100% satisfaction guarantee Immediately available after payment Both online and in PDF No strings attached
logo-home
Previously searched by you
Previously searched by you
logo
Summary The Great Gatsby all Character Notes (quotes, analysis, context, scholars) £9.98
Add to cart
Quickly navigate to
Preview
  2.  
  3. OCR
  4.  
  5. English Literature
  6.  
  7. Comparative and contextual study

Summary

Summary The Great Gatsby all Character Notes (quotes, analysis, context, scholars)
 0 purchase
  • Institution
  • OCR

The Great Gatsby all Character Notes (quotes, analysis, context, scholars) Characters include: - Nick Carraway - Jay Gatsby - Tom Buchanan - Daisy Buchanan - Jordan Baker - Myrtle Wilson - George Wilson - Catherine - Meyer Wolfsheim - Henry Gatz

Preview 2 out of 7  pages

Document information

  • May 29, 2024
  • 7
  • 2023/2024
  • Summary

Subjects

Written for

All documents for this subject (196)

Seller

avatar-seller
Faithki39

Reviews received

Content preview

The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)

The Great Gatsby Characters
Nick Carraway
- “Nick is considered quite reliable, basically honest, and ultimately changed by his contact with Gatsby.” -
David O’Rourke
- Chapter 1:
o About his tolerance: “I come to the admission that it has a limit.”
o “My family have been prominent, well-to-do people in this Middle Western city for three
generations.”
o Educated – “I graduated from New Haven.”
o Not interested in gossip – “To a certain temperament the situation might have seemed intriguing” but
not to him.
- Chapter 2:
o “I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.”
- Chapter 3:
o “I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited.”
o Voyeur – “I liked to […] pick out romantic women from the crowd and imagine that in a few minutes
I was going to enter into their lives, and no would ever know or disapprove.”
o About Jordan: “I wasn’t even in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity.”
o Dates multiple women, including Jordan but has a “tangle back home”
o Describes it as a “vague understanding” but leading other girl on – “writing letters once a week and
signing them: ‘Love, Nick’”.
o Immediately follows this by saying “I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known.”
- Chapter 4:
o “Anything can happen now that we’ve slid over this bridge” – he thinks after seeing a white chauffer
with black passengers.
o About Mr Wolfshiem: “a small, flat-nosed Jew” / “his tiny eyes” – antisemitic.
- Chapter 6:
o “I had merely grown used to it, grown to accept West Egg as a world complete in itself, with its own
standards” – Nick has changed and dirtied himself by associating himself with Gatsby.
 Daisy and Tom are uncomfortable – Nick opened the novel at a similar social standing to them.
o Nick: “You can’t repeat the past.”
- Chapter 7:
o In Chapter 7, Nick goes to help a woman who has dropped her pocket-book and “every one nearby,
including the woman, suspected me” of trying to steal it. (Nick has been in Gatsby’s presence a lot.)
o “I was thirty.” – Fitzgerald was 29 when writing.
o Jordan: “Come in.” / Nick: “No, thanks.” – Rejects invitation – no longer withholding judgement.
o “I’d be damned if I’d go in.”
- Chapter 8:
o Nick: “You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.”
o “It was the only compliment I ever gave him, because I disapproved of him from beginning to end.”
- Chapter 9:
o Nick imagines Gatsby says: “Look here, old sport, you’ve got to get somebody for me. You’ve got to
try hard. I cant go through this alone.”
o “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.”
o Jordan: “I thought you were rather an honest, straightforward person.”
o Nick: “’I’m thirty,’ I said. ‘I’m five years too old to lie to myself and call it honour.’”
Jay Gatsby
- “I find Gatsby aesthetically overrated, psychologically vacant, and morally complacent” – Kathryn Schulz

