"The Great Gatsby"

ANALYSIS INFORMATION:

 General Storytelling: Majority Complete

 Act Order Storytelling: Signposts Only
 Character List: Major Characters
 Build Characters: Partial

F. Scott Fitzgerald
Author:
Source Material: Novel
Analysis sources:
Drama
Genre:
Tom Carraway describes the story setting, the
fashionable East Egg and its less fashionable
cousin, West Egg, as "One of the strangest
communities in North America. A slender riotous
island which extends itself due east of New
York-and where there are, among other natural
curiosities, two unusual formations of land.
Twenty miles from the city a pair of enormous
eggs, identical in contour and separated only by
a courtesy bay, jut out into the most
Setting: domesticated body of salt water in the Western
hemisphere, the great wet barnyard of Long
Island Sound. They are not perfect ovals-like the
egg in the Columbus story, they are both
crushed flat at the contact end-but their physical
resemblance must be a source of perpetual
confusion to the gulls that fly overhead. To the
wingless a more arresting phenomenon is their
dissimilarity in every particular except shape
and size."
1922
Period:
Katharine E. Monahan Huntley
Analysis by:
Comments:

"The Great Gatsby" is a good example of a non-leap of faith story. It is told in first
person, by the Main Character (Nick Carraway), with the storytelling emphasis
placed on the Obstacle Character (Jay Gatsby). Of particular note are the
illustrations of Faith as a Problem and Disbelief as a Solution. This Dynamic Pair is
examined from the perspectives of the Objective, Subjective, and Main Character
Throughlines.

Brief Synopsis:

Nick Carraway is witness to the great beauty and ultimate failure of an obsessive
love.

THE OVERALL CHARACTERS:

Name: Nick Carraway

ID: Main Character
Gender: Male
Description:

"I never saw this great-uncle, but I'm supposed to look like him-with special
reference to the rather hard-boiled painting that hangs in father's office."

Role: Cousin of Daisy, old school-mate of Tom's.

Character Type: Guardian
Characteristics:

Motivation: Logic

Name: Jay Gatsby

ID: Impact Character
Gender: Male
Description:

Jay Gatsby is Daisy Buchanan's long lost love.

Role: Daisy's lover

Characteristics:

Motivation: Feeling; Faith

Methodology: Proaction
Evaluation: Unending

Name: Daisy Buchanan

Gender: Female
Description:

"Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright
passionate mouth, but there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared
for her found difficult to forget."

Role: Nick's second cousin, the object of Jay Gatsby's' desire

Characteristics:

Methodology: Reaction

Name: Dr. T. J. Eckleburg

Gender: Male
Character Type: Complex|
Characteristics:

Motivation: Conscience

Name: Jordan Baker

Gender: Female
Character Type: Skeptic
Characteristics:

Motivation: Support

Name: Myrtle
Gender: Female
Role: Tom's Mistress
Characteristics:

Motivation: Temptation

Name: Tom Buchanan

Gender: Male
Description:
"He was a sturdy straw-haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a
supercilious manner. Two shining arrogant eyes had established dominance over his
face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward. Not even
the effeminate swank of his riding clothes could hide the enormous power of that
body-he seemed to fill those glistening boots until he strained the top lacing, and you
could see a great pack of muscle shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin
coat. It was a body capable of enormous leverage-a cruel body."

Role: Daisy's Husband, Nick's College Class Mate

Characteristics:

Motivation: Oppose

Name: Wilson
Gender: Male
Role: Myrtle's Husband

AUDIENCE AND STORY DYNAMICS STORY POINTS:

Nature as it relates to Apparent Dilemma:

Nick's decision to change his tolerant nature makes it impossible for him to continue
a romantic relationship with Jordan, or maintain friendly relations with the
Buchanans.

Essence as it relates to Negative Feel:

The focus of the story emphasizes the efforts to avoid the consequences of the
future (or lack thereof) as events accelerate towards Nick's disillusionment with Tom,
Daisy, and Jordan -- and the eventual destruction of Gatsby, Myrtle, and Wilson.

Tendency as it relates to Willing:

Nick Carraway is willing to pursue romance until his eventual disillusionment with
Jordan and the Eastern crowd.
Reach as it relates to Both:

Both men and women will empathize with Nick Carraway as he struggles with a
fundamental change in his nature.

