• The Great Gatsby

Francis Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940)

• Fitzgerald was raised in St. Paul, Minnesota

• He managed to enroll at Princeton in 1913
• With the publication of This Side of Paradise in 1920,
Fitzgerald became a literary sensation, earning
enough money and fame to convince Zelda Sayre to
marry him
• Fitzgerald was the most famous chronicler of 1920s
America, an era that he dubbed “the Jazz Age”
• Written in 1925, The Great Gatsby is one of the
greatest literary documents of this period, in which
the American economy soared, bringing
unprecedented levels of prosperity to the nation
 The Great Gatsby 
Key Facts
• full title: The Great Gatsby
• type of work : Novel
• genre : Modernist novel, Jazz Age novel, novel of manners
• time and place written: 1923–1924, America and France
• date of first publication: 1925
• Narrator: Nick Carraway; Carraway not only narrates the story but implies
that he is the book’s author
• Point of view: Nick Carraway narrates in both first and third person,
presenting only what he himself observes.
• Tone: Nick’s attitudes toward Gatsby and Gatsby’s story are ambivalent
and contradictory. At times he seems to disapprove of Gatsby’s excesses
of manners and ethics, but he also romanticizes and admires Gatsby,
describing the events of the novel in a nostalgic and elegiac tone.
 The Great Gatsby
Key facts
• Setting (time and place ) : Summer 1922, Long Island and New York City
• Protagonist: Gatsby and/or Nick
• Major conflict : Gatsby has amassed a vast fortune in order to win the affections of the
upper-class Daisy Buchanan but his mysterious past stands in the way of his being accepted
by her.
• Rising action: Gatsby’s lavish parties, Gatsby’s arrangement of a meeting with Daisy
• Climax : There are two possible climaxes: Gatsby’s reunion with Daisy in Chapters 5–6; the
confrontation between Gatsby and Tom in the Plaza Hotel in Chapter 7.
• Falling action: Daisy’s rejection of Gatsby, Myrtle’s death, Gatsby’s murder
• Themes : The decline of the American dream, the spirit of the 1920s, the difference
between social classes, the role of symbols in the human conception of meaning, the role
of the past in dreams of the future
• Motifs : The connection between events and weather, the connection between
geographical location and social values, images of time, extravagant parties, the quest for
wealth
• Symbols : The green light on Daisy’s dock, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg, the valley of
ashes, Gatsby’s parties,
 The Great Gatsby
Plot Overview
Nick Carraway a young man from Minnesota, moves to New
York in the summer of 1922 to learn about the bond
business. His next-door neighbor is a mysterious man
named Jay Gatsby, who lives in a gigantic Gothic mansion
and throws extravagant parties every Saturday night. The
novel ends with a murder of Gatsby while Nick reflects that
just as Gatsby’s dream of his lover Daisy was corrupted by
money and dishonesty, the American dream of happiness
and individualism has disintegrated into the mere pursuit of
wealth. Though Gatsby’s power to transform his dreams into
reality is what makes him “great,” Nick reflects that the era of
dreaming—both Gatsby’s dream and the American dream—
is over.
 The Great Gatsby

Characters
Nick Carraway -  The novel’s narrator, Nick is a young
man from Minnesota who, after being educated at Yale
and fighting in World War I, goes to New York City to
learn the bond business. Honest and tolerant, Nick
often serves as a confidant for those with troubling
secrets. After moving to West Egg, a fictional area of
Long Island that is home to the newly rich, Nick quickly
befriends his next-door neighbor, the mysterious Jay
Gatsby. As Daisy Buchanan’s cousin, he facilitates the
rekindling of the romance between her and Gatsby. The
Great Gatsby is told entirely through Nick’s eyes; his
thoughts and perceptions shape and color the story.
 The Great Gatsby

Characters
Jay Gatsby -  The title character and protagonist of the novel, Gatsby
is a fabulously wealthy young man living in a Gothic mansion in West
Egg. He is famous for the lavish parties he throws every Saturday
night, but no one knows where he comes from, what he does, or how
he made his fortune. As the novel progresses, Nick learns that
Gatsby was born James Gatz on a farm in North Dakota; working for a
millionaire made him dedicate his life to the achievement of wealth.
When he met Daisy while training to be an officer, he fell in love with
her. Nick also learns that Gatsby made his fortune through criminal
activity, as he was willing to do anything to gain the social position he
thought necessary to win Daisy. Nick views Gatsby as a deeply flawed
man, dishonest and vulgar, whose extraordinary optimism and power
to transform his dreams into reality make him “great” nonetheless.
 The Great Gatsby
Characters
Daisy Buchanan -  Nick’s cousin, and the woman Gatsby loves. As a
young woman in Louisville before the war, Daisy was courted by a
number of officers, including Gatsby. She fell in love with Gatsby
and promised to wait for him. However, Daisy harbors a deep
need to be loved, and when a wealthy, powerful young man
named Tom Buchanan asked her to marry him, Daisy decided not
to wait for Gatsby after all. Now a beautiful socialite, Daisy lives
with Tom across from Gatsby in the fashionable East Egg district
of Long Island. She is sardonic and somewhat cynical, and
behaves superficially to mask her pain at her husband’s constant
infidelity.
 The Great Gatsby
Characters
Tom Buchanan -  Daisy’s immensely wealthy husband,
once a member of Nick’s social club at Yale. Powerfully
built and hailing from a socially solid old family, Tom is
an arrogant, hypocritical bully. His social attitudes are
laced with racism and sexism, and he never even
considers trying to live up to the moral standard he
demands from those around him. He has no moral
qualms about his own extramarital affair with Myrtle,
but when he begins to suspect Daisy and Gatsby of
having an affair, he becomes outraged and forces a
confrontation.
 Themes, Motifs & Symbols
Themes