, - “Gatsby epitomises the self-made man” – Sarah Churchwell
- “Gatsby is a mythic character” – Marius Bewley
- Chapter 1:
o Nick: “Gatsby, who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn.”
o Nick – he had “some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life”
o Nick: “romantic readiness”
o His house implies he wants to mimic aristocratic European style – “a factual imitation on some Hotel
de Ville in Normandy”
o First appears alone as a shadowy “figure” – silhouette implies something missing – hollowness.
o Reaching out for an unattainable dream – “he stretched out his arms towards the dark water”.
- Chapter 2:
o Catherine: “Well, they say he’s a nephew or a cousin of Kaiser Wilhelm’s. That’s where all his money
comes from.”
o Catherine: “I’m scared of him.”
- Chapter 3:
o “his guests”/”his raft”/”his beach”/”his two motor-boats”
o Gave a “Two hundred and sixty-five dollars” dress to a girl who tore her own dress.
o Guest: “He doesn’t want any trouble with anybody.”
o Lucille: “he was a German spy during the war.”
o “the romantic speculation he inspired”
o “This fella’s a regular Belasco.” - Producer famous for the realism of his sets
o The party itself is a kind of elaborate theatrical presentation (fitting for “The Great Gatsby” – like a
stage name/Houdini etc.)
o First words are said “politely”.
o We first meet Gatsby as an unnamed kind soldier before he reveals who he is – throughout the book
we see that Nick was initially correct in his mistake and that there are two identities to Gatsby.
o “one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it”
o Jordan: “He’s just a man named Gatsby.”
o Jordan: “Anyhow, he gives large parties” – all that matters.
o Again, “standing alone” and “not drinking” – out of place at his own party.
o Butler: “Philadelphia wants you on the phone, sir.” – Link to the last interrupting phone call – Myrtle
to Tom – sets Gatsby apart.
- Chapter 4:
o Gatsby showing off his car: “It’s pretty, isn’t it, old sport?”
o “he had become simply the proprietor of an elaborate road house next door.”
o “So he was aware of the bizarre accusations that flavoured conversation in his halls.”
o “I knew why Jordan Baker had believed he was lying.”
o “What part of the Middle West?” I inquired casually. / “San Francisco.” / “I see.”
o “The very phrases were worn so threadbare that they evoked no image except that of a turbaned
‘character’ leaking sawdust at every pore as he pursued a tiger through the Bois de Boulogne.”
o Gatsby: “but I seemed to bear an enchanted life.”
o Dismisses a police officer by – “he waved it before the man’s eyes.”
o Jordan: “Gatsby brought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay.”
o Jordan: “He wants her to see his house” – thinks he can win her over with wealth.
o “he says he’s read a Chicago paper for years just on the chance of catching a glimpse of Daisy’s
name.”
- Chapter 5:
o Tactless: “you don’t make much money, do you?”
o Gatsby offers Nick an opportunity for money in exchange for setting him up with Daisy – suggests
this is a transaction, closer to a pimp and prostitute relationship then a fairy-tale romance.
o “strained counterfeit of perfect ease”
o Terrified to meet Daisy again after all these years.
o “’My house looks well, doesn’t it?’ he demanded.”

The benefits of buying summaries with Stuvia:

Guaranteed quality through customer reviews

Guaranteed quality through customer reviews

Stuvia customers have reviewed more than 700,000 summaries. This how you know that you are buying the best documents.

Quick and easy check-out

Quick and easy check-out

You can quickly pay through credit card for the summaries. There is no membership needed.

Focus on what matters

Focus on what matters

Your fellow students write the study notes themselves, which is why the documents are always reliable and up-to-date. This ensures you quickly get to the core!

Frequently asked questions

What do I get when I buy this document?

You get a PDF, available immediately after your purchase. The purchased document is accessible anytime, anywhere and indefinitely through your profile.

Satisfaction guarantee: how does it work?

Our satisfaction guarantee ensures that you always find a study document that suits you well. You fill out a form, and our customer service team takes care of the rest.

Who am I buying these notes from?

Stuvia is a marketplace, so you are not buying this document from us, but from seller Faithki39. Stuvia facilitates payment to the seller.

Will I be stuck with a subscription?

No, you only buy these notes for £9.98. You're not tied to anything after your purchase.

Can Stuvia be trusted?

4.6 stars on Google & Trustpilot (+1000 reviews)

68175 documents were sold in the last 30 days

Founded in 2010, the go-to place to buy revision notes and other study material for 15 years now

Start selling
£9.98
  • (0)
Add to cart
Added