Main Character Resolve as it relates to Change:

Nick Carraway was raised to be tolerant of other's moral shortcomings. The events
that occurred in the summer of '22, however, gave him an aversion to the ways of
the corrupt and dissolute, and his essential nature changed:

"In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've
been turning over in 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.' In consequence, I'm inclined to reserve all judgments 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 parceled 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."

Impact Character Resolve as it relates to Steadfast:

Main Character Growth as it relates to Stop:

Nick stop's reserving judgment, as illustrated in his moral indictment of Tom and
Daisy Buchanan:

"I couldn't forgive him or like him, but I saw that what he had done was, to him,
entirely justified. It was all very careless and confused. They were careless people,
Tom and Daisy -- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back
into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them
together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made...."

Main Character Approach as it relates to Be-er:

Nick Carraway deals with personal issues internally -- he prefers to adapt himself to
his environment:

"I am slow-thinking and full of interior rules that act as brakes on my desires..."
Main Character Problem-Solving Style as it relates to Logical:

Nick uses the problem solving technique of cause and effect.

Story Driver as it relates to Decision:

Although in love with the young soldier, Gatsby, in his absence Daisy decides to
marry Tom:

"And all the time something within her was crying for a decision. She wanted her life
shaped now, immediately-and the decision must be made by some force-of love, of
money, of unquestionable practicality-that was close at hand."

The Buchanans, Gatsby, Nick, and Jordan decide to go into town on the hottest day
of the year, which results in confrontation and death:

"So we drove on toward death through the cooling twilight."

Once he is disillusioned, Nick decides he can no longer live in the East:

"After Gatsby's death the East was haunted for me like that, distorted beyond my
eye's power of correction. So when the blue smoke of brittle leaves was in the air
and the wind blew the wet laundry stiff on the line I decided to come back home."

Story Limit as it relates to Optionlock:

The objective characters have explored all possible avenues for fulfilling basic drives
and desires.

Story Outcome as it relates to Failure:

Nick and Jordan have a parting of the ways:

"There was one thing to be done before I left, an awkward, unpleasant thing that
perhaps had better have been let alone. But I wanted to leave things in order and
not just trust that obliging and indifferent sea to sweep my refuse away. I saw Jordan
Baker and talked over and around what had happened to us together, and what had
happened afterward to me, and she lay perfectly still, listening, in a big chair....

For just a minute I wondered if I wasn't making a mistake then I thought it all over
again quickly and got up to say good-by.
'Nevertheless you did throw me over,' said Jordan suddenly. 'You threw me over on
the telephone. I don't give a damn about you now, but it was a new experience for
me, and I felt a little dizzy for a while.'"

Nick reflects on Gatsby's failure to realize his dream of obtaining Daisy:

"I went over and looked at that huge incoherent failure of a house once more...And
as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder
when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. He had come a
long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could
hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere
back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic
rolled on under the night."

Once Wilson realizes Myrtle is having an affair, he attempts to hold onto her, which
results in failure:

"He had discovered that Myrtle had some sort of life apart from him in another
world...

'I've got my wife locked in up there,' explained Wilson calmly. 'She's going to stay
there till the day after to-morrow, and then we're going to move away.'

...A moment later she rushed out into the dusk, waving her hands and shouting --
before he could move from his door the business was over.

...Myrtle Wilson, her life violently extinguished, knelt in the road and mingled her
thick dark blood with the dust."

Story Judgment as it relates to Good:

Nick realizes it's important to have a certain amount of cynicism when interacting
with human beings:

"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 was exempt from my
reaction -- Gatsby, who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn.

No -- Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it was 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."

THE OVERALL STORY THROUGHLINE:

Overall Story Name: "Boats Against the Current"

Throughline Synopsis:

Nick Carraway happens to move next door to "the great Gatsby," a self-made
millionaire who had a long ago love affair with Nick's cousin, Daisy. Nick becomes
involved with the resumption of their affair, and the destruction and havoc it wreaked
for all.

Backstory:

Throughline as it relates to Fixed Attitude:

The objective characters hold a fixed attitude about people and society. Tom's
prejudice about people with ethnic backgrounds other than Nordic, and his certainty
of the part they will play in the downfall of western civilization, is illustrated as
follows:

"'Civilization's going to pieces,' broke out Tom violently. 'I've gotten to be a terrible
pessimist about things. Have you read 'The Rise of the Colored Empires' by this
man Goddard?'

'Why, no,' I answered, rather surprised by his tone.

