The Great Gatsby
Chapters 1-3: Setting & Characters
By F. Scott Fitzgerald
Title Page - 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, highbouncing lover,
I must have you!”
-Thomas Parke D’Invilliers*
*D’Invilliers was both Fitzgerald’s pen name and the main character in
his first novel, This Side of Paradise.
Long Island, New York
West Egg
East Egg
New York City
Valley of Ashes
Gatsby’s Long Island
New York City
Valley of Ashes
West Egg
East Egg
West Egg = New Money
• West Egg represents ostentation, garishness, and the
flashy manners of the new rich.
• West Egg is associated with Gatsby’s gaudy mansion
and the inner drive behind his self-made fortune.
East Egg = Old Money
• East Egg represents breeding, taste, aristocracy,
leisure, and old money.
• East Egg is associated with the Buchanans and the
monotony of their inherited social position.
Valley of Ashes = Poverty
•
•
•
It lacks the glamorous surface of the
Eggs; lies barren and gray halfway
between West Egg and New York.
Created by industrial dumping and is
home to the only poor characters in the
novel [George & Myrtle Wilson]
Symbolizes the moral decay hidden by
the beautiful facades of West Egg and
East Egg
• Home of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg’s billboard
with its monstrous, bespectacled eyes gazing
mysteriously down “…over the solemn dumping
ground.”
• The eyes represent the eyes of God, staring down at the
moral decay of the 1920s.
New York City = Immorality
• Immoral behavior:
– Magazines [Town Tattle] &
books [Simon Called Peter] in
Tom’s apartment
– Lies about Daisy; gossip about
Gatsby
– Tom & Myrtle’s affair is public
– Tom’s violent act; shows no
remorse for Myrtle or Daisy
– Nick drunk here for only 2nd
time in his life
• Loud, garish, abundant,
and glittering
• To Nick, NYC is both
fascinating and repulsive
Characters
Nick Carraway
• Narrates the story and casts himself as the book’s
author
• Advice from father: “whenever you feel like criticizing
anyone…just remember that all the people in the world
haven’t had the advantages you’ve had.”
– Doesn’t possess the status/money of other characters
– Does have the advantage of being able to see realistically
[neither Gatsby nor the Buchanans possess this trait]
• Mid-Western Values: tolerant, open-minded, quiet,
reflective, a good listener, honest
– “…privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men…most
of the confidences were unsought…”
– His cardinal virtue: “I am one of the few honest people
that I have ever known.”
Jay Gatsby
• An air of mystery surrounds Gatsby; just the mention of
his name promotes gossip, speculation, and whispers
“from people who had found little that it was necessary
to whisper about…”
• Charismatic and handsome:
– “…there was something gorgeous about him, some
heightened sensitivity to the promises of life…”
– “…a gift for hope, a romantic readiness…”
– “…one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal
reassurance…it believed in you as you would like to
believe in yourself…”
• The Host of elaborate parties every weekend in which
“people were not invited -- they went there” and
“conducted themselves with the rules of behavior
associated with amusement parks.”
Daisy Buchanan
• An aura of beauty, charm, wealth, sophistication,
grace, and aristocracy
– Her voice was “low & thrilling” and contained “an
excitement” that was “difficult to forget;” it made
“people lean toward her.”
– “Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it.”
• Seems to exist in dreamlike/illusionary state;
protected by her money & status
• Others make decisions for her; fits the role of the
subservient, docile female of the 1920s:
– She says about her daughter: “I’m glad it’s a girl. And
I hope she’ll be a fool – that’s the best thing a girl can
be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”
Tom Buchanan
• Powerfully, athletically built
• Old money, aristocracy
• An arrogant, hypocritical bully
• Demands proper moral behavior from
those around him but doesn’t feel
compelled to live up to those
expectations himself
• A “man of thirty with a rather hard
mouth..arrogant eyes…an appearance of
always leaning aggressively forward…a
cruel body.”
Jordan Baker
one of the “new
women” of the 1920s – cynical,
boyish, and self-centered
• Represents
• Dishonest – cheated to win her
first golf tournament; continually
bends the truth
• Old money, aristocracy
Myrtle & George Wilson
Myrtle
• Possesses a fierce desire & desperation to improve her situation in
life
• In NYC with Tom, she attempts to transform herself into the person
she wishes she was – a woman of wealth, status, and aristocracy.
George
• Owner of a rundown garage in the Valley of Ashes
• An exhausted “spiritless man”
Both George & Myrtle represent that group of Americans for whom
the American Dream is never truly realized.
Symbols
• Green light:
– Nick spies Gatsby: “…he stretched out his arms
toward the dark water in a curious way…I could have
sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily, I glanced
seaward—and distinguished nothing except a single
green light, minute and far way, that might have been
the end of a dock” (20-21).
– Implication: Gatsby’s arms are stretched out towards
Daisy’s dock
– Significance: hope, a chance to achieve his dream
Question:
A pattern of deception permeates Chapters 1-3 of The Great
Gatsby. Nick states that Jordan Baker is “incurably
dishonest,” people at Gatsby’s parties “gossip” about who
Gatsby truly is, Daisy and Tom are so socially elite that they
seem to belong to a “distinguished secret society,” and Tom
and Myrtle are having a secret (and yet not-so secret) affair.
At the end of Chapter 3, Nick comments that he is “one of the
few honest people” he has ever known.
Why, in your opinion, do you believe these characters feel the
need for deception? What is the significance of all these lies?