THE DECLINE OF THE AMERICAN DREAM IN THE 1920S

On the surface, The Great Gatsby is a story of the thwarted
love between a man and a woman. The main theme of the
novel, however, encompasses a much larger, less romantic
scope. Though all of its action takes place over a mere few
months during the summer of 1922 and is set in a
circumscribed geographical area in the vicinity of Long
Island, New York, The Great Gatsby is a highly symbolic
meditation on 1920s America as a whole, in particular the
disintegration of the American dream in an era of
unprecedented prosperity and material excess.
 Themes
THE HOLLOWNESS OF THE UPPER CLASS
One of the major topics explored in The Great Gatsby is the
sociology of wealth, specifically, how the new millionaires of the
1920s differ from and relate to the old aristocracy of the
country’s richest families. In the novel, West Egg represents the
newly rich, while East Egg represents the old aristocracy.
Fitzgerald portrays the newly rich as being vulgar, gaudy,
ostentatious, and lacking in social graces and taste. Gatsby, for
example, lives in a monstrously ornate mansion, wears a pink
suit, drives a Rolls-Royce, and does not pick up on subtle social
signals, such as the insincerity of the Sloanes’ invitation to
lunch. In contrast, the old aristocracy possesses grace, taste,
subtlety, and elegance, epitomized by the Buchanans’ tasteful
home and the flowing white dresses of Daisy and Jordan Baker.
 Motifs
GEOGRAPHY
Throughout the novel, places and settings epitomize the various
aspects of the 1920s American society that Fitzgerald depicts. East
Egg represents the old aristocracy, West Egg the newly rich, the
valley of ashes the moral and social decay of America, and New York
City the uninhibited, amoral quest for money and pleasure.
Additionally, the East is connected to the moral decay and social
cynicism of New York, while the West is connected to more
traditional social values and ideals. Nick’s analysis in Chapter 9 of
the story he has related reveals his sensitivity to this dichotomy:
though it is set in the East, the story is really one of the West, as it
tells how people originally from west of the Appalachians (as all of
the main characters are) react to the pace and style of life on the
East Coast.
 Motifs
WEATHER
As in much of Shakespeare’s work, the weather in The Great
Gatsby unfailingly matches the emotional and narrative tone of
the story. Gatsby and Daisy’s reunion begins amid a pouring rain,
proving awkward and melancholy; their love reawakens just as
the sun begins to come out. Gatsby’s climactic confrontation with
Tom occurs on the hottest day of the summer, under the
scorching sun. Wilson kills Gatsby on the first day of autumn, as
Gatsby floats in his pool despite a palpable chill in the air—a
symbolic attempt to stop time and restore his relationship with
Daisy to the way it was five years before, in 1917.
 Symbols

THE GREEN LIGHT

Situated at the end of Daisy’s East Egg dock and barely
visible from Gatsby’s West Egg lawn, the green light
represents Gatsby’s hopes and dreams for the future.
Gatsby associates it with Daisy, and in Chapter 1 he
reaches toward it in the darkness as a guiding light to
lead him to his goal. Because Gatsby’s quest for Daisy
is broadly associated with the American dream, the
green light also symbolizes that more generalized
ideal. In Chapter 9, Nick compares the green light to
how America, rising out of the ocean, must have
looked to early settlers of the new nation.
 Symbols
THE VALLEY OF ASHES
First introduced in Chapter 2, the valley of ashes
between West Egg and New York City consists of a
long stretch of desolate land created by the dumping
of industrial ashes. It represents the moral and social
decay that results from the uninhibited pursuit of
wealth, as the rich indulge themselves with regard
for nothing but their own pleasure. The valley of
ashes also symbolizes the plight of the poor, like
George Wilson, who live among the dirty ashes and
lose their vitality as a result.
 Important quotations
“… Well she was less than an hour old and Tom
was God knows where. I woke up out of the ether
with an utterly abandoned feeeling, and asked
the nurse right away if it was a boy or a girl. She
told me it was a girls and so I turned my head
away and wept. “al right” I said, “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…” Daisy, Chapter
I
 Important quotations
“…There was music from my neighbor's house
throughout the summer nights…
… Every Friday five crates of oranges and
lemons arrived from a fruiter in New York every
Monday these same oranges and lemons left
his back door in a pyramid of pulpless halves…
… I believe that … I was one of the few guests
who has actually been invited…”
Nick, Chapter 3