The Alabama Shakespeare Festival
2014 Study Materials and Activities for
adapted by Simon Levy
Contact ASF at: www.asf.net
1.800.841-4273
Study materials written by
Susan Willis, ASF Dramaturg
swillis@asf.net
1
The Great
Gatsby
adapted by
Simon Levy
Characters
Nick Carraway, a Midwestern
newcomer trying to make
money in New York City
Jay Gatsby, his wealthy
neighbor on Long Island
Daisy Buchanan, Nick's distant
cousin, the woman Gatsby
loves
Tom Buchanan, Daisy's very
wealthy husband
Jordan Baker, Daisy's friend, a
professional golfer
Myrtle Wilson, Tom Buchanan's
mistress
George Wilson, Myrtle's
husband, a mechanic
Meyer Wolfshiem, Gatsby's
business associate
Mr. and Mrs. McKee, neighbors
at Tom and Myrtle's New
York City apartment
Mrs. Michaelis, Wilson's
neighbor
A Cop
(Two actors play the last five
roles.)
Setting: the summer of 1922 in
New York City, on the Gold
Coast of Long Island, and
near the ash heaps between
A Life magazine cover
from 1927 by John Held—
of course a flapper driving
badly has a big yellow car—
and the 1929 Rolls Royce
Phantom used in the 1974 film
On the cover: A treatment of
Francis Cugat's famous
jacket illustration for the
first edition of the novel in
1925—called "the most
eloquent jacket in American
literary history"
Welcome to the Jazz Age at ASF
F. Scott Fitzgerald named the Jazz Age, and
his life and art are considered cornerstones in
its definition. Yet like Nick Carraway, Fitzgerald
was in it without fully being of it; as an artist
of great talent and honesty, he carried the
sensibility of a not-rich-enough Midwesterner
within him even as he found himself able to
enjoy the American Dream come true—and
also having to pay for it.
Justly famous for his fiction and iconic
lifestyle, Fitzgerald also has Alabama fame
because he fell in love with a Montgomery girl,
Zelda Sayre, and revised and published his
first novel in order to win her hand in marriage.
The couple were headliners of the American
expatriate writing community in France during
the late 1920s.
The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald's masterpiece,
captures the New York City of the early 1920s
and the sensibilities of those who come to the
city looking for a way to make their dreams of
fortune and love come true. It is a rare work of
artistry and a story that continues to feel timely
almost 90 years later, a mirror still for our 21stcentury truths and for our illusions.
About These Study Materials
• If you are already teaching Fitzgerald's
novel, these materials will supplement that
endeavor by analyzing what happens when a
famous novel changes genre—another angle
on appreciating Fitzgerald's achievement.
• If you are not teaching the novel, these
materials will support appreciation and study
of the play itself. You may want to teach one
of Fitzgerald's "cluster" short stories leading
up to the novel (see page 3).
• With a major film adaptation of the
novel also available in 2013, the materials
set up comparison of the choices made for
each medium.
• Units of material include:
-- information on Fitzgerald's life, career,
and views of the era
-- the adaptation choices and the novel
itself
-- the cultural/historical context of the
action
-- details about ASF production design,
when available
About Adapter Simon Levy
After directing and writing in San
Francisco, Simon Levy has since 1993
been Producing Director/Dramaturg and
playwright at Los Angeles's Fountain
Theatre, where his work has won
awards for directing and playwriting.
In the early
1990s
he
began adapting
Fitzgerald's
novels to the
stage, and now
has a trilogy:
Tender Is the
Night (1995),
The
Last
Tycoon (1998),
and The Great
Gatsby (2006), all approved by the
Fitzgerald estate.
2
The Great
Gatsby
adapted by
Simon Levy
About F. Scott Fitzgerald, Author of The Great Gatsby
Fitzgerald's Major Works
1920: This Side of Paradise
(novel), Flappers and
Philosophers (short stories)
1922: The Beautiful and the
Damned (novel), Tales of the
Jazz Age (short stories)
1925: The Great Gatsby (novel)
1926: All the Sad Young Men (short
stories)
1934: Tender Is the Night (novel)
1935: Taps at Reveille (short
stories)
1941: The Last Tycoon (unfinished
novel)
One of America's modernist masters of
prose fiction, F. Scott Fitzgerald began life
amid his family's hardware business in St. Paul,
Minnesota. He wrote dozens of short stories
to earn money, became a legendary part of
the post-war American expatriate
community in France, and in the 1930s
tried to break into the film industry as
a screenwriter for the money.
Born in 1896, Fitzgerald's life was
shaped by his education in the East,
especially his incomplete collegiate
career at Princeton, by the woman
he loved, his appetite for success
and the good life, including alcohol,
and his keen eye for his times. Living
the adage "write what you know," he adapted
his emotional life and the lives of those he met
into some of America's greatest 20th-century
novels and stories, chronicling the post-World
War I Jazz Age and the subsequent Depression
with the eloquent scalpel of his pen.
Becoming an Author
Fitzgerald began writing stories and plays
in high school and then proved a better writer of
student revues than an academic at Princeton.
While there, he wooed wealthy Ginevra King
and lost her because he was considered poor,
memories which later fed the characters of
Gatsby and Daisy.
He enlisted in the army during World War
I and began his first novel on the new subject
of collegiate life. While stationed at Camp
Sheridan near Montgomery, Alabama, he met
Scott and Zelda, 1923
18-year-old Zelda Sayre. Needing money to win
his new love, he worked in advertising in New
York City, but Zelda broke their engagement in
June of 1919.
That July, Fitzgerald returned to St. Paul
to revise his novel one more time, and in
September he not only got his first short story
sale but Scribners accepted the novel. On that
basis, he returned to Montgomery for Zelda.
Throughout his life he would write "commercial"
short stories and pursue screenwriting to earn
money and write his novels for art.
Fitzgerald as Writer
Fitzgerald said his writing grew from an
emotional core, so his writing emerges from
both autobiography and imagination: "I must
start out with an emotion—one that's close to
me and that I can understand."
The Great Gatsby sold decently in 1925, but
not nearly so well as Fitzgerald had hoped. The
novel was in abeyance at his sudden death in
1940, but after World War II it had a renaissance,
partly due to paperback copies made for the
troops, and in paperback it found new readership
and renewed critical acclaim to become the
masterwork it is considered today.
A Fitzgerald TIMELINE
• 1896: born in St. Paul, MN
• 1911: attends Newman School in NJ
• 1913: a freshman at Princeton
• 1917: army commission and begins first novel
• 1918: July, at Camp Sheridan, AL, meets Zelda
Sayre at a dance; novel rejected twice by
Scribners
• 1919: job in New York; Zelda breaks engagement;
home to revise This Side of Paradise, which is
accepted
• 1920: novel published, marries Zelda; work
on second novel, first short story collection
published
• 1921: first trip to Europe
• 1922: publication of The Beautiful and the
Damned, move to New York City (1922-24);
writes a play that fails; work toward third novel
• 1924: to France to write final draft of The Great
Gatsby; until 1931, they live mostly in Europe
• 1925: publication of The Great Gatsby, begins
Tender Is the Night
• 1930, 1932, 1934: Zelda's breakdowns; she
writes Save Me the Waltz (1932); Zelda
institutionalized 1936-40
• 1937-40: Fitzgerald works in Hollywood; dies
1940
3
The Great
Gatsby
adapted by
Simon Levy
The Novel's Composition
Pre-Show: If you are not
teaching the novel,
having your class read
Fitzgerald's short story,
"Winter Dreams," a Gatsby
cluster story with similar
themes, will prepare them
for the play and the ideas,
themes, and style of the
novel's story. As Clifton
S. Burhans observes, the
story shares with Gatsby
"an interesting and often
profound treatment of the
ironic winner-take-nothing
theme, the story of a man
who gets nearly everything
he wants at the cost of
nearly everything that made
it worth having."
