F. Scott Fitzgerald
(1896-1940)
Biography
Aesthetics
Reception
Text
Beginning of novel
Plot
Characterization and Narration
Gatsby
Nick
Daisy
Tom
Jordan
Intertexts
Horatio Alger
Benjamin Franklin
Realism
Style
Biography
Scott and Zelda
Aesthetics
Let me make a general observation—
the test of a first rate intelligence is the
ability to hold two opposed ideas in the
mind at the same time and still retain
the ability to function. One should, for
example be able to see things are
hopeless and yet be determined to
make them otherwise.
Let me tell you about the very rich. They are
different from you and me. They possess and
enjoy early, and it does something to them,
makes them soft where we are hard, and
cynical where we are trustful, in a way that,
unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to
understand. They think, deep in their hearts,
that they are better than we are because we
had to discover the compensations and
refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they
enter deep into our world or sink below us,
they still think that they are better than we
are. They are different.
Letter to Maxwell Perkins
10 April 1925
The book comes out today and I am
overcome with fears and forebodings.
Supposing women didn’t like the book
because it has no important woman in
it, and critics didn’t like if because it
dealt with the rich and contained no
peasants out of Tess in it and set to
work in Idaho?
Fitzgerald on Gatsby
“The worst fault in it, I think it is a BIG FAULT: I
gave no account (and had no feeling about or
knowledge of) the emotional relations between
Gatsby and Daisy from the time of their reunion to
the Catastrophe. However the lack is so astutely
concealed by the retrospect of Gatsby’s past and
by blankets of excellent prose that no one has
noticed it—tho everyone has felt the lack and
called it by another name.”
Reception
Best Sellers of 1925
Soundings, A. Hamilton Gibbs
The Constant Nymph, Margaret Kennedy
The Keeper of the Bees, Gene Stratton Porter
Glorious Apollo, E. Barrington
The Green Hat Michael Arlen
The Little French Girl, Anne Douglas Sedgewick
Arrowsmith, Sinclair Lewis
The Perennial Bachelor, Anne Parish
The Carolinian, Rafael Sabatini
Our Increasing Purpose, A.S.M. Hutchinson
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Latest A Dud
—New York World headline
Springfield Republican
A little slack, a little soft, more than a
little artificial. The Great Gatsby falls into
the class of negligible novels.
Milwaukee Journal
The Great Gatsby “is decidedly
contemporary: today it is here, tomorrow—
well, there will be no tomorrow. It is only as
permanent as a newspaper story, and as on
the surface.”
Gilbert Seldes
Fitzgerald has more than matured; he has
mastered his talents and gone soaring in a
beautiful flight, leaving even further behind
all the men of his own generation and most
of his elders.
Edwin Clark,
New York Times Book Review
With sensitive insight and keen psychological observation,
Fitzgerald discloses in these people a meanness of spirit,
carelessness and absence of loyalties. He cannot hate them,
for they are dumb in their insensate selfishness, and only to
be pitied. The philosopher of the flapper has escaped the
mordant, but he has turned grave. A curious book, a
mystical, glamourous story of today. It takes a deeper cut at
life than hitherto has been enjoyed by Mr. Fitzgerald. He
writes well—he always has—for he writes naturally, and his
sense of form is becoming perfected.
Walter Yust
Literary Review
The novel is one that refuses to be
ignored. I finished it in an evening, and had
to. . . . It is not a book which might . . . fall
into the category of those doomed to
investigation by a vice commission, and yet
it is a shocking book—one that reveals
incredible grossness, thoughtlessness, polite
corruption.
H.L. Mencken
There are pages so artfully contrived that
one can no more imagine improvising them
than one can imagine improvising a fugue.
Text
First Edition
In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some
advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.
“Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember
that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve
had.”
He didn’t say any more, but we’ve always been unusually
communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a
great deal more than that. In consequence, I’m inclined to reserve all
judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and
also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind
is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a
normal person, and so it came about that in college I was unjustly
accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefs of
wild, unknown men. Most of the confidences were unsought—
frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile levity when I
realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was
quivering on the horizon; for the intimate revelations of young men, or at
least the terms in which they express them, are usually plagiaristic and
marred by obvious suppressions. Reserving judgments is a matter of
infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that,
as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of
the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth.
