Title: ‘The Great Gatsby’
-> allusion to magicians? -> suggest artificiality and disconnection from reality, tricks
Genre: Modernist novel
Characteristics:
● Rejection of traditional values (Tom - cheating)
● Hard city life and lack of rural or natural world (The Valley of ashes)
● Loss of meaning in life (Daisy - bored, Jordan - yawning)
● Fragility of life (Myrtle’s death)
● Decline of morality (Drinking, Nick - several affair)
● Isolation
● A corrupt and futile American dream
● Emptiness (Tom and Daisy were careless people)
Features:
● Stream of consciousness
● Loose chronology and confused timeline
● Modern protagonists, seeking to change themselves, understand themselves and the
world around
-> cinematic techniques that echoe the popularity of Hollywood (he was a script writer)
The cover
Created by Spanish artist Francis Cugat.
-> Nick’s vision of Daisy as the “girl whose disembodied face floated
along the dark cornices and blinding signs….”
-> Eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg?
Themes: Dreams, types of love (romantic, materialistic, parental, friendship), barriers to love,
facades (persona, artificiality), time, social divisions, role of women, separation, violence
(power, control), Infidelity
Epigraph
mutability of a Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her; -> the poem is a piece of advice
person,
If you can bounce high, bounce for her too, -> this image of a ‘gold-hatted, high-bouncing
objectification of a
lover' is clownish at best and completely
woman, Till she cry "Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing
absurd at worst
lover,
Symbolism of
-> gold hat suggests wealth and status
amusement I must have you!"
-> bounce high suggests derring-do
-> allusion to Gatsby’s approach to win
—Thomas Parke D'Invilliers
Daisy
, (D'Invilliers is a minor character in This Side of -> "she" is someone to impress and win over,
Paradise, Fitzgerald's earlier novel about not someone to learn anything about - a
Princeton.) prize or an objective rather than a person.
-> theme of the mutability of identity: James
Gatz transforms himself into the glamorous
Jay Gatsby, and this poet is a cover identity
for Fitzgerald.
Settings
West Egg (new money)
● place where people who have recently become rich live.
● they acquired their wealth through hard work.
● are more morally upright and humane.
Although West Egg residents made their wealth through illegal means, their place symbolises social values.
The West Egg showcased gaudiness and vulgarity which people resort to in their desire to fit into certain social
circles.
East Egg (old money)
● place where people who were born rich live.
● they acquired their wealth through inheritance and with ease
● Are depicted as shallow, materialistic, careless, and self-possessed.
The East Egg symbolises the moral and social decay of society.
The East Egg showcased superficiality and carelessness.
Chapter 1
Summary
We are introduced to the main characters of the novel through the perspective of an unreliable narrator – Nick
Carraway. Although presenting himself as nonjudgmental, he describes others in such a way to encourage them to
make judgments.
He moves to the West Egg and visits his second cousin once removed – Daisy and friend Tom Buchanan for a dinner
in the mansion in the East Egg. There he meets Jordan and finds out that Tom is having an affair with ‘some woman’
in New York.
The chapter ends with a tableau of Gatsby, who stretches his arms towards the green light on the bay of the East
Egg.
It could be a hint on the unreliability of his narration – he participates in the events, but does not fully understand
how to interpret them.
Characters