June, 1922—FSF letter regarding early plans
for his third novel, which will become
The Great Gatsby: "Its locale will be the
middle west and New York at 1885 I think.
It will concern less superlative beauties
than I run to usually + will be centered
on a smaller period of time. It will have
a catholic element. I'm not quite sure
whether I'm ready to start it quite yet or
not."
July, 1922—FSF letter: "I want to write
something new—something extraordinary
and beautiful and simple + intricately
patterned."
In fact, Fitzgerald's practice was to use his
short stories to explore his way into a new
novel's ideas and themes; critics now call
the stories in which he tested material and
ideas Fitzgerald's "cluster stories." The
cluster stories for The Great Gatsby
are:
• "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz" (1922)
• "Winter Dreams" (1922, which FSF called "a miniature of Gatsby")
• "Dice, Brassknuckles & Guitar" (1923)
• "Absolution" (part of the 1923 first draft of Gatsby, excised and published
separately in 1924)
• "The Sensible Thing" (1923-24)
October 1922—the Fitzgeralds move to Long
Island
Arthur William Brown's illustration
for Metropolitan magazine's 1922
publication of "Winter Dreams"
Right: Villa Marie in Valescure,
France, where FSF completed
and revised the novel
Long Island neighbors:
Robert C. Kerr also lived in Great Neck and
swapped stories with FSF, telling him
about his experience when 14 with E. R.
Gilman's yacht on Sheepshead Bay in
Brooklyn in 1907.
Fuller-McGee case (McGee lived nearby on
Long Island)—a stock brokerage that went
bankrupt due to corrupt practices in June,
1922; rumored to have gambled with
investors' funds. FSF later used this case
as background for Gatsby's money.
Max Gerlach sent FSF a newspaper photo of
Scott and Zelda with a written comment
that includes the phrase "old sport."
June 1923—FSF begins first draft of novel,
writing in 12-hour shifts on weekends for
three months, interrupted by production of
his failed play. This draft, called Trimalchio,
was finally published in 2002.
April 1924—"Out of the woods at last +
starting novel." After spending the fall
and winter writing stories to earn money,
FSF begins a new draft of novel, discarding 18,000 words (including the part that
becomes the story "Absolution"). Now has
"a new angle" which may mean a new plot
or narrative framework. The Great Neck
neighborhood is part of the new angle.
May-October 1924: FSF and family move to
France, where he finishes this draft of the
novel, then immediately begins revising it,
rewriting half of it. He writes Max Perkins,
his editor:
"there's
some
intangible
sequence
lacking
somewhere
in the
middle."
July 1924—
Zelda has a
flirtation or
affair with
a French
naval
officer.
FSF's
notebook for September 1924: "I knew
something had happened that could never
be repaired."
November 1924—sends Perkins the typed
manuscript (which does not survive).
Perkins responds that Gatsby is vague
and the long Gatsby biography in chapter
8 might be revealed bit by bit.
January/February 1925—FSF revises based
on these comments, moving some of
Gatsby biography from his chapters 7 and
8 up to chapter 6. About Gatsby he says:
"If I'd known + kept it from you you'd have
been too impressed with my knowledge
to protest…. But I know now—and as a
penalty for not having known first, in other
words to make sure I'm going to tell more."
April 10, 1925—Publication of The Great
Gatsby
4
The Great
Gatsby
adapted by
Simon Levy
What's It All About, Gatsby?
• Often cited themes:
the American dream
money, class, position
illusion and reality
love and betrayal; marriage and infidelity
• "Dream-and-disillusion is Fitzgerald's major
theme" (Clifton S. Burhans Jr.)
From F. Scott Fitzgerald:
• "The sentimental person thinks things will
last—the romantic person has a desperate
confidence that they won't." (This Side of
Paradise)
• It's “a story of a world not so much in
transition as falling apart without realizing
it.” (George Garrett, Fire and Freshness: A • "I'm trying to set down the story part of my
generation in America and put myself
in the middle as a sort of observer and
conscious factor."
Matter of Style in The Great Gatsby)
From Simon Levy, the novel's adapter:
• "I felt like I really got Fitzgerald …. The way
he addresses what it means to be a man
in American society, the expectations and
pressures, the mythology attached to that;
and especially what it means to be an
artistic man trying to be successful in this
culture."
• "There's no question that it's about the
American Dream.…We like to pursue the
unattainable.… You see all sorts of layered
ideas, about doomed love, and betrayal;
about perceptions of illusion and reality;
about seeing; about class. There's greed
and heartlessness in it, and there's the
whole issue of time…."
"[Fitzgerald] writes about the broken parts in
men in a way that I've never encountered
in any other writer."
• "Life was something you dominated if you
were any good." ("The Crack-Up")
• "That's the whole burden of this novel—the
loss of those illusions that give such color
to the world so that you don't care whether
things are true or false as long as they
partake of the magical glory." (FSF letter to
a friend, August 1924)
• about the Jazz Age: "It was an age of
miracles, it was an age of art, it was an
age of excess, and it was an age of satire."
"A whole race going hedonistic, deciding on
pleasure."
"It ended [in 1929], because the utter
confidence which was its essential prop
received an enormous jolt, and it didn't
take long for the fliimsy structure to
settle earthward.… It was borrowed time
anyhow—the whole upper tenth of a
nation living with the insouciance of grand
ducs and the casualness of chorus girls."
("Echoes of the Jazz Age," The Crack-Up)
Biographical Elements in Gatsby
Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda
Sayre about the time they met in 1918.
He had just dropped out of Princeton
to enlist, and she had just graduated
from high school.
FSF quote at right from "Pasting
It Together" in The Crack-Up
F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote from emotional
truth, usually his own, though his artistic insights
went far beyond the personal.
In terms of Gatsby and Daisy, Fitzgerald
drew on his first two loves—the first, Ginevra
King, whom he met when she was 16 and he
19, seemed the ideal girl, "beautiful, rich, socially
secure, and sought after." He felt she was the girl
he loved and lost because she was wealthy and
he was "poor" by comparison. Ginevra married
into a very wealthy Chicago banking family in
1918. Jordan Baker is based on one of Ginevra's
friends, golfer Edith Cummings.
His next love was Zelda Sayre, another
socially prominent young girl whom he did not
have the money to marry; in fact, she broke
their engagement when he did not succeed fast
enough. He gambled on his first novel, which he
re-wrote back at home that summer of 1919:
During a long summer of despair I wrote a
novel instead of letters, so it came out all right, but
it came out all right for a different person. The man
with the jingle of money in his pocket who married
the girl a year later would always cherish an abiding
distrust, an animosity toward the leisure class—not
the conviction of a revolutionist but the smoldering
hatred of a peasant. In the years since then I have
never been able to stop wondering where my friends'
money came from, nor to stop thinking that one
time a sort of droit de seigneur might have been
exercised to give one of them my girl.
He won Zelda; then in the summer of
1924 while writing the novel felt they'd lost
their trust when she flirted (or more) with a
French officer. His life nourished his novel;
his artistry made it great.
5
The Great
Gatsby
adapted by
Simon Levy
Pattern and Character in the Novel and the Play
Character/ Major Arcs of Action
Growth/change: Nick Carraway, Jay Gatsby
(especially in past; is he still changing?)
Pursuit of dream: Jay Gatsby, Nick Carraway,
Myrtle Wilson
Choice of dream: Daisy Buchanan (in past
and present—love vs. money)
• Compare/contrast Nick and
Gatsby and their quests for
money and love.
• In chapter 8, Gatsby tells Nick
about meeting Daisy, which is
narrated indirectly:
However glorious might be
Eckelburg's eyes as Myrtle is
killed in the 2013 film
Compare/Contrast:
• West Egg and East Egg;
Gatsby's and Tom's homes
• first meal at Buchanans' home
to "showdown" meal
• parties (the two Nick narrates
at Gatsby's, and those to
Tom's in his NYC apartment)
• escapes to NYC (to apartment
and to Plaza Hotel)
• the relationship triangles :
Tom/Daisy/Gatsby vs. Tom/
Myrtle/George Wilson. What
is their basis—love? sex?
dream? How does Nick's
developing relationship with
Jordan compare to these?
