Significant biographical details about the author:
Fitzgerald was a soldier in World War I and met a woman while stationed in Alabama. She would only agree to marry him until he made enough money to support her want for a lavish lifestyle. This demand sent Fitzgerald to writing and publishing his first novel. This novel made him a success and was enough to make his woman agree to marry him.
They went through the Roaring 20’s living off his literary fame and money until the Great Depression hit in which Fitzgerald struggled with alcoholism and his wife with depression. He died in the middle of writing a novel.
Information about the period (literary, historical, artistic, philosophical, etc.):
The Great Gatsby is set in the Roaring 20’s a time of illegal alcohol and speakeasies. The young adults of this generation were survivors of World War I and determined to forget their past with the extravagant lifestyle of bootlegging and parties.
Identify the genre and specify how this work fits its characteristics:
The genre of the Great Gatsby is a jazz age novel for the obvious reason that is set in the jazz age and the plot and its characters are all based on the time period they are living in.
This novel is further characterized as a Jazz Age novel because of the fact that the author wrote and lived in the Jazz Age period.
Provide a brief synopsis (include exposition, main conflict(s), climax, resolution, and major plot points):
Nick Carraway has just moved in next door to the Great Gatsby and across the river from his cousin Daisy Buchanan.
Daisy is unaware that Gatsby has moved right across the river from her just so he could be closer to her and see the green light of her house. Gatsby has become incredibly wealthy and throws amazing parties just to impress Daisy. Gatsby hasn’t seen Daisy in years since he left. Daisy and Gatsby used to be in love but then he left and Daisy married Tom
Buchanan, but Tom has a girlfriend and Daisy is not happy with him. Gatsby meets Nick at a party and then later arranges a meeting between him and Daisy and Nick’s house. Some would say Gatsby and Daisy meeting after all these years is the climax but it could also be when Gatsby and Tom meet in the Plaza Hotel. Daisy then rejects Gatsby and she drives with Gatsby home in Gatsby’s car. She is speeding and kills Myrtle, Tom’s girlfriend. Gatsby claims that he was driving so Daisy won’t get in trouble and then he is later murdered at his house by Myrtle’s husband.

Literary Analysis Data Sheet
Identify and explain the use and effect of three literary techniques:
Symbols- the green light across from Gatsby’s house representing Gatsby’s hopes and dreams for the future.
Motifs- the geography: the separation of the old money and new money with the new money in West Egg and the old in East Egg
Themes- the decline of the American dream as portrayed by Gatsby and his rise to fortune and fame but his rejection and loneliness caused by the woman he loved ultimately ending in his murder.
page 2
Cite and quote one example of each:
“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—.”
“That’s my Middle West . . . the street lamps and sleigh bells in the frosty dark. . . . I see now that this has been a story of the West, after all—Tom and Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan and I, were all Westerners, and perhaps we possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life.”
“The truth was that Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long
Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself”
Cite and quote three significant passages:
-“I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”
- “He had 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 as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself.”
-That’s my Middle West . . . the street lamps and sleigh bells in the frosty dark. . .
. I see now that this has been a story of the West, after all—Tom and Gatsby,
Daisy and Jordan and I, were all
Westerners, and perhaps we possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life.
Explain the significance of each passage or explain how it relates to the work as a whole:
-Daisy says this and sums up what is expected for a woman in the
20’s. Daisy often tries to play this role to avoid the deeper problems in her life because she believes it would be easier to be simplistic and beautiful like everyone expects so as not to have to deal with the realism of the world.
-This quote is the first real analysis of Gatsby by Nick and shows the dramatics and charm of himself. It shows how is shown to the outside world and is slowly deconstructed throughout the novel.
-The East is full of parties and loose moral values while the West is the more traditional moral value representative. This quote also brings an end to the geographic motif that is used throughout the novel.

Name
Jay Gatsby
Nick Carraway
Daisy Buchanan
Tom Buchanan
Jordan Baker
Myrtle Wilson
George Wilson
Literary Analysis Data Sheet page 3
Role in the story
Main Character
Narrator/Main
Character
Main Character
Main Character
Minor Character
Minor Character
Minor Character
Record information for each significant major character in the work
Significance or Purpose
He is in love with Daisy and brings mystery to the novel with his sketchy past
Lives next to Gatsby and is the connective tissue that reunites
Gatsby and Daisy
The object of Gatsby’s affection
Daisy’s cheating husband
Nick’s love interest
Tom’s girlfriend
Myrtle’s Husband
Adjectives
Mysterious, charming, handsome
Quiet, intelligent, observant
Smart, passionate, beautiful
Rude, immoral, loud
Tan, athletic
Dumb, fierce vitalitly
Lifeless, naïve

Literary Analysis Data Sheet
Describe the setting(s) and explain its/their significance:
The setting is 1920s New York and Long Island. It puts the characters directly in the middle of the Jazz Age and all the parties, people, and customs that come with that age.
page 4
Identify and explain key metaphors, symbols, or motifs:
The green light is a symbol for Gatsby’s hopes and dreams.
The valley of ashes is a symbol of the result of the social and moral decay of the pursuit of wealth and power and the actual people who live in poverty.
The eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg represent the eyes of
God looking down on the moral destruction of a society that pursues wealth and fun above all.
The motif of geography is explored in the division of the west and east egg. The west being of traditional morals and the east being the opposite with its fast money and loose morals.
The weather is also a motif, when Daisy and Gatsby reunite it is pouring rain like the awkwardness of their meeting and then when their love is back the sun comes out. When
Gatsby is killed in the pool there is a chill in the air.
Identify and explain the theme(s) of the work:
One theme is the decline of the American dream in the 1920s. Gatsby rises to wealth on his illegal bootlegging and becomes famous for his many parties. He is the epitome of the American dream because of his success and throughout the book he declines emotionally like the American dream does during the Great Depression.
The emptiness of the upper class is another. They are inconsiderate and self-serving and think about themselves only and not at all of the poor lower class.
Write at least three questions or topics for class discussion:
Did Fitzgerald write this novel to cope with his own life?
Did Gatsby even believe his lies?
How does Nick quietly observe all that happens throughout the novel with minimum reaction?