And, after boasting this way of my tolerance, I come to the
admission that it has a limit. Conduct may be founded on the hard
rock or the wet marshes, but after a certain point I don’t care what
it’s founded on. When I came back from the East last autumn I felt
that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral
attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with
privileged glimpses into the human heart. 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. If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures,
then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened
sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of
those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand
miles away. This responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby
impressionability which is dignified under the name of the “creative
temperament”—it was 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. 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.
Plot
1 (intro of narrator; N meets D, Tom, & Jordan; G is mentioned;
N sees G looking across the bay)
2 (N meets Myrtle; drunk party in NYC)
3 (party at G; G tells Jordan something amazing; N meets G)
4 (list of people; G’s story, meeting Wolfsheim at lunch with G;
Jordan’s G story—allows info to come late in the novel)
5 (G & D meet)
6 (real story of G; Tom suspicious at party; G talks to N)
7 (confrontation in NYC; death of Myrtle; G’s vigil)
8 (G’s version of the romance; N says G the best; break w/
Jordan; George kills G)
9 (N arranges funeral; Mr. Gatz arrives; remeets Jordan & Tom)
Delineating Character
1) naming;
2) description of physical appearance, including dress;
3) association with objects, surroundings, possessions, or with
images directly introduced by the narrator;
4) direct discussion and analysis of the character by the narrator;
5) actions and behaviour, whether described or represented;
6) talk by the character, including
a) talk as action or performance (lying, boasting, betraying,
flattering)
b) talk as self-defining via vocabulary, dialect, rhetoric
c) self-analysis by the character, whether accurate or not.
7) talk about the character by others, accurate or not. Such talk
both characterizes the talker and the character talked about.
8) representation or description of the character’s thoughts.*
*Adapted from Nina Baym, University of Illinois
“I love to see you at my table, Nick. You remind me of a—of a
rose, an absolute rose. Doesn’t he?” She turned to Miss Baker for
confirmation. “An absolute rose?”
This was untrue. I am not even faintly like a rose. She was
only extemporizing, but a stirring warmth flowed from her, as if her
heart was trying to come out to you concealed in one of those
breathless, thrilling words. (19)
The telephone rang inside, startlingly, and as Daisy shook
her head decisively at Tom the subject of the stables, in fact all
subjects, vanished into air. . . . . I couldn’t guess what Daisy and
Tom were thinking, but I doubt if even Miss Baker, who seemed to
have mastered a certain hardy scepticism, was able utterly to put
this fifth guest’s shrill metallic urgency out of mind. To a certain
temperament the situation might have seemed intriguing—my own
instinct was to telephone immediately for the police. (20)
Reading over what I have written so
far, I see I have given the impression
that the events of three nights several
weeks apart were all that absorbed me.
On the contrary, they were merely
casual events in a crowded summer,
and, until much later, they absorbed me
infinitely less than my personal affairs.
(60)
Point of View
First person pov: Only one "character" in the story is described as
"I." All action is filtered through the thoughts and values of this
character, who may be trustworthy—or may not.
Second person pov: Rare, but used in contemporary writing. "You"
is the primary form of address here, resulting in work which tends
to sound very colloquial.
Third person pov: Can be omniscient (see inside and report on
thoughts of all the characters), limited omniscient (see inside only
one mind), or not omniscient at all. "He," "she," are the primary
forms of address.
There are many continua along which a point of view may be
described but the chief are:
1) degree of knowledge of the action;
2) degree of understanding of the action;
3) degree of participation in the action.
*Adapted from Nina Baym, University of Illinois
He smiled understandingly—much more than
understandingly. 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. It faced—or
seemed to face—the whole external world for an
instant, and then concentrated on you with an
irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you
just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in
you as you would like to believe in yourself, and
assured you that it had precisely the impression of you
that, at your best, you hoped to convey. Precisely at
that point it vanished—and I was looking at an elegant
young rough-neck, a year or two over thirty, whose
elaborate formality of speech just missed being
absurd. Some time before he introduced himself I’d
got a strong impression that he was picking his words
with care. (52-53)
“It was a strange coincidence,” I said.
“But it wasn’t a coincidence at all.”
“Why not?”
“Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy
would be just across the bay.”