• reaction to "infidelity": Tom's,
George Wilson's, Gatsby's
• success at football vs.
success in war; also a
football past and polo
present
Assessing Gatsby's Goal
• Gatsby believes one can
repeat the past, go back
and make it right, become
that person again and take
another path.
Why do we want another
chance or another choice?
Why do we not accept the
past as "past," final? Is it?
Can we change the past
from the present?
his future as Jay Gatsby, he was
at present a penniless young man
without a past, and at any moment
the invisible cloak of his uniform might slip
from his shoulders. So he made the most
of his time. He took what he could get,
ravenously and unscrupulously—eventually
he took Daisy on one still October night,
took her because he had no real right to
touch her hand. (emphasis added)
How apt is Fitzgerald's description of
Gatsby's approach to what he wants?
(Does it also describe Tom?) And in terms
of dreams or the American dream, who
has a "right" to success and love? Are they
a matter of "right"? What is the basis of
that "right"? Who decides and why?
• Does Daisy actually make a choice in the
past or in the present?
Points of Origin
Nick, Gatsby, Daisy and Tom, and Jordan
may all be living in New York City in the
summer of 1922, but they all are from the
Midwest: Nick from Minnesota, Tom from
Chicago, Daisy and Jordan from Louisville,
Kentucky, Gatsby from North Dakota. •
Fitzgerald makes a point that they are all
from the "West." What does that mean to
him and to the story; what is the contrast
of West and East in values? in the tradition
of American culture?
War Service
Overseas service in World War I: Jay Gatsby,
Nick Carraway
Not in war: Tom Buchanan, George Wilson
Money
Who has money: Gatsby, Tom, Meyer
Wolfshiem
Who wants more money: Nick, Myrtle Wilson
• Nick walks away from the East and the lure
of money. How important is money in this
story? Does it matter how it's made?
Class and Status
Upper class: Tom and Daisy Buchanan,
Jordan Baker
Nouveau riche: Jay Gatsby, Meyer Wolfshiem
"Well-to-do"(family in hardware business):
Nick Carraway
Working class: George and Myrtle Wilson
Homeowners: Jay Gatsby, Tom Buchanan
(huge houses with lots of staff)
• How is class different from money? How
does the difference work in the story? How
does Fitzgerald value money and class?
Love and Marriage
Married: Tom and Daisy Buchanan, Myrtle
and George Wilson
Having affairs: Tom Buchanan and Myrtle
Wilson, later Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan
Dating and more: Nick Carraway and Jordan
Baker
• What role do fidelity and infidelity play in the
novel? Who is faithful; to what and why?
• Many critics observe that this novel is one of
the first not to "punish" wrongdoers (crime
or vice). Why not? Does the story judge?
Vocations and Avocations
Working: Nick Carraway, Jordan Baker, Jay
Gatsby, Meyer Wolfshiem, George Wilson
Not working: Tom and Daisy Buchanan,
Myrtle Wilson
Sports figures: Jordan Baker, Tom Buchanan
Writer: Nick Carraway, working in Wall Street
• What role does work play in the story? Not
working? Significance of Nick in "bonds"?
• Compare warfare to the sports drive to win.
Alcohol
Drinkers: Tom and Daisy Buchanan, Jordan
Baker, Nick Carraway, Myrtle Wilson
Non-drinkers (or very seldom): Jay Gatsby
• What role does alcohol play in the story?
Cheats, Crooks, and Murderers
Cheats: Jordan Baker, Tom Buchanan
Crooks: Meyer Wolfshiem, Jay Gatsby
Murderers: George Wilson, Daisy Buchanan
"Honest": Nick calls himself honest; is he?
Sense of honor, chivalry: Jay Gatsby, George
Wilson (justice or revenge?)
• How does the story judge crossing the lines
of established law and morality?
6
The Great
Gatsby
adapted by
Simon Levy
Considering Tragedy and The Great Gatsby
Gatsby's mansion in 2013 film
The Eyes Have It
Critics unanimously see T. J.
Eckleburg's billboard with its huge
eyeglasses and staring eyes as
a dominant symbol in the novel,
overlooking as it does the Valley
of Ashes and the first death in the
climactic sequence. In his stress
and grief, George Wilson seems
to equate them with the eyes of
God—or perhaps the two are simply
juxtaposed, one on earth and one
in heaven. But what, one might
ask, do painted eyes "see"? Is their
significance more that they seem to
look but do not see? Who or what
else looks or judges without seeing
in the story? How do we expect God
to see and judge?
Eckelburg's eyes from 1974 film
The other set of eyes that
seem all-seeing in the story are Nick
Carraway's, for he sees and/or hears
details no one else does and shares
with us perspectives no one else has.
He calls himself "within and without,"
and he puts us there as well. Nick's
eyes and narration are Fitzgerald's
great gift to the story. How does he
see and judge?
The novel, and hence the play and/or
film based on it, is considered a tragedy—the
tragedy of one man, or more, perhaps also
the tragedy of an era and lifestyle or even of
American society itself.
In studying tragedy, one looks for the tragic
protagonist and his or her recognition of the tragic
events and also acceptance of responsibility
for them. One looks for the point-of-no-return
in the action, the moment or choice that makes
disaster inevitable. One also looks for the tragic
insight, for some characters cause and embody
the tragedy while other characters may survive
and articulate it (think Edgar and Albany in King
Lear or Horatio in Hamlet).
So what is the point-of-no-return in The
Great Gatsby? Gatsby's death, if death is the
tragic event, is a direct result of Daisy's hitting
Myrtle while driving Gatsby's car—and of everyone making assumptions about who the driver
was because Gatsby's sense of honor makes
him take the blame in a cabal of silence—Daisy
doesn't tell Tom, though Gatsby tells Nick, and
Nick only tells the reader.
To what extent does "Daisy drives Gatsby's
car" function as an image or symbol of the action
of the novel? Who or what "drives" parts of the
action and what the "drives" are in the story are
crucial to our understanding of the tragedy.
Myrtle only runs out to stop the yellow car
because she saw Tom Buchanan driving it into
New York City earlier in the afternoon. Tom
had actually tried to drive Daisy in Gatsby's
car as a male dominance tactic when he felt
threatened, but instead Daisy went with Gatsby
in Tom's car. Who's driving whom in what may
have significance in the relationship crisis as
well, for the Tom/Daisy/Gatsby triangle is now
pressurized, and one side of it is collapsing.
Myrtle is pressured by George's discovery
of the dog collar (another potent image: is she
like a dog to him?) and by his determination to
leave—so later when she sees the yellow car
returning, she wants to believe Tom has come
back for her; she wants to escape Wilson and
that life. We know it is a false hope because Tom
in his noblesse oblige is a serial philanderer,
and at the moment he is more concerned with
Daisy. Is Myrtle's death incidental to the larger
tragedy, unfortunate but not important, or is it
part of Tom's role as antagonist?
Daisy as driver is caught between oncoming
traffic in the other lane and this stranger running
into her lane. She swerves one way and then
she swerves back. Does she choose whom to
hit or does she panic? Gatsby says that at the
last minute his hand is also on the wheel, trying
to avoid calamity; does he help or not? And
can we read that part of the incident in larger
terms—Daisy wants to run away with him, but
he wants a confrontation with Tom and victory in
the eyes of the world. Instead he gets a fatality
under the eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg. They would
not be on that "road" at that time were it not for
Gatsby's need to re-route the past.
Does hitting Myrtle cause the end of
Daisy and Gatsby; is it the "fatal" event for the
protagonist and his dream, or has that event
already happened? Did Tom's revelation of the
source of Gatsby's money doom the affair in
Daisy's eyes? Gatsby has made a fortune to win
Daisy, and Tom then redefines the nature of the
quest—it's not having money but what kind of
money you have. Tom's money is "old money"
by American standards, inherited perhaps from
robber barons or manipulative bankers several
generations earlier, but now socially sanitized.