'Well, it's a fine book, and everybody ought to read it. The idea is if we don't look out
the white race will be-will be utterly submerged. It's all scientific stuff; it's been
proved.'"

Concern as it relates to Innermost Desires:

All the objective characters are concerned with their own and others' romances.
Gatsby's concerns include Daisy leaving Tom and becoming his wife; Daisy's
concerns include a chance at reliving her girlhood through a romantic fling with
Gatsby--yet retaining her secure marriage with Tom; Tom is concerned with retaining
both his wife, Daisy, and his mistress, Myrtle. Myrtle would like to leave her husband,
Wilson, and become the next Mrs. Tom Buchanan; Wilson is concerned with keeping
his wife Myrtle; Nick and Jordan are halfway in love with each other.
Issue as it relates to Dream :

Gatsby's dream of obtaining Daisy went far beyond mere hope:

"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."

Counterpoint as it relates to Hope :

Wilson can only hope that Tom will sell him his auto:

"When he saw us a damp gleam of hope sprang into his light blue eyes.

'Hello, Wilson old man,' said Tom, slapping him jovially on the shoulder. 'How's
business?'

'I can't complain,' answered Wilson unconvincingly.

'When are you going to sell me that car?'

'Next week; I've got my man working on it now.'

'Works pretty slow, don't he?'

'No he doesn't,' said Tom coldly. 'And if you feel that way about it, maybe I'd better
sell it somewhere else after all.'"

Thematic Conflict as it relates to Dream vs. Hope:

Problem as it relates to Faith:

Gatsby believes he can become a myth of his own making -- a myth that only
causes him unhappiness and unfulfilled dreams:

"He invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen-year-old boy would be
likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end."

Tom's unfaithfulness with Myrtle, and Daisy's unfaithfulness with Gatsby, causes
problems in their marriage, as well as problems in Myrtle and Wilson's marriage.

Nick is appalled to find that Gatsby's mentor, Meyer Wolfsheim, fixed the 1919
World's Series, and played "with the faith of fifty million people..."
Solution as it relates to Disbelief:

Gatsby had faith in his dream of obtaining Daisy when he should have had disbelief.
Nick's eventual distrust of Tom, Daisy, and Jordan allows him to become realistic in
regard to human nature.

Symptom as it relates to Support:

Nick and Jordan support Gatsby's efforts to attain Daisy:

"'He wants to know,' continued Jordan, 'if you'll invite Daisy to your house some
afternoon and then let him come over.'...'And Daisy ought to have something in her
life,' murmured Jordan to me."

Catherine supports Myrtle's dream of leaving Wilson and marrying Tom:

"'She really ought to get away from him,' remarked Catherine to me. 'They've been
living over that garage for eleven years. And Tom's the first sweetie she ever had.'

'When they do get married,' continued Catherine, 'they're going West to live for a
while until it blows over.'"

Response as it relates to Oppose:

Gatsby opposes Daisy's marriage to Tom:

"'She never loved you, do you hear?' he cried. 'She only married you because I was
poor and she was tired of waiting for me. It was a terrible mistake, but in her heart
she never loved any one except me!'"

Tom opposes Daisy's relationship with Gatsby:

"'She's not leaving me!' Tom's words suddenly leaned down over Gatsby. 'Certainly
not for a common swindler who'd have to steal the ring he put on her finger.'"

Daisy protests as the two men quarrel over her:

"'I won't stand this!' cried Daisy. 'Oh, please let's get out.'"

Catalyst as it relates to Denial:

Gatsby's denial that Daisy ever loved Tom precipitates the harrowing events that
followed:

"It passed, and he began to talk excitedly to Daisy, denying everything, defending
his name against accusations that had not been made. But with every word she was
drawing further and further into herself, so he gave that up, and only the dead dream
fought on as the afternoon slipped away, trying to touch what was no longer
tangible, struggling unhappily, undespairingly, toward that lost voice across the
room."

Inhibitor as it relates to Openness:

Nick's initial tolerance of Gatsby, Jordan, and the Buchanans' prolongs his stay in
the East.

Benchmark as it relates to Memories:

The more the primary characters recall their memories, the more progress is made
in an effort to achieve the goal.

Goal as it relates to Innermost Desires:

The goal common to all the objective characters is the romance between Gatsby
and Daisy--some are in favor of the romance, others are against it.