Then it had not been merely the stars to
which he had aspired on that June night. He
came alive to me, delivered suddenly from
the womb of his purposeless splendor. (83)
“It’s the funniest thing, old sport,” he said
hilariously. “I can’t—When I try to—”
He had passed visibly through two states
and was entering upon a third. After his
embarrassment and his unreasoning joy he
was consumed with wonder at her presence.
He had been full of the idea so long, dreamed
it right through to the end, waited with his
teeth set, so to speak, at an inconceivable
pitch of intensity. Now, in the reaction, he was
running down like an overwound clock. (97)
“If it wasn’t for the mist we could see your
home across the bay,” said Gatsby. “You
always have a green light that burns all night
at the end of your dock.”
Daisy put her arm through his abruptly, but
he seemed absorbed in what he had just said.
Possibly it had occurred to him that the
colossal significance of that light had now
vanished forever. Compared to the great
distance that had separated him from Daisy it
had seemed very near to her, almost touching
her. It had seemed as close as a star to the
moon. Now it was again a green light on a
dock. His count of enchanted objects had
diminished by one. (98)
As I went over to say good-by I saw that
the expression of bewilderment had come
back into Gatsby’s face, as though a faint
doubt had occurred to him as to the quality of
his present happiness. Almost five years!
There must have been moments even that
afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his
dreams—not through her own fault, but
because of the colossal vitality of his illusion.
It had gone beyond her, beyond everything.
He had thrown himself into it with a creative
passion, adding to it all the time, decking it
out with every bright feather that drifted his
way. No amount of fire or freshness can
challenge what a man will store up in his
ghostly heart. (101)
No telephone message arrived, but the butler went
without his sleep and waited for it until four
o’clock—until long after there was any one to give
it to if it came. I have an idea that Gatsby himself
didn’t believe it would come, and perhaps he no
longer cared. If that was true he must have felt
that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high
price for living too long with a single dream. He
must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through
frightening leaves and shivered as he found what
a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the
sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass. A
new world, material without being real, where
poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted
fortuitously about . . . like that ashen, fantastic
figure gliding toward him through the amorphous
trees. (169)
Daisy looked at Tom frowning, and an
indefinable expression, at once
definitely unfamiliar and vaguely
recognizable, as if I had only heard it
described in words, passed over
Gatsby’s face. (127)
Tom glanced around to see if we mirrored
his unbelief. But we were all looking at
Gatsby.
“It was an opportunity they gave to some
of the officers after the Armistice,” he
continued. “We could go to any of the
universities in England or France.”
I wanted to get up and slap him on the
back. I had one of those renewals of
complete faith in him that I’d experienced
before. (136)
He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to
Tom and say: “I never loved you.” After she had obliterated four
years with that sentence they could decide upon the more
practical measures to be taken. One of them was that, after
she was free, they were to go back to Louisville and be married
from her house—just as if it were five years ago.
“And she doesn’t understand,” he said. “She used to be able
to understand. We’d sit for hours—”
He broke off and began to walk up and down a desolate path
of fruit rinds and discarded favors and crushed flowers.
“I wouldn’t ask too much of her,” I ventured. “You can’t
repeat the past.”
“Can’t repeat the past?” he cried incredulously. “Why of
course you can!”
He looked around him wildly, as if the past were lurking here
in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand.
“I’m going to fix everything just the way it was before,” he
said, nodding determinedly. “She’ll see.” (116-17)
Daisy put her arm through his abruptly,
but he seemed absorbed in what he had just
said. Possibly it had occurred to him that the
colossal significance of that light had now
vanished forever. Compared to the great
distance that had separated him from Daisy it
had seemed very near to her, almost touching
her. It had seemed as close as a star to the
moon. Now it was again a green light on a
dock. His count of enchanted objects had
diminished by one. (98)
“She’s got an indiscreet voice,” I remarked.
“It’s full of—”
I hesitated.
“Her voice is full of money,” he said suddenly.
That was it. I’d never understood before. It
was full of money—that was the inexhaustible
charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the
cymbals’ song of it. . . . high in a white palace
the king’s daughter, the golden girl. . . . (127)
Intertexts
“the bold & arduous project of arriving at moral perfection”
1. TEMPERANCE. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
2. SILENCE. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling
conversation.
3. ORDER. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its
time.
4. RESOLUTION. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you
resolve.
5. FRUGALITY. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste
nothing.
6. INDUSTRY. Lose no time; be always employ'd in something useful; cut off all
unnecessary actions.