Gatsby's lucre is shiny new and gaudy, like his
lifestyle and car. Yes, he has money, but Tom
suggests he has "only" money, not the social
cachet important in high society.
Is the showdown between Tom and Gatsby
for Daisy the cause of the disaster, or is the
point-of-no-return even earlier? Is Gatsby's
insistence on having Daisy and having the past
recreated in the present, rewriting what had
happened ("she never loved you") the cause of
his disaster? He has her, but only in the present;
he still "lost" her in the past.
Or is that past moment five years ago the
actual cause of the tragedy, the point-of-noreturn? Daisy falls in love with Gatsby in uniform
(when men are "uniform"). Does that matter?
When Gatsby first kisses Daisy, he describes a
crisis in his quest—he knew his upward climb at
that point embodied or incarnated itself in Daisy,
no longer in himself. What does that mean to
Gatsby's love and/or need for Daisy? Does he
love this woman or does he need what she
symbolizes to him?
Debate the point-of-no-return and the fault
or mistake that make Gatsby a tragic protagonist.
And what does Nick see and think?
7
The Great
Gatsby
adapted by
Simon Levy
A Novel versus a Play—What Happens in Adaptation
Carey Mulligan and Leonardo
DiCaprio in the 2013 film of Gatsby
Novel
• narration/ commentary
• description and imagery
• reader's imagination meets
author's portrayal
Play
• live characters in action
• impressionistic visuals (not
realism)
Film
• spectacle and large crowd
scenes
• opulent visuals and detail
• camera makes choices with
its own cinematographic
style and pace
Literary critics agree, in fact, acclaim, that
what makes The Great Gatsby a brilliant novel
is not necessarily its story but the way it tells
its story—that the structure and especially the
narration set the novel apart from previous fiction
and make it modern and exceptional. Thus Nick
Carraway's voice, his perspective, his various
ways of seeing and recounting events, his own
sensibility exploring Long Island and New York
alongside Gatsby, his own impressions of the
society and lifestyle, his own response to the
pace and promise
of life as juxtaposed
to Gatsby's all make
the novel what it is.
The actual events
of the novel, its
bare bones plot,
is so wrapped in
Nick's sensibility
that how we know
is also in large part
w h a t w e k n o w.
This technique is a
strength of the novel,
where sensibilities
can emerge and
evolve over time as the pages turn.
The Medium Is the Message
On stage or on film, the medium works quite
differently, and that difference is one reason a
great novel such as Gatsby is so difficult to record
on film and why a stage adaptation inevitably
diverges from the experience of the novel. A
film is visual and seen cinematographically—not
by means of a narrator but by means of a lens,
quite another perspective than the words of Nick
Carraway. What we imagine about Gatsby's
parties in the novel we are shown in a film, and
in its three filmic treatments, the approach has
been excess on another scale than Gatsby's.
On stage, character and action drive the
drama—conflict must be defined and active
early on. The mystique of Gatsby for Nick and
of Daisy for Gatsby consume more than half
the novel, but on stage much of that narrative
angle is omitted, and we move scene to scene,
action to action, which gives us a very different
sense of what the story is and what it may
mean. The novel is Nick's story of Gatsby; the
play becomes for the most part Gatsby's story,
even if a few passages of narration are included.
Nick's sensibility can never shape the action on
stage the way it does in the novel.
The Novel and the Play
Chapter
Text/ Action
Play
1
• Nick's introduction; first trip to Buchanans;
Act One
meets Jordan, Daisy hears Gatsby's name;
phone calls; Gatsby looking at green light
2
• Tom takes Nick to meet Myrtle in NYC
3
• Nick to Gatsby's party, meets Gatsby;
sees more of Jordan
4
• those attending Gatsby's parties; lunch --straight to lunch and
with Gatsby; Jordan's story of Gatsby
story, flashback scenes
and Daisy in 1917; makes invitation
5
• at tea party, Gatsby meets Daisy again;
shows her his house
6
• Gatsby's background/name change; Dan
Act Two
Cody story; Tom stops at Gatsby's, comes
--Tom only at Gatsby's
to party with Daisy; what Gatsby wants now
with Daisy at party
7
• lunch at Buchanans, go into NYC;
showdown at Plaza; Tom's verbal attack
on Gatsby; drive home, accident, and
aftermath
8
• Gatsby about Daisy; aftermath at garage
--very compressed
and Wilson to Gatsby's house background
9
• funeral and last sightings of Jordan and --just mention of funeral;
Tom; Nick's last meditation on Gatsby
meditation
8
The Great
Gatsby
adapted by
Simon Levy
The Novelist and the Playwright: What Is Essential
What Is the Essence of The Great Gatsby?
Critics agree both on the greatness of the
novel, that is, its importance in the American
tradition, and on the basis of that greatness—
• “In terms of form, then, more than anything
else, in terms of style, Gatsby is a
pioneering novel.”
—George Garrett, "Fire and Freshness: Can we get the essence of
Fitzgerald's genius in any form except
his novels and stories? Can his work
be staged or filmed?—those are the
questions.
What Sparks Adaptation
In coming to theatrical
adaptation, Simon Levy says he
had a "conversion experience"
on a trip to Russia in 1989,
where he realized a great story
there was regularly translated
medium to medium, novel to
ballet to film. "Each medium has
its valid form of expression for the
same story," which is accepted
and treasured in that culture,
Levy recognized, but somehow
has been devalued in America,
though this is changing.
Sources for Quotations:
• F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great
Gatsby: A Literary Reference,
ed. Matthew J. Bruccoli
• Guthrie Theater interview (pp.
4-10):
http://qgaby.tripod.com/
sitebuildercontent/
sitebuilderfiles/thegreatgatsby.
pdf
• Arizona Theatre Company
interview:
http://www.arizona theatre.org/
inside/atc/newsletter-archive/
no.-3-spring-2012/
show-related/ 410/3033/
• Prime Stage interview:
http://www.primestage.com/
shows_and_tickets/simon_levy.
html
A Matter of Style in The Great Gatsby"
• "… much of the effectiveness of Fitzgerald's
stories depends on elements of style
and narrative technique that cannot be
transferred to the stage.… A Fitzgerald
story or novel in dramatic form loses many
of the qualities that make it a Fitzgerald
work…."
—Matthew J. Bruccoli, Some Sort of Epic Grandeur [FSF biography]
• “Compression [of the novel to its plotline]
dispels the aura of tragic mystery in which
Fitzgerald envelops his hero.”
—Kenneth Tynan, "Gatsby and the
American Dream"
• “For what is Daisy, dreadful Daisy, but his
dream and the American dream at that?
… Vapid, vain, heartless, self-absorbed,
she is still able to dispel a charm the effect
of which on Gatsby is simply to transform
him into a romantic hero.”
—Louis Auchincloss, "A 'Perfect Novel'"
The Essence of the Novel as a Play
The Fitzgerald estate had enough concern
about translating The Great Gatsby to the
stage that it did not initially grant Simon Levy
permission to adapt the novel. The estate did,
however, with approval rights, allow him to adapt
Tender Is the Night, which premiered in 1995,
and then The Last Tycoon in 1998, telling him
to finish this story Fitzgerald left incomplete at
his death. At last Levy was given rights to adapt
Gatsby, which premiered in 2006 at the new
Guthrie Theatre.
In interviews, Levy discusses the task of
adapting this novel:
• "… the central question has always been:
'How do I use the language of theatre
(the 'plastic elements' …) to honor the
beauty of Fitzgerald's prose?'" [So he
looks for ways to use the novel's symbols
in dialogue or production elements,
substituting scene design, lights, and/or
sound for narrative elements] "One of
the great advantages of theatre is how
we are able to give life to symbolism and
metaphor on stage. As an art form we
excel at being suggestive rather than
literal. It's what we do best."