Consequence as it relates to The Future:

After the events of the summer of '22, the future of the community radically changes:

"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."

Cost as it relates to Obtaining:

Gatsby dies while trying to achieve the goal. Although Myrtle and Wilson play minor
parts in the romance of Gatsby and Daisy, they also die.

Myrtle obtains a broken nose from her lover, Tom, when she dares to utter Daisy's
name.

Dividend as it relates to Changing One's Nature:

Gatsby becomes a member of high society.

After Tom rents a posh flat in New York for his clandestine meetings with Myrtle, she
believes, albeit temporarily, that she has become a member of high society:

"Throwing a regal homecoming glance around the neighborhood, Mrs. Wilson

gathered up her dog and her other purchases, and went haughtily in."

Requirements as it relates to Memories:

Gatsby's memory of his and Daisy's courtship drives him to pursue his personal goal
of obtaining her.

Daisy carries her "well-forgotten dreams from age to age," allowing her to take up
once again with Gatsby.

Jordan's memory of Gatsby and Daisy's long ago romance compels her to help them
renew their love affair:

"'The officer looked at Daisy while she was speaking, in a way that every young girl
wants to be looked at some time, and because it seemed romantic to me I have
remembered the incident ever since. His name was Jay Gatsby...

I think he half expected her to wander into one of his parties, some night, but she
never did. Then he began asking people casually if they knew her, and I was the first
one he found...

Daisy ought to have something in her life...'"

Prerequisites as it relates to The Past:

All the primary objective characters share in each other's past -- this is where the
battle lines are drawn.

Preconditions as it relates to Understanding:

Nick attempts to make Gatsby understand he cannot repeat the past:

"He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say: 'I never
loved you...'

'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."

Because Tom understands Daisy so well, he knows if he reminds her of the good
memories of their shared past, she will not be able to deny she ever loved him--a
denial that is essential for Gatsby to hear:

"'I never loved him,' she said, with perceptible reluctance.

'Not a Kapiolani?' demanded Tom suddenly.

'No.'

'...Not that day I carried you down from the Punch Bowl to keep your shoes dry?'
There was a husky tenderness in his tone....'Daisy?'

...'Oh, you want too much!' she cried to Gatsby. 'I love you now-isn't that enough? I
can't help what's past.' She began to sob helplessly. 'I did love him once-but I loved
you too.'"

Forewarnings as it relates to Developing a Plan:

Wilson is prepared to change his and Myrtle's future after he finds out she is having
an affair:

"He had discovered that Myrtle has some sort of life apart from him in another world,
and the shock had made him physically sick...'I've got my wife locked in up there,'
explained Wilson calmly. 'She's going to stay there till the day after to-morrow, and
then we're going to move away.'"

THE MAIN VS. IMPACT STORY THROUGHLINE:

Main vs. Impact Story Name: "The Dreamer and the Realist"
Throughline Synopsis:

Although Nick disapproves of Gatsby, he admires the tenacity with which he holds
onto his dream. There are many who take advantage of Gatsby's hospitality, but in
the end, it is only Nick who is his true friend.

Backstory:

Throughline as it relates to Situation:

As a set of external circumstances, Nick and Gatsby's homes are situated next to
each other; Nick is related to the object of Gatsby's desire (he is Daisy's distant
cousin)--and is willing to help Gatsby in his endeavor to obtain Daisy.

Concern as it relates to The Future:

Gatsby dreams of the future; Nick understands we truly never have a future, only the
past:

"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes
before us. It eludes us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch
out our arms farther...And one fine morning-

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

Issue as it relates to Choice :

Gatsby chooses the times he spends with Nick, delaying their mutual trust and
inevitable friendship:

"It was the first time he had called on me, though I had gone to two of his parties,
mounted in his hydroplane, and, at his urgent invitation, made frequent use of his
beach."

Gatsby selects Nick's cottage (and therefore Nick's approval) for his first assignation
after many years with Daisy:

"'He wants to know,' continued Jordan, 'if you'll invite Daisy to your house some
afternoon and then let him come over.'
The modesty of the demand shook me. He had waited five years and bought a
mansion where he dispensed starlight to casual moths--so that he could 'Come over'
some afternoon to a stranger's garden.

'Did I have to know all this before he could ask such a little thing?'

'He's afraid, he's waited so long. He thought you might be offended. You see, he's a
regular tough underneath it all.'"

