THE GREAT GATSBY

By F. Scott Fitzgerald
 Pre-reading discussion
 Under what circumstances might you like
someone personally yet despise everything
he/she wants.
 F. Scott Fitzgerald
 Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald
 Jazz Age and Roaring Twenties
 Began soon after WWI and ended with the 1929
stock market crash
 Victorious, America experienced an economic
boom and expansion
 Advances in women’s independence – during
the war women took men’s jobs, and after the
war pursued financial independence and a
freer lifestyle
 Jazz Age and Roaring Twenties
 Flappers – young women who dressed up in
jewelry and feather boas, wore bobbed hairdos,
and danced the Charleston.
 Jazz Age and Roaring Twenties
 Speakeasy – where people could illegally
purchase alcohol during Prohibition in the
1920’s – an illegal bar!
 Prohibition fostered a large underworld
industry in cities like N.Y. and Chicago.
 Bootlegging, prostitution, gambling thrived
while police took bribes.
 The Rise of the Mafia

 http://
www.history.com/topics/mafia-in-the-united-
states

 https://
www.chicagohs.org/history/capone.html
 Historical Background
 Published in 1925
 Portrays the wasted American Dream as it
depicts the 1920’s in America.
 Speaks to every generation
 Paints a vivid picture of America after WWI
 Postwar panic and realism shook social norms
 Loss of innocence and values
 Bohemian lifestyle with little moral and religious
restraint
 High living and opulence
 characters
 Nick Carraway
 Narrator
 30 yrs old
 Moralist who becomes a foil to every other character
 Lives next door to Gatsby
 Is Daisy’s cousin
 Characters
 Jay Gatsby
 Title character
 Romantic idealist
 Devotes his life to amassing wealth which he
believes will win Daisy and thus fulfill his dream
 Characters
 Daisy Buchanan
 Nick’s cousin
 Tom’s wife
 Gatsby’s dream girl
 Incapable of love
 Represents the idolized upper class
 Characters
 Tom Buchanan
 Daisy’s husband
 Incapable of feeling guilt or any emotion
 Represents brutality
 Represents the moral carelessness of the rich
 Represents pseudo-intellectualism and racism
 Characters
 Jordan Baker
 Friend of Daisy’s from Louisville
 Young and compulsively dishonest professional
golfer
 Ironically involved with Nick, whose identifying
characteristic is honesty
 She has no emotions and represents the coldness and
cruelty of the rich
 Characters
 George Wilson
 Proprietor (owner) of a garage in the Valley of Ashes
 Represents the fate of the common working man, an
“everyman” who believes a strong work ethic will
eventually capture for him the American Dream
 Characters
 Myrtle Wilson
 George’s wife
 Her vitality attracts Tom
 Wants to escape her lower class status, yet has no
sense of values
 Characters
 Owl Eyes
 A middle-aged “fair-weather” friend of Gatsby’s
 Characters
 Pammy Buchanan
 Daughter of Tom and Daisy
 Appears as a possession to be displayed
 Always dressed in white like her mother
 Represents the shallowness of her parents
 Characters
 Henry C. Gatz
 Gatsby’s father
 Proud of his son’s prosperity
 Characters
 Meyer Wolfsheim
 Representative of the underworld
 Has used Gatsby as a front man and is proud of his
connections
 Gatsby tells Nick that Wolfsheim is the man who
fixed the 1919 World Series
 Timeline
 Age 17 – Gatsby meets dan Cody and learns
about the leisure class
 October 1917 – Gatsby meets Daisy. She is 18;
Jordan is 16.
 1918 – Daisy almost marries Gatsby.
 1918 – By fall “she is gay again.”
 June 1919 – Daisy marries Tom Buchanan after
receiving a $350,000 necklace. Gatsby is at
Oxford.
 Timeline
 August 1919 – Tom is already having an affair.
 April 1920 – Daisy and Tom’s daughter Pammy
is born.
 Autumn 1921 – Nick comes back from the war.
 Spring 1922 – Nick comes to the East and sets
up residence in West egg, Long Island.
 Summer 1922 – The main action of the novel
takes place.
 Autumn 1922 – Nick returns to the Midwest.
 Symbols
 Cars:
 Green light at end of dock:
 Eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg:
 East Egg:
 West Egg:
 Valley of the Ashes:
 Colors:
 White:
 Green:
 Gold:
 Themes
 Paradox (a situation, person or thing that
combines contradictory features):
 Appearance (illusion) vs. Reality (disillusion):
 Self-Discovery:
 Moral corruption:
 Corruption of the American Dream:
 Hollowness of the Upperclass:
 Clash of cultures and status:
 Quotes
 “I hope she’ll be a fool- that’s the best thing a
girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”
 “ Can’t repeat the past? Why of course you
can!”
 “He was crazy enough to kill me if I hadn’t told
him who owned the car.”
 “Oh, you want too much I love you now-isn’t
that enough?”
 “Her voice is full of money.”
 Quotes
 “They’re a rotten crowd. You’re worth the
whole damn bunch put together.”
 “By God, I may be old-fashioned in my ideas,
but women run around too much these days to
suit me.”
 “I didn’t want you to think I was just some
nobody. You see, I usually find myself among
strangers because I drift here and there trying
to forget the sad thing that happened to me.”
 Quotes
 “Of course she might have loved him just for a
minute in any case, it was just personal.”
 “…I am one of the few honest people that I
have-ever known.”
 Symbolism in quotes
“Possibly it had occurred to him that the colossal
significance of that light had now vanished
forever. Compared to the great distance that had
separated him from Daisy is had seemed very
near to her… Now it was again a green light on a
dock. His count of enchanted objects had
diminished by one.”