• "But the language of theatre is not about
prose.… The language of theatre is
dramatic. You have to find a way in
dialogue to get to the conflict.… The stage
is not as forgiving.… You have to stay
with the through-line." And "there was
the question of Nick. How do I make him
active?" Finally, "he's the character I have
the deepest affection for…. It's ultimately
his journey, his eyes through which we
see…."
• "What often happens with iconic novels …
is that we romanticize them.… We fall in
love with style and form. We forget that
great stories are about great characters
caught up in great plots. At the heart of this
novel is adultery, betrayal and love.… As
important as Form is to this novel and this
stage presentation, it's the Content that we
will always carry with us, a remembrance
of great and singular characters!"
• "I've felt the need to open [the characters]
up dramatically in a way that isn't always
necessary in the novel."
• "It's really essential that the piece be fluid,
that this be a dreamscape, where thing
and people float in and out, like the hazy
gossamer language of Fitzgerald. Then,
there are the 'hard' scenes—when you
see the ugly side of people, the more
traditionally dramatic scenes where there
is hurt and love and betrayal and the
complexities of being human. I want that
world to crash up against the dreamscape
world, so that we're seeing the clash
between illusion and reality."
9
The Great
Gatsby
adapted by
Simon Levy
Making The Novel into a Play—Thinking Like an Adapter
A Worksheet for
Those Teaching the Novel:
The Role of the Narration
In adapting The Great Gatsby for the stage,
Simon Levy decides to include some of Nick
Carraway's narration—a bit of the opening
and some of the ending, with a few moments
in between. No Nick Carraway would not be
Fitzgerald; all the Nick Carraway would make
it another kind of play entirely, almost a oneman show. But how does one cut Fitzgerald's
narration down to the bare essentials?
• What, in your opinion, is essential
in the narration? What must be
included?
Nick (Tobey Maguire) and
Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio) watching
the show at a New York speakeasy
in Luhrmann's 2013 film.
Titles Fitzgerald Considered for
the Novel
• Among Ash-Heaps and
Millionaires
• On the Road to West Egg
• Gatsby
• The Great Gatsby
(an early suggestion and
his editor's favorite, which
Fitzgerald thought "only fair")
• Trimalchio
(a nouveau riche Roman
satirized for his elaborate feasts
in Petronius's' Satyricon, c.
66 C.E.; his editor thought the
allusion too obscure)
• Trimalchio in West Egg (FSF's
choice for title)
• Gold-Hatted Gatsby
• The High-Bouncing Lover
(both of these are from the verse
epigraph Fitzgerald wrote for
the novel)
• Under the Red, White, and Blue
(FSF's last suggestion)
• How important are Fitzgerald's first
three sentences of the novel? What
is important in them?
Levy includes these three
sentences. They offer us:
1) the idea of "criticizing"—
who and what does the novel set
up for criticism? who or what is
criticized by other characters? who
or what does Nick criticize? do those criticisms all agree?
2) having "advantages"—how important
are "advantages" and what "advantages"
does Nick's father believe Nick has
had? who else in the novel has had
"advantages"? what kind? how do the
various kinds of "advantages" affect the
various kinds of "criticism"? how are those
two concepts linked in the novel?
3) "he meant a great deal more"—Nick's
father is reserved. Is Nick also reserved
in his narration? Does he mean a great
deal more? Does anyone else operate that
way?
Levy uses three more sentences from Nick's
introductory section (the first two pages of
the novel). Which three sentences would
you choose as the most important to set
up the story? Justify your choices.
Evaluate Levy's choices and edits, which are:
Gatsby, the man who gives his name to
this story, represented everything for which I
had an unaffected scorn. But if personality is
an unbroken series of successful gestures,
then there was something … gorgeous about
him … some heightened sensitivity to the
promises of life.
He had an extraordinary gift for hope, a
romantic readiness such as I have never
found in any other person… and which it is
not likely I shall ever find again.
• Levy displaces the last sentence of Nick's
introduction to the transition from the first
luncheon scene to the first Valley of Ashes
scene. He edits this sentence as well,
which actually stems from much earlier in
the paragraph when Nick says "I wanted
no more riotous excursions with privileged
glimpses into the human heart." Consider
the implications of the changes:
Fitzgerald: No—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.
Levy: …what foul dust floated in the wake of
his dreams that's been haunting me… and
haunts me still.
• How important are Nick's own responses
to being in New York City? What promise
or response does he feel? Should they be
included? If so, what part?
• What part of Nick's recognition of and
responses to Gatsby's dreams and pursuit
of them should be included? Pick your
passage(s) and justify why. Consider what
Levy chooses and compare.
• In selecting short passages from the end
of the novel, Levy makes the dramatic
choice to have Nick's assessment of Tom
and Daisy delivered as direct address to
their oblivious figures ["They were careless
people…" becomes "You're careless
people"]. Explain how the play's use of
dialogue may have an effect quite different
from the novel's.
After that passage, which occurs the last
time Nick sees Tom Buchanan, the next
sentence in the novel is "I shook hands
with him; it seemed silly not to…," while
Nick's next sentence in the play is "I
couldn't forgive any of them." Assess the
power of each choice..
• The last two paragraphs of the novel are
presented intact. Why might that be a
good artistic choice?
10
The Great
Gatsby
adapted by
Simon Levy
The Adaptations: Plays and Films
Alan Ladd and Betty Field
in the 1949 film
Robert Redford in the 1974 film
Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan
in the 2013 film
America attempts to capture The Great
Gatsby on stage or film once every generation.
It hit the stage immediately after publication, for
in 1926 a "clumsy" stage play found power in
live action, but tweaked the plot to make Myrtle
the wife of Tom's chauffeur, who discovered his
wife's murderer based on a cigarette holder.
The 1949 and 1974 Films
In 1949 the big screen saw Alan Ladd and
Betty Field try to "clarify" the novel, letting Gatsby
realize Daisy had betrayed him just before he
was shot. This film also had to deal with the
censorship issue: the film "dealt with unpunished
adultery, unpunished manslaughter, and an
unpunished moral accessory to a murder. And
yet 'The Great Gatsby' is in essence a modern
morality play depicting irresponsibility leading
to catastrophe," or so the filmmakers argued.
Director Richard Maibaum created a prologue
of Nick and Jordan, now decent and humble,
standing over Gatsby's grave and looking back
on the 1920s, and he gave Gatsby a Biblical
quote on his tombstone: "There is a way which
seemeth right unto a man,
but the ends thereof are the
way of death" (Proverbs
14:12).
Then in 1974, Robert
Redford, Mia Farrow, and
Sam Waterston took on
Gatsby, Daisy, and Nick
in a film that became a
marketing extravaganza;
many reviewers felt the
p.r. crushed the film. The
New York Times review
decreed "the movie itself is
as lifeless as a body that's
been too long a the bottom of a swimming
pool" and blames "the all-too-reverential
attitude" that thinks the greatness of the novel
is in the story rather than its style. Farrow was
widely panned for her portrayal of Daisy.
Luhrmann's 2013 Film
In 2013, Baz Luhrmann's extravagant
Gatsby film hit the nation's screens with the
stylistic flair (or overkill) of his previous films
such as Strictly Ballroom, Romeo + Juliet, and
Moulin Rouge. The official website describes
the film as "weaving a Jazz Age cocktail faithful
to Fitzgerald's text and relevant to now." The
film's techniques—including 3D, self-conscious
camera work (zoom shots, slow motion, hideand-seek mystery shots), and huge production
numbers at Gatsby's parties give it definite
"excess" and build on Fitzgerald's description
of New York as a "splendid mirage." These
elements join the twisted fairy tale aura of
Gatsby's castle/house and Nick's cottage
(architecturally based on the garage in which
FSF first drafted the novel in Great Neck).
Luhrmann highlights Nick's narration by
creating a new backstory—that after Gatsby's
death Nick cracked up, is now being treated for
alcoholism in a sanitarium where a doctor (also
created) encourages him to write, which he does.