Counterpoint as it relates to Delay :

Thematic Conflict as it relates to Choice vs. Delay:

Problem as it relates to Faith:

Nick is in the process of changing his tolerance of people's moral shortcomings.

Although he instinctively knows Gatsby is corrupt--it is Gatsby's faith in his dream
that endears him to Nick.

Nick continually loses and renews faith in Gatsby:

"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."

Solution as it relates to Disbelief:

His disbelief in Gatsby allows Nick to accept their relationship:

"'They're a rotten crowd,' I shouted across the lawn. 'You're worth the whole damn
bunch put together.'

I've always been glad I said that. It was the only compliment I ever gave him,
because I disapproved of him from beginning to end."

Symptom as it relates to Consider:

Nick considers all he discovers about Gatsby--the facts, the rumors, and his own
impressions.
Response as it relates to Reconsider:

Once Nick learns the truth of Gatsby's past, and understands the man that he really
is--he reconsiders his friendship with him and concludes it still viable.

Catalyst as it relates to Preconception:

Nick does not allow his preconceptions of Gatsby stand in the way of their growing
friendship.

Inhibitor as it relates to Closure:

Each time Gatsby closes Nick out, the relationship between them slows down:

"It was a halt, too, in my association with his affairs. For several weeks I didn't see
him or hear his voice on the phone -- "

Benchmark as it relates to The Past:

Nick has a better understanding of Gatsby when Gatsby relates to him his past, and
it draws them closer together:

"He told me all this very much later, but I've put it down here with the idea of
exploding those first wild rumors about his antecedents, which weren't even faintly
true. Moreover he told it to me at a time of confusion, when I had reached the point
of believing everything and nothing about him. So I take advantage of this short halt,
while Gatsby, so to speak, caught his breath, to clear this set of misconceptions
away."

Nick Carraway's THROUGHLINE:

Role: Cousin of Daisy, old school-mate of Tom's.

Description:
"I never saw this great-uncle, but I'm supposed to look like him-with special
reference to the rather hard-boiled painting that hangs in father's office."

Throughline Synopsis:

Nick is a man who all his life has tried to be fair and non-judgmental, until the
occurrence of events in the summer of 1922.

Backstory:

Throughline as it relates to Manipulation:

Nick explores a new way of thinking about others' moral shortcomings.

Concern as it relates to Changing One's Nature:

Nick becomes realistic in the ways of the morally corrupt and changes his tolerant
nature.

Issue as it relates to Commitment :

Nick fulfills the commitment to his friendship with Gatsby by taking on the
responsibilities associated with Gatsby's death, e.g., making funeral arrangements:

"I found myself on Gatsby's side, and alone. From the moment I telephoned news of
the catastrophe to West Egg Village, every surmise about him, and every practical
question, was referred to me. At first I was surprised and confused; then, as he lay
in his house and didn't move or breathe or speak, hour upon hour, it grew upon me
that I was responsible, because no one else was interested--interested, I mean, with
that intense personal interest to which every one has some vague right at the end."

Before making any kind of romantic commitment to Jordan, Nick feels responsible to
"get myself definitely out of that tangle back home."

Counterpoint as it relates to Responsibility :

Thematic Conflict as it relates to Commitment vs. Responsibility:

Problem as it relates to Faith:

Nick has too much faith in his fellow men and women: "I'm inclined to reserve all
judgments..."

Solution as it relates to Disbelief:

Although Nick was raised to have faith in people, regardless of their moral
shortcomings, he eventually comes to disbelieve this ideal.

Symptom as it relates to Pursuit:

Nick pursues a better life in the East because he believes his home in the Middle
West is provincial after his time at Yale and stint in the Great War:

"I graduated from New Haven in 1915, just a quarter of a century after my father,
and a little later I participated in that delayed Teutonic migration known as the Great
War. I enjoyed the counter-raid so thoroughly that I came back restless. Instead of
being the warm center of the world, the Middle West now seemed like the ragged
edge of the universe."

Response as it relates to Avoidance:

Nick reconsiders his decision to live in the East and prepares to return to his roots:

"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."

People seek Nick out because of his non-judgmental nature, oftentimes to his
dismay:

"...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 accuses of being
a politician, because I was so 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..."

Unique Ability as it relates to Obligation:

Nick is obligated to remain true to himself, therefore he refuses to settle for anything
less than a true love who has the same kind of integrity as he:

"Every one suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I
am one of the few honest people that I have ever known."

