The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Look at the cover again. What do
you see?
Really
look
and
examine
what
is there.
The sad, hypnotic, heavily outlined
eyes of a woman beam like
headlights through a cobalt night
sky.
Look closely at the irises!! What is
there?
The irises are transfigured into
reclining female nudes.
From one of the eyes streams a
green luminescent tear
Brightly rouged lips – These let you
know there is a woman involved.
No nose or other discernable facial
contours are introduced in this
celestial image.
A few dark streaks across the sky
(behind the title) suggest hairlines.
 Below, on earth, brightly colored carnival
lights blaze before a metropolitan skyline.
What overall
tone does the
cover depict?
Explain
 The book opens with an inscription on the title page by Thomas
Parke D’Invilliers. D’Invilliers is a character in another book by
Fitzgerald called This Side of Paradise.
Epigraph to The Great Gatsby:
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!”
 What advice is being offered by the speaker in
these lines?
 What do the phrases “wear the gold hat” and
“bounce high” suggest?
 Explain how this passage might be significant to
the novel The Great Gatsby.
The Great Gatsby: Points of
Emphasis
 The Decline of the American Dream
o Roaring Twenties----> Great Depression
o Era of decayed social and moral values
o Cynicism, greed, and empty pursuit of pleasure
 Hollowness of the Upper-Class
o New wealth (West Egg) vs. Old Money (East Egg)
East Egg vs. West Egg
East vs. West
• The East Egg = old money, established
• The West Egg= new money, less sophisticated
• The "new money" try desperately to situate
themselves on to that level of wealth that the people
of the East Egg perch on, but ultimately realize the
difficulty of doing so.
• The people of the East Egg will never accept them as
equals
Other Points of Emphasis
 Weather
 much like Shakespeare, Fitzgerald uses certain
aspects of weather to represent current
situations that are taking place in this novel
AND
Symbolism!!!
Symbolism
 Symbol An object representing an abstract idea
Some Color Symbols to look for:
 Gray
 White
 Green
 Red
 Yellow
 Gold/Silver
Some people symbols to look for:
 Myrtle
 Daisy
 Tom
 Nick
 Gatsby
 The owl eyed man
 Jordan
Other symbols to look for:
 The billboard
 The valley of ashes
 The hotness of the summer
 Cars
 Spring
 East Egg
 West Egg
 Gatsby’s clothing
 Social gatherings
Additionally…
 Keep your eyes peeled for literary techniques
 Used constantly throughout The Great Gatsby
--Alliteration
--Characterization
--Hyperbole
--Personification
--Dialogue
--Onomatopoeia
--Dramatic Irony
--Oxymoron
--Metaphor
--Imagery
--Simile
The setting of the story is …
The 1920’s was also known as
“The Jazz Age"
(1918-1929)
Jazz Influence
Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, etc.
“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.”
The 1920’s was also known as
“The Roaring Twenties”
Possibilities and aspirations
Women’s Rights
19th Amendment (August
26, 1920)- Gave women
the right to vote.
Flappers!
The Roaring Twenties:
What’s Goin’ On?
Economic boom
Technological boom
Financial corporations boom
Investors were infatuated with
the returns available in the
stock market especially with the
use of leverage through margin
debt.
New to the Twenties…
 Mass production made the new
technologies affordable to the middle class
 The fascination with consumer goods
(consumerism)
 Road construction (highways &
expressways)
 Electrification (power plants)
 Telephone lines
 Plumbing systems
What Does this Mean for Americans?
 A tremendous amount of optimism—with these
newfound wealth and luxuries, people were living
in the moment and not thinking about their
futures…the original YOLO.
So what’s the big deal?
 Local governments went into large debts under the
assumption that investments in these new features
would pay off in the future.
 People were spending money like crazy and not
thinking about the future– they were merely living
in the moment (indulgence)
 The pursuit of the American Dream, essentially, led
to disaster (purchasing houses, vacation homes,
poor investments, etc.)
All of this added up and eventually
led to…
 The Stock Market Crash and the Great
Depression.
The 18th Amendment (January 17,
1920) – Repelled in 1933
Anybody?
PROHIBITION
 Manufacture , sale, import, and export of alcohol
was– you guessed it– PROHIBITED.
Problems Prohibition Presented
 Rise of organized crime:
 Smuggling and gangster operations all over the US and
Canada
 Speakeasies
 Underground places where liquor and alcohol were
smuggled in—largely connected to mobsters, such as Al
Capone.
 Lucrative establishments
In what ways do we exemplify
indulgence in society today?
The Great Gatsby
Quiz over chapter 1 on
Wednesday! Let’s start
reading 