We see him typing, we see the pages pile up,
and at the end we see him title the completed
work. While others may not change, Nick does,
the screenwriters feel—the innocent writer sees
into the dark heart of the world of wealth he
thought he wanted.
In discussing Gatsby, DiCaprio calls him
"very much the manifestation of the American
dream, of imagining who you can become …
and he does it all for the love of a woman. But
even that is open to interpretation: Is Daisy
just the manifestation of his dream? Or is he
really in love with this woman? I think that he's
a hopeless romantic but he's also an incredibly
empty individual searching for something to fill
a void in his life." Luhrmann and others praise
DiCaprio's ability to capture "Gatsby's dark
obsession, his absolutism."
Comparing Film and Stage Adaptations
• Film uses visual detail, in the case of
Luhrmann's 2013 film, even visual excess
in both setting and technique. Levy's
stage adaptation uses suggestion, not a
complete stage world of detail. What is the
effect of each kind of choice on the story?
• Compare the treatment of the overall
work and of the major characters in the
2013 film and Levy's stage adaptation.
What does it mean to try to be true to
Fitzgerald's novel in another medium?
11
The Great
Gatsby
adapted by
Simon Levy
Geographic Orientation for The Great Gatsby
The Corona dumps, a.k.a. the
"Valley of Ashes"
Below, an ash mountain in the dump
(note the person on top for scale)
F. Scott Fitzgerald lived in Great Neck on
Long Island, New York from 1922, just after he
began planning his third novel, which would
become The Great Gatsby, until 1924, when
he and Zelda moved to
France as an economizing
measure, and there he
wrote and revised the
final draft of the novel.
His fictitious East Egg and
West Egg are based on
the east (Manhasset) and
west (Great Neck) shores
of Manhasset Bay. He
has the geography and
social strata right for each
side—east was old money,
west was show business
and new money—but he
changes the names.
He also accurately
describes the "valley of
ashes," a swampy area on
the Flushing River used for
dumping New York City's
garbage, horse manure,
andashesfromcoal-burning
furnaces. The
ashes were piled
into plateaus,
and both the road from Great Neck
and the railway headed to Queens
and Manhattan cut across this dump,
though not as close to each other as
Fitzgerald describes. This area was
redeveloped for the 1939 World's Fair,
the ashes used in the foundation of the
Van Wyck Expressway, and it is now
Corona
P a r k /
Flushing
Meadows where
the Mets play at Citi
Field.
In New York
City, his choice for
the confrontation
between Tom and
Gatsby is the Plaza
Hotel at the south
e n d o f C e n t r al
Park, famous for
its elegance.
Map of the novel's sites from F. Scott Fitzgerald's The
Great Gatsby: A Literary Reference, ed. Matthew J.
Bruccoli (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2000). The circle
indicates the Valley of Ashes area.
The Plaza Hotel, New York,
at center right
12
The Great
Gatsby
adapted by
Simon Levy
Long Island's "Gold Coast"—The Mansions of the Novel
On Long Island, twenty miles from Manhattan, along
the shore of Long Island Sound, the now very wealthy
19th-century industrialists (the so-called robber barons) and
bankers built their mansions on the "Gold Coast," joined by
the newly wealthy and the glitterati of show business. The
names—to give a short list of the sort Fitzgerald satirizes at
the top of chapter 4—include the Astors, the Vanderbilts, the
Phipps, several Guggenheims, the Belmonts, the Fricks, as
well as George M. Cohan, Groucho Marx, Basil Rathbone,
Edgar Selwyn, and Ring Lardner, with Zelda and Scott
Fitzgerald renting a house near the head of Manhasset Bay,
where they were neighbors to newly rich bootleggers.
Famous "Gold Coast" mansions: above,
Beacon Towers, August Belmont's mansion,
demolished in 1945, which is widely thought
to have influenced Fitzgerald's description of
Gatsby's mansion. Right, The Braes, Herbert
L. Pratt's estate, built 1912. Below it, a 1920s'
cartoon, "Summer Shack of a Struggling Young
Bootlegger," testimony that Gatsby's career
is far from uncommon in the Prohibition era.
Below left, Lands End, which was recently
demolished, Fitzgerald's supposed source for
the Buchanan home on Long Island.
13
The Great
Gatsby
adapted by
Simon Levy
The steady rise, sharp spike,
and sudden fall of the 1920s'
Stock Market, using the example
of one share of GE stock
"Everybody calls me a
racketeer. I call myself a
businessman. When I sell
liquor, it's bootlegging.
When my patrons serve
it on a silver tray on Lake
Shore Drive, it's hospitality."
—Al Capone, head of the Chicago mob
All quotations from Time-Life's
This Fabulous Century/ Volume 3:
1920-1930.
The Historical Context, Part 1: The 1920s as the Boom
The decade following America's brief
involvement in World War I marked a stunning
shift in values and lifestyle for many Americans.
The war shook up the country, and, as in Europe,
suddenly the old ways were finished and a host
of new ideas took root.
On the World Stage
America's role in World War I put it at the
center of the world stage, ready to assume
leadership. The long history of U.S. isolationism
was not so easily overcome, however. America
was late to enter the war, just as it would be in
World War II, and though the Spanish-American
War had signaled the country's entry to world
affairs, the U.S. was not yet willing to accept the
responsibility such presence entailed.
In the 1920s America again grew isolationist,
as Woodrow Wilson's defeat in the 1920 election
showed its lost faith and its feeling that perhaps
the war had not been worth the sacrifices.
Politically, economically, and socially, America
was unsure about the changes it was rushing
into and preferred to ignore their implications.
The Economy
The 1920s' New York of The Great Gatsby
centers on money. New York was the largest city
in America with its 5,620,000 inhabitants in 1920
and attracted those interested in making money.
Wages and disposable income increased, so
that more Americans could buy new household
goods on the installment plan. Wall Street went
on a decade-long wild ride, soaring high and
sucking more and more modest investors, lured
by its quick gains, into its maw by letting them
buy with only 10% down and the rest on loan.
All of that ended, of course, in late October,
1929, when the market crashed, the loans came
due, and the big boom led to the big bust of the
Depression.
The Crash revealed the truth that the
economy was and had been unsound, that
banks and corporations had been undermined
by fraud, that trade policies were unproductive,
and that a comparative few had been profiting
on the backs of the many.
Prohibition
On January 20, 1920, the Eighteenth
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution went
into effect declaring the manufacture, sale,
furnishing, or transportation of intoxicating
liquor to be illegal (but not private ownership
or consumption). The law proved to be
unenforceable, not only due to the rise of very
successful bootleggers or to the consequent
emergence of gangsters and organized crime
in the United States ready to profit from such
illegal activities. Many Americans simply chose
to break the law and drink anyway. Ritual wine
was legal, and many suddenly became very
devout, and doctors could prescribe alcohol
for "medicinal purposes," the need for which
suddenly abounded. But most didn't bother and
just purchased bootleg liquor. The wealthy had
stockpiled alcohol before the ban went into effect,
so the law mainly impacted the poor.
Whereas women had been banned from
saloons before World War I, in the Prohibition
era women frequented speakeasies, the
underground saloons of the 1920s, to imbibe the
new drinks, cocktails. By 1925, New York City
may have had as many as 100,000 speakeasies,
all helped along by paying off the cops and those
in "protection." People also began to drink at
home and even make their own liquor with a
portable still.
Racism
The 1920s saw a resurgence of racism
in America. Not only were times still hard for
many farmers, coal miners, and textile workers,
they were also extremely difficult for black
sharecroppers. In addition, the Ku Klux Klan
rebounded to more than 4 million members by
1924. Prejudice also extended to immigrants
and their political views, as the Sacco-Vanzetti
case demonstrated.
Thus, the escapism of the 1920s proved
impossible, and perhaps they knew it. "Even
among the most frivolous there was an air of
desperation," we are told. "Behind the bright
surfaces of the '20s … lay an abiding sense
of futility."