Critical Flaw as it relates to Approach:

Nick's honesty keeps him from pursuing a relationship with Jordan:

"'I'm thirty,' I said. 'I'm five years too old to lie to myself and call it honor.'

She didn't answer. Angry, and half in love with her, and tremendously sorry, I turned
away."

Benchmark as it relates to Developing a Plan:

Over the course of the summer, Nick realizes he can no longer imagine a happy life
on the East coast:

"After Gatsby's death the East was haunted for me like that, distorted beyond my
eye's power of correction. So when the blue smoke of brittle leaves was in the air
and the wind blew the wet laundry stiff on the line I decided to come back home."

Jay Gatsby's THROUGHLINE:

Role: Daisy's lover

Description:

Jay Gatsby is Daisy Buchanan's long lost love.

Throughline Synopsis:

As a young man, James Gatz invented the persona of Jay Gatsby, and devoted his
life to remaining true to this conception of himself which included living a life of
wealth and glamour-and obtaining Daisy-a woman who embodied all that he desired.

Backstory:

Throughline as it relates to Activity:

To attain great wealth, Gatsby involves himself in shady financial dealings--to obtain
Daisy, Gatsby buys a mansion across the water from her home, and throws parties
in hopes she will attend.

Concern as it relates to Obtaining:

Gatsby is concerned with attaining vast wealth in order to obtain Daisy.

Issue as it relates to Self Interest :

For Gatsby, self-interest is his own kind of morality:

"He might have despised himself, for he had certainly taken her under false
pretenses. I don't mean that he had traded on his phantom millions, but he had
deliberately given Daisy a sense of security; he let her believe that he was a person
from much the same stratum as herself-that he was fully able to take care of her. As
a matter of fact, he had no such facilities...but he didn't despise himself and it didn't
turn out as he had imagined. He had intended, probably, to take what he could and
go-but he found that he had committed himself to the following of a grail."

Counterpoint as it relates to Morality :

Thematic Conflict as it relates to Self Interest vs. Morality:

Problem as it relates to Help:

Jay Gatsby allows the wrong kind of people to help him further his ambitions:

"'Did you start him in business?' I inquired.

'Start him! I made him.'

'Oh.'

'I raised him up out of nothing, right out of the gutter. I saw right away he was a fine-
appearing, gentlemanly young man, and when he told me he was an Oggsford I
knew I could use him good. I got him to join up in the American Legion and he used
to stand high there. Right off he did some work for a client of mine up to Albany. We
were so thick like that in everything"-he held up two bulbous fingers-"always
together.'

I wondered if this partnership had included the World's Series transaction in 1919."

To keep his meeting with Daisy quiet, Gatsby must let go of his "help":

"'I hear you fired all your servants.'

'I wanted somebody who wouldn't gossip. Daisy comes over quite often-in the
afternoons.'"

Solution as it relates to Hinder:

If Gatsby's "extravagant ambitions" for wealth and glamour had been hindered--his
desire for Daisy-the woman who embodied this dream--may not have developed.

Symptom as it relates to Support:

Nick accepts Gatsby's friendship unconditionally, that is why he finds Gatsby's offer
of "support," for the favor of using his home as a meeting place for Gatsby and
Daisy, repugnant:

"'I thought if you don't make very much-You're selling bonds, aren't you, old sport?'

'Trying to.'

'Well, this would interest you. It wouldn't take up much of your time and you might
pick up a nice bit of money. It happens to be a rather confidential sort of thing.'
I realize now that under different circumstances that conversation might have been
one of the crises of my life. But, because the offer was obviously and tactlessly for a
service to be rendered, I had no choice except to cut him off there."

Response as it relates to Oppose:

Gatsby vehemently opposes Nick's suggestion that he cannot repeat the past.

Unique Ability as it relates to Attitude:

The impact Gatsby's rationalization of Daisy's behavior has on Nick is twofold,

increased sympathy for Gatsby, a man fighting a "dead dream" and disenchantment
for Daisy et al:

"'They're a rotten crowd,' I shouted across the lawn. 'You're worth the whole damn
bunch put together.'

Although Nick "disapproved of him from beginning to end," his friendship with Gatsby
transcended his ultimate intolerance of immoral people:

"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..."

