulously
contemptuously
imperatively
radiantly
helplessly
accusingly
crossly
violently
impatiently
ferociously
breathlessly
15