Working with the Story
• Money plays a major role in the story. What
kinds of money does Fitzgerald show and
how does it work; how isolationist is it; how
is it judged? What is Fitzgerald's view?
• Alcohol flows plentifully though the story,
despite Prohibition. Consider the idea of
what else is "prohibited" in the story, what
"prohibitions" are ignored or transgressed.
How does Fitzgerald portray "prohibition"
and to what end?
• The play includes the detail that Tom
Buchanan is an avowed racist. Why does
he have such views? Real book is Lothrop
Stoddard's The Rising Tide of Color
against White World-Supremacy (1920).
14
The Great
Gatsby
adapted by
Simon Levy
Covered, corseted, and bustled,
the pre-World War I lady wore a
formidable array of fabric and a
"Merry Widow" hat, and always
wore gloves out of doors, while the
flapper (here sketched by John Held),
by comparison, was uncovered,
uncorseted, and as free in manners
as in clothing, which was made
of synthetic silk accessorized by
synthetic pearls, and topped by
bobbed or shingled short hair.
The Historical Context, Part 2: The 1920s as the Jazz Age
The Jazz Age is famous for its desperate
gaiety and its romantic cynicism. Hedonism
abounded, movies promised the good life to 90
million viewers a week by 1930, and America,
especially young America, craved excitement.
Yet the jazz of the Jazz Age, the club
scene, the iconic flappers and college boys
are not really a part of Fitzgerald's third novel.
He alludes only to popular tunes used for the
lyrics' ironic relevance—"Ain't we got fun" or
"I'm the sheik of Araby / And you belong to me,"
sheik being 1920s' lingo for a young man with
sex appeal—like film star Rudolph Valentino,
whose slicked down hairstyle Fitzgerald and
many others copied.
"Jazz" was shorthand for the lifestyle
changes seen in the 1920s in both consumerism
and sexual mores—"America," it was said, "was
going on the greatest, gaudiest spree in history,"
and it would pay the price.
Watch the Women
Every generation believes it is the first to
discover human sexuality, but the 1920s may
have a legitimate claim to the advertising and
accessibility title for sexual exploration when
compared to many previous generations.
The double standard had been perfected,
though not invented, by the Victorians, with
the wife, the "angel of the house," often kept
as protected and ignorant as her children
concerning the real world. In daily life of the
pre-World War I world, women's bodies were
almost completely covered and restrained by
garments and undergarments and their lives
overseen by their elders or chaperones. Proper
young women were not informed about human
sexuality and often went to their honeymoons
knowing perhaps only a chaste, chaperoned
kiss or hand squeeze in the name of ardor. (One
should also note that the double standard of the
Victorian era also led to London's having the
highest rate of prostitution in the world.)
In cities, post-World War I American women
proved to have decidedly different ideas about
both fashion and behavior. Hemlines rose
throughout the decade of the 1920s, but the
flapper stereotype (see left) is actually true only of
1926-1927, after the novel's publication, though
the lifestyle and attitude changes associated
with rising hems were apparent earlier.
Sexual Mores
In the 1920s, as never before, women drank
with men and smoked with men. They rejected
the double standard and decided to have just
as much fun as the guys did. Since morality has
always landed harder on "daughters of Eve," this
new openness and frankness about women's
sexuality was part of the culture's modernism,
embracing new psychological views (though
Freud never did figure out what women want),
the new political voice of women's suffrage, and
new consumerism.
For the men's part, their readier access to
automobiles made sexual exploration far more
interesting and available. Women were now not
always chaperoned, and driving led to parking,
and parking led to sexual adventures in the back
seat, as countless jokes and cartoons from the
1920s attest.
A John Held cartoon of 1920s' wooing
Working with the Story
• Romantic cynicism, hedonism, a spree,
desperation, futility—how and where do
these generalizations about the 1920s
appear and work in Fitzgerald's story?
How does he use them? Is he more
cynical than his 1922 setting?
• Love and sexual mores are crucial concerns
in Fitzgerald's novel. Tom and Daisy are
married, but Tom regularly has affairs.
His current affair is with Myrtle Wilson, a
married woman of lower status. Gatsby
has long loved Daisy, and their relationship
seems to develop into an affair during the
summer of the novel's 1922, as does Nick
Carraway's dating of Jordan Baker. How
do the characters view and value these
relationships, and how does Fitzgerald
compare and contrast them? What are the
story's values and view of love? marriage?
15
The Great
Gatsby
adapted by
Simon Levy
Talkin' the Twenties
baloney
iled
ard-bo
h
ra
m
sc
spiffy
fall guy
knees
the behe's
orsefeather
big cheese y
gol lous
y
dd
w
e
r
igg
sccar
er
ritzy
s
ry a to
rch
whoopee
The Jazz Age was driven by youth culture,
an emphasis that made Fitzgerald's first novel,
This Side of Paradise—about collegiate life,
including binge drinking and "petting parties"—
his best-known novel for his contemporaries.
Fashions changed, and soon skirts, like hair,
were bobbed short, the better to dance the
Charleston. Guys drove their new cars and
enjoyed their opportunity for privacy. And where
youth led, many in the older generation followed.
In a fast-paced age that had read Freud in
English for the first time and was challenged by
Einstein's theories, being modern meant leaving
Victorian values and world views in the dust.
While the vast and pious middle of the
nation made no such sudden shift, New York
City was the epicenter of this cultural movement.
Uptown, Harlem's black nightclubs introduced
white visitors to jazz and the music of Bessie
Smith, Ethel Waters, and Louis Armstrong.
"Race records" let them buy the music of
black artists and play it at home or hear it on
the radio. Downtown, Wall Street kept making
money, and in the '20s
having money meant
spending money.
Even
the
language of the '20s
changed, as youth
found their own
inventive words to
scorn stodgy old
ways—they were
b a l o n e y, h o k u m ,
horsefeathers—and
to imprint the new—
which were swell,
spiffy, the bee's knees.
Many of the terms still
live in our parlance,
though we may not
realize their roots are
in the Jazz Age.
Spiffy gold digging—
cartoon by John Held,
Jr., whose graphics
expressed the Jazz Age
Have You Heard These Jazz Age Terms?
• being all wet—being wrong in a belief
• baloney—nonsense
• it's the bee's knees—something superb
• belly laugh—big, uninhibited laughter
• Bible belt—coined by H. L. Mencken, an
area in the South or Midwest dominated
by Fundamentalist religion
• blind date—a date with a stranger usually
arranged by a mutual friend
• big cheese—an important person
• bull session—informal group discussion
• bump off—to murder
• bunk—nonsense (shortened from bunkum)
• carry a torch—have unrequited love
• the cat's meow—something wonderful
• crush—an infatuation with someone
• fall guy—scapegoat
• frame—to give false evidence to get
someone arrested
• gatecrasher—someone who attends a party
uninvited or who does not pay admission
• gold digger—a woman who uses her charm
to get money from a man
• goofy—silly
• gyp—to cheat (a slur, from gypsy)
• hard-boiled—tough, unsentimental
• horsefeathers—nonsense
• kiddo—a familiar form of address (like we
use guy)
• kisser—the mouth
• line—insincere flattery
• lousy—bad
• main drag—most important street in town
• neck—to kiss and caress
• pet—same as to neck
• pinch—to arrest
• ritzy—elegant (from the Ritz, a Paris hotel)
• the real McCoy—the geniune article
• the run-around—delaying action, especially
to a request
• scram—to leave quickly (from scramble)
• screwy—crazy
• sex appeal—physical attractiveness
• spiffy—elegant, fashionable
• swanky—ritzy
• swell—marvelous
• upchuck—to vomit
• whoopee—boisterous fun, a loud party
What are the modern youth equivalents?
Source: This Fabulous Century: Sixty Years of
American Life, Vol. III: 1920-1930 (New York:
Time-Life books, 1969), 280-1.