Critical Flaw as it relates to Rationalization:

To keep his dream alive, it is imperative that Gatsby rationalize Daisy's fickle
behavior to himself and Nick-a rationalization that Nick finds pathetic:

"'I don't think she ever loved him,' Gatsby turned around from a window and looked
at me challengingly. 'You must remember, old sport, she was very excited this
afternoon. He told her those things in a way that frightened her--that made it look as
if I was some kind of cheap sharper. And the result was she hardly knew what she
was saying.'

He sat down gloomily.

'Of course she might have loved him just for a minute, when they were first married--
and loved me more even then, do you see?'"
Benchmark as it relates to Understanding:

The more Gatsby works on creating and convincing others of his phony persona-"the
long secret extravaganza"-the better the audience can understand his desperation in
obtaining Daisy.

ACT PROGRESSIONS:

The Overall Throughline Act Order:

Overall Story Signpost 1 as it relates to Impulsive Responses:

Daisy, Jordan, and Nick are concerned with Tom's telephone conversation with his
mistress, Myrtle:

"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 skepticism, 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."

Overall Story Journey 1 from Impulsive Responses to Contemplation:

Overall Story Signpost 2 as it relates to Contemplation:

Tom and Daisy attend one of Gatsby's parties, which gives a new perspective of the
man and his "whole caravansary" to himself, Tom, Nick, and Daisy:

"Tom was evidently perturbed at Daisy's running around alone, for on the following
Saturday night he came with her to Gatsby's party. Perhaps his presence gave the
evening its peculiar quality of oppressiveness-it stands out in my memory from
Gatsby's other parties that summer. There were the same people, or at least the
same sort of people, the same profusion of champagne, the same many colored,
many-keyed commotion, but I felt an unpleasantness in the air, a pervading
harshness that hadn't been there before. Or perhaps I had merely grown used to it,
grown to accept West Egg as a world complete in itself, with its own standards and
its own great figures, second to nothing because it had no consciousness of being
so, and now I was looking at it again, through Daisy's eyes. It is invariably saddening
to look through new eyes at things upon which you have expended your own powers
of adjustment."

Overall Story Journey 2 from Contemplation to Memories:

Overall Story Signpost 3 as it relates to Memories:

Gatsby's subjective view of what happened five years ago in Louisville precipitates a
row that includes Daisy, Gatsby, and Tom--and causes extreme embarrassment for
Nick and Jordan:

"'She never loved you, do you hear?' he cried. 'She only married you because I was
poor and she was tired of waiting for me. It was a terrible mistake, but in her heart
she never loved any one except me!'

At this point Jordan and I tried to go, but Tom and Gatsby insisted with competitive
firmness that we remain-"

Overall Story Journey 3 from Memories to Innermost Desires:

Overall Story Signpost 4 as it relates to Innermost Desires:

Gatsby's father comes to grieve for his son:

"After a little while Mr. Gatz opened the door and came out, his mouth ajar, his face
flushed slightly, his eyes leaking isolated and unpunctual tears."

Tom tries to convince Nick of his depth of feelings for Myrtle's death:

"'And if you think I didn't have my share of suffering-look here, when I went to give
up that flat and saw that damn box of dog biscuits sitting there on the sideboard, I
sat down and cried like a baby. By God it was awful-'"

Nick realizes he cannot continue a relationship with Jordan:

"Angry, and half in love with her, and tremendously sorry, I turned away."

The Main vs. Impact Throughline Act Order:

Main vs. Impact Story Signpost 1 as it relates to The Past:

Nick is curious about Gatsby and his past:

"'Who is he?' I demanded. 'Do you know?'

"...I would have accepted without question the information that Gatsby sprang from
the swamps of Louisiana or from the lower East Side of New York. That was
comprehensible. But young men didn't-at least in my provincial inexperience I
believed they didn't-drift coolly out of nowhere and buy a palace on Long Island
Sound."

Main vs. Impact Story Journey 1 from The Past to How Things are Changing:

Main vs. Impact Story Signpost 2 as it relates to How Things are Changing:

The progress of Nick and Gatsby's relationship is slow, as Nick feels Gatsby is not
honest about himself:

"He looked at me sideways-and I knew why Jordan Baker had believed he was
lying. He hurried the phrase 'educated at Oxford,' or swallowed it, or choked on it, as
though it had bothered him before. And with this doubt, his whole statement fell to
pieces, and I wondered if there wasn't something a little sinister about him, after all."

