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Society+Class-
Old money and new money are clearly distinguished from one another in The Great Gatsby. Characters' social class is evident in the way thehy talk, think, and act. For example, Myrtle openly snubs "lower class" people at a party near the beginning of a novel.. "Old money" characters (Tom, Daisy, etc.) have social connections and proper ways of speaking. "New money" characters(Gatsby) lack in social connections but make up for it with lavish displays of wealth.
Love-The characters are confused about whom they love. Whom they are in love with and whom they are in love with often are not the same person. Daisy, while married to Tom and loyal to the wealth, still has feelings for Gatsby. Tom and Myrtle also have feelings for one another, causing Daisy to have extreme feelings of jealousy.
Memory+Past-Characters. pursue visions of the future that are determined by their pasts.Throughout the novel, Gatsby's mysterious past comes into question.   Nick Carraway says that the future is always receding in front of us, and that we're forever beaten back towards the past.
Dissatisfaction- Gatsby is dissatisfied with his place in society and wishes to rise to the upper class through illegal means. Tom and Myrtle are dissatisfied with their relationships, so they have an affair that has deadly consequences.
Religion-With the exception of George Wilson, who tells Daisy(regarding her adultery) that she can not fool God and God sees everything, there is a surprising  absence of religion among the main characters. Instead, they use their own conscience and the advice of others as their moral guide.

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Tom
Racist-"'Nowadays people begin by sneering at family life and family institutions, and next they'll throw everything overboard and have intermarriage between black and white.'
Flushed with his impassioned gibberish, he saw himself standing alone on the last barrier of civilization." (7.226-230)

Snobby-"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."(7.275-277)

Hulking- "That's what I get for marrying a brute of a man, a great, big, hulking physical specimen of a-"(1.69-70)

Jordan Baker-
Deceitful-
Jordan Baker instinctively avoided clever, shrewd men, and now I saw that this was because she felt safer on a plane where any divergence from a code would be thought impossible."
Advantageous-
"There was Jordan beside me, who, unlike Daisy, was too wise ever to carry well-forgotten dreams from age to age."
Athletic-
"...its pleasing contemptuous expression had

looked out at me from many rotogravure pictures of the sporting life at Asheville and Hot Springs and Palm Beach."(pg. 18)

George Wilson-
Religious- He tells Myrtle that she "can't fool God," that "God sees everything" (8.105),
Submissive-
Invariably laughed in an agreeable, colorless way. He was his wife's man and not his own." (page 136)
Beaten Down-Generally he was one of these worn-out men..."(page 136)

Myrtle Wilson-
Snobby-"Myrtle raised her eyebrows in despair at the shiftlessness of the lower orders. "These people! You have to keep after them all the time" (2.69).
Attractive-
"...she carried her surplus flesh sensuously as some women can... there was an immediately perceptible vitality about her as if the nerves of her body were continually smouldering.
Haughty-
"Some time toward midnight Tom Buchanan and Mrs. Wilson stood face to face discussing, in impassioned voices, whether Mrs. Wilson had any right to mention Daisy's name. 'Daisy! Daisy! Daisy!" shouted Mrs. Wilson. "I'll say it whenever I want to! Daisy! Dai –– '"(2.125-127)

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Fitzgerald divides the world of the novel into four major settings: 1. East Egg; 2. West Egg; 3. the valley of ashes; and 4. New York City.
Fitzgerald describes the difference between the East Egg and the West Egg in order to symbolize the wealth of the two areas. "I lived at West Egg, the—well, the less fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them. [...] Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water...".
Fitzgerald describes the valley of ashes as especially isolated in an era where technology in transportation is increasing. "...the motor road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from a certain desolate area of land. This is a valley of ashes..."
Fitzgerald describes New York City as a land of opportunity and center for the American dream. "Anything can happen now that we’ve slid over this bridge,’ I thought; ‘anything at all….’"

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Nick-Judgmental-"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."(1.3)
Cautious
"[Jordan's] gray, sun-strained eyes stared straight ahead, but she had deliberately shifted our relations, and for a moment I thought I loved her. But I am slow-thinking and full of interior rules that act as brakes on my desires, and I knew that first I had to get myself definitely out of that tangle back home... Nevertheless there was a vague understanding that had to be tactfully broken off before I was free." (3.169)
Self-Deprecating
"The Carraways are something of a clan, and we have a tradition that we're descended from the Dukes of Buccleuch, but the actual founder of my line was my grandfather's brother, who came here in fifty-one, sent a substitute to the Civil War, and started the wholesale hardware business that my father carries on to-day." (1.5)
Gatsby-
Mysterious-
His party