16
The Great
Gatsby
adapted by
Simon Levy
Rights and Dreams—Life, Liberty, and the
Pursuit of Happiness
"From John Winthrop
to Jefferson to Lincoln,
Americans have been defined
by our sense of our own
exceptionalism—a sense of
destiny that has, however,
always been tempered by
an appreciation of the tragic
nature of life."
—Jon Meacham, "Free to Be
Happy," Time (July 8, 2013): 40
A belief in serendipity often pays off. As the
author was finishing these materials, the early
July issue of TIME magazine arrived, its "Pursuit
of Happiness" issue, with Jay Gatsby used as the
prime example for the principle that "experience
teaches us that the more aggressively we pursue
[personal happiness], the harder it can be to find."
Journalist and historian Jon Meacham's essay,
"Free to Be Happy," offers us perspective on what
the right to that pursuit has meant to Americans,
quoting our basic documents and their context
in Enlightenment political thought:
• First there was the Virginia Declaration of
Rights, drafted by George Mason in 1776:
1. That all men are created equally free and
independent, and have certain inherent
natural rights, of which they cannot, by any
Compact, deprive or divest their posterity;
among which are the enjoyment of Life
& Liberty, with the means of acquiring
and possessing property, & pursuing and
obtaining Happiness & Safety.
• Thomas Jefferson's subcommittee report
to the Second Continental Congress in
June of 1776 faced political critique and
compromise, as the original text shows:
Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey
Mulligan in the 2013 film
In lifetime happiness trends
"people are happiest in their youth
and golden years. Joy dips in
middle age."
• How old are the major
characters in the novel?
Why does Jay Gatsby want
to go back to his youth and
start again? What happens
in the middle years of life
that changes happiness?
Does Nick's realization at
the Plaza that it is his 30th
birthday relate to this idea?
Essays and quotations from July
8-15, 2013 double issue of Time
We hold these truths to be self evident: that
all men are created equal & independent;
that they are endowed by their creator with
certain inalienable rights, that among these
are life, liberty, & the pursuit of happiness….
[only one of the edits shown]
Mason acknowledges an economic aspect
associated with pursuing happiness;
Jefferson gives us the pursuit. And what is
that happiness they mention?
• Aristotle, an anchor of political thought
from the ancient world, says happiness
is not personal; "it was an ultimate
good, worth seeking for its own sake," in
other words, "virtue, good conduct and
generous citizenship," a social matter. On
this point, the founding fathers, like other
Enlightenment thinkers, agreed: "the 18th
century meaning of happiness connoted
civil responsibility," and "once the
Declaration of Independence was adopted
and signed in the summer of 1776, the
pursuit of happiness—the pursuit of the
good of the whole, because the good of
the whole was crucial to the geniune wellbeing of the individual—became part of the
fabric … of the young nation."
• From within this dream of America emerged
the American dream, a more individual
sense of the right to happiness and the
definition of what that happiness is. In
that regard, Americans tend to be about
more and next, not a this is good. Time's
other title essay, Jeffrey Kluger's "The
Happiness of Pursuit," examines that
aspect of our lives: "American happiness
would never be about savor-the-moment
contentment. That way lay the reflective
café culture of the Old World.… Our
happiness would be bred, instead, of an
almost adolescent restlessness, an itch to
do the Next Big Thing."
• Consumptive happiness, buying and
owning, too often brings boredom rather
than happiness, Kluger notes. We now
have a happiness industry, with self-help
programs and products bringing in as
much income annually as do Hollywood
films. Yet, he also mentions, in the 2012
World Happiness Report, the U.S. ranks
only #23 of 50, with Iceland, New Zealand,
and Denmark heading the list, and
Singapore, Malaysia, and Vietnam ranking
higher above the U.S. For us as a group,
perhaps not for others, money fuels a
sense of happiness, even if things do not.
Gatsby and the American Dream
• How does Jay Gatsby define his own
American dream? How does Tom Buchanan
define his? The novel is built on contrasts from
the moment Nick comes from the West to the
East and then drives from West Egg to East
Egg. Does Fitzgerald set these two men and
two definitions on a "collision course"?
Or is Tom the usual boorish view and
Gatsby the more rare individual who has a real
dream? Or is it an illusion? a delusion? What's
the difference and how would that affect our
view of the story?
What does Fitzgerald see and say about
American collective happiness and Americans'
consumptive happiness?
17
The Great
Gatsby
adapted by
Simon Levy
Additional Activities
HISTORY
• Research the background of the Prohibition
movement and how the 18th Amendment
came to be passed, what the results of
Prohibition were and how they changed
the country, and how many areas of the
U.S. are still "dry" today and why.
What is the history of social/moral lifestyle
legislation in the U.S. Compare laws
limiting access to commodities such
as alcohol to those allowing access
to commodities such as firearms and
ammunition, both of which are or have
been hot political topics.
• Consider how the experience of leading
machine gun units in World War I
compares to returning to the economic and
social context of America for Gatsby.
• Research the political, economic, and
social developments in the U.S.
from its involvement in World War I
until the Wall Street Crash in 1929.
What affects policies, attitudes, and
lifestyles? What defines America
during this time? How does America
change? How like America in the
1920s are we today?
Luxury on Long Island's Gold
Coast—Oheka, the second largest
private residence in the U.S., built in
1919 by banker Otto Herman Kahn.
Its entry hall was used as the basis of
Gatsby's entry hall in the 2013 film.
THE ARTS
• The 1920s were a time of great
development and change in music
and dance, the visual arts, and
literature.
Listen to the popular songs Fitzgerald
mentions in the novel and decide how their
lyrics and melodies are woven into the
ideas of the novel, i.e. how apt they are:
• “The Sheik of Araby”
• “The Love Nest”
• “Ain’t We Got Fun”
• “Three O’Clock in the Morning”
• “The Rosary”
• “Beale Street Blues”
How ironic is it that this Jazz Age novel does
not use jazz? What was 1920s' music?
• The cover of the first edition of the novel is
justly famous. How does it visually express
the essence of the novel? How does it
reflect movements in contemporary art?
What was going on in the visual arts in the
1920s?
• Create your own design for the cover.
• Research 20th-century film censorship
codes and how Gatsby's action fares.
LITERATURE
• Initial dialogue—consider the relevance and
import:
--Tom Buchanan—after two pages
of description of his ostentatious
wealth, cruelly powerful physique, and
restlessness, he says to Nick, "I've got a
nice place here"— pride, ownership, and
conscious understatement of his opulent
domestic display.
--Daisy Buchanan—after a description of
the airborne curtains and figures in white
on the sofa, Daisy says, "I'm p-paralyzed
with happiness"—showing an inability to
move and an avowal of joy, ironic given
the facts of her marriage revealed shortly
thereafter.
--Nick Carraway—he narrates for pages
before he enters the novel's dialogue
with a response to Daisy's question about
Chicago, "Do they miss me?" Nick replies,
"The whole town is desolate. All the cars
have the left rear wheel painted black as a
mourning wreath, and there's a persistent
wail all night along the north shore"—
imaginative and a view of mourning and
display. Note that Nick ends the novel as
almost the lone mourner for Gatsby, who
gets no sense of loss from the community.
• If, according to the East Eggers, one is
defined by where one lives, who are the
Wilsons, who live near the trash dump?
Are they trash to Tom Buchanan?
• The novel establishes an image pattern
about driving and automobiles, starting
with Nick's comment to Jordan, "you're a
rotten driver." How do the various drivers
drive in the novel, and what else does that
tell us about them? Is driving an indicator
of life and values? of the story's action?
• Debate the character and values of Tom
Buchanan, Daisy, Jay Gatsby, and Nick
Carraway. Are they sympathetic or
not? Are they moral/good or immoral/
bad people? Are they responsible or
irresponsible regarding the action?
• Debate the value of performing the novel
in another medium and how well it is or
can be accomplished, using the recent
Luhrmann film and the ASF production.
The Great
Gatsby
adapted by
Simon Levy
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