7. SINCERITY. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak,
speak accordingly.
8. JUSTICE. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
9. MODERATION. Avoid extreams; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they
deserve.
10. CLEANLINESS. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation.
11. TRANQUILLITY. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.
12. CHASTITY. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dulness,
weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation.
13. HUMILITY. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.
Franklin’s Schedule
Realism
Epigraph
Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her;
If you can bounce high, bounce for her too,
Till she cry “Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover,
I must have you!”
—THOMAS PARKE D’INVILLIERS.
Titles
Gold-hatted Gatsby
Trimalchio
Trimalchio in West Egg
Among the Ash Heaps and Millionaires
On the Road to West Egg
The High-bouncing Lover
Gatsby
The Great Gatsby
Under the Red White and Blue
Valley of Ashes
The caterwauling horns had reached a
crescendo and I turned away and cut across
the lawn toward home. I glanced back once.
A wafer of a moon was shining over Gatsby’s
house, making the night fine as before, and
surviving the laughter and the sound of his
still glowing garden. A sudden emptiness
seemed to flow now from the windows and
the great doors, endowing with complete
isolation the figure of the host, who stood on
the porch, his hand up in a formal gesture of
farewell. (60)
Style
Elements of Style
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sentence length
sentence syntax
diction
parts of speech
symbolism
dialogue
point of view
lexicon
detail
repetitions
narrator’s style vs speech patterns of characters
"How do you feel, Jake?" Brett asked. "My God! what a meal you've eaten."
"I feel fine. Do you want a dessert?"
"Lord, no."
Brett was smoking.
"You like to eat, don't you?" she said.
"Yes," I said. "I like to do a lot of things."
"What do you like to do?"
"Oh," I said, "I like to do a lot of things. Don't you want a dessert?"
"You asked me that once," Brett said.
"Yes," I said. "So I did. Let's have another bottle of rioja alta."
"It's very good."
"You haven't drunk much of it," I said.
"I have. You haven't seen.”
"Let's get two bottles," I said. The bottles came. I poured a little in my glass, then a glass for
Brett, then filled my glass. We touched glasses.
"Bung-o!" Brett said. I drank my glass and poured out another. Brett put her hand on my arm.
"Don't get drunk, Jake," she said. "You don't have to."
"How do you know?"
"Don't," she said. "You'll be all right."
"I'm not getting drunk," I said. "I'm just drinking a little wine. I like to drink wine."
"Don't get drunk," she said. "Jake, don't get drunk.
"Want to go for a ride?" I said. "Want to ride through the town?"
"Right," Brett said. "I haven't seen Madrid. I should see Madrid."
"I'll finish this," I said.
Down-stairs we came out through the first-floor dining-room to the
street. A waiter went for a taxi. It was hot and bright. Up the street was
a little square with trees and grass where there were taxis parked. A
taxi came up the street, the waiter hanging out at the side. I tipped him
and told the driver where to drive, and got in beside Brett. The driver
started up the street. I settled back. Brett moved close to me. We sat
close against each other. I put my arm around her and she rested
against me comfortably. It was very hot and bright, and the houses
looked sharply white. We turned out onto the Gran Via.
"Oh, Jake," Brett said, "we could have had such a damned good time
together."
Ahead was a mounted policeman in khaki directing traffic. He raised his
baton. The car slowed suddenly pressing Brett against me.
"Yes," I said. "Isn't it pretty to think so?" (246-47)
The chauffeur came out, folding up the papers and putting them
in the inside pocket of his coat. We all got in the car and it
started up the white dusty road into Spain. For a while the
country was much as it had been; then, climbing all the time,
we crossed the top of a Col, the road winding back and forth on
itself, and then it was really Spain. There were long brown
mountains and a few pines and far-off forests of beech-trees on
some of the mountainsides. The road went along the summit of
the Col and then dropped down, and the driver had to honk,
and slow up, and turn out to avoid running into two donkeys
that were sleeping in the road. We came down out of the
mountains and through an oak forest, and there were white
cattle grazing in the forest. Down below there were grassy
plains and clear streams, and then we crossed a stream and
went through a gloomy little village, and started to climb again.
We climbed up and up and crossed another high Col and
turned along it, and the road ran down to the right, and we saw
a whole new range of mountains off to the south, all brown and
baked-looking and furrowed in strange shapes. (93)