Main vs. Impact Story Journey 2 from How Things are Changing to The Future:

Main vs. Impact Story Signpost 3 as it relates to The Future:

Gatsby refuses to follow Nick's suggestion that he leave town until the implications of
his involvement with Myrtle's death have been cleared up:

"Toward dawn I heard a taxi go up Gatsby's drive, and immediately I jumped out of
bed and began to dress-I felt that I had something to tell him, something to warn him
about, and morning would be too late...

'You ought to go away,' I said. 'It's pretty certain they'll trace your car.'

'Go away now, old sport?'

'Go to Atlantic City for a week, or up to Montreal.'

He wouldn't consider it. He couldn't possibly leave Daisy until he knew what she was
going to do."

Main vs. Impact Story Journey 3 from The Future to The Present:

Main vs. Impact Story Signpost 4 as it relates to The Present:

Heeding Gatsby's request from beyond the grave, Nick attempts to track down
friends and acquaintances of Gatsby's to honor his death. Much to his dismay, Nick
discovers that those who greedily accepted Gatsby's hospitality in life, disappeared
upon his death.

" ..As they drew back the sheet and looked at Gatsby with unmoved eyes, his
protest continued in my brain:

'Look here, old sport, you've got to get somebody for me. You've got to try hard. I
can't go through this alone.'"

The Main Character Throughline Act Order:

Main Character Signpost 1 as it relates to Playing a Role:

Nick is concerned with being part of the Eastern lifestyle:

"I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the
inexhaustible variety of life."

Main Character Journey 1 from Playing a Role to Changing One's Nature:

Main Character Signpost 2 as it relates to Changing One's Nature:

Nick is concerned with becoming a bond salesman:

"Most of the time I worked...I went upstairs to the library and studied investments
and securities for a conscientious hour."

He is concerned with becoming free of a romantic entanglement back home so that

he may begin a relationship with Jordan:

"I knew that first I had to get myself definitely out of that tangle back home...there
was a vague understanding that had to be tactfully broken off before I was free."

Main Character Journey 2 from Changing One's Nature to Developing a Plan:

Main Character Signpost 3 as it relates to Developing a Plan:

Nick visualizes his future:

"I was thirty. Before me stretched the portentous, menacing road of a new
decade...Thirty-the promise of a decade of loneliness, a thinning list of single men to
know, a thinning briefcase of enthusiasm, thinning hair."

Main Character Journey 3 from Developing a Plan to Conceiving an Idea:

Main Character Signpost 4 as it relates to Conceiving an Idea:

Nick cannot conceive that those who had called themselves friends of Gatsby's in
life, would not honor his death by attending the funeral.

The Impact Character Throughline Act Order:

Impact Character Signpost 1 as it relates to Doing:

Gatsby gives large parties, in hopes Daisy will attend.

Impact Character Journey 1 from Doing to Obtaining:

Impact Character Signpost 2 as it relates to Obtaining:

Gatsby wants to obtain the favor from Nick of using his cottage for Gatsby and
Daisy's rendezvous.

Gatsby believes if he can recapture the past--he will possess once again the
romance he and Daisy shared:

"He talked a lot about the past, and I gathered that he wanted to recover something,
some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy. His life had been
confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting
place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was..."

Impact Character Journey 2 from Obtaining to Gathering Information:

Impact Character Signpost 3 as it relates to Gathering Information:

Tom's suspicions concerning Gatsby and his background instigate his investigation
of the man:

"'I'd like to know who he is and what he does,' insisted Tom. 'And I think I'll make a
point of finding out.'"

And later:

"'Who are you, anyhow?' broke out Tom. 'You're one of that bunch that hangs
around with Meyer Wolfsheim-that much I know. I've made a little investigation into
your affairs-and I'll carry it further to-morrow.'"

Impact Character Journey 3 from Gathering Information to Understanding:

Impact Character Signpost 4 as it relates to Understanding:

Nick compares Gatsby's lack of understanding the hopelessness of his dream with
that of a new world explorer:

"...for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the
presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither
understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something
commensurate to his capacity for wonder.

And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder
when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock."
 Miscellaneous Other Storytelling Items:

All Concerns:

Jay Gatsby's life is devoted to turning his past love affair with Daisy into their future,
a dream Nick realizes cannot be possible. How Gatsby and the others (mis)conduct
themselves in their quest for romance, changes Nick's tolerant ways and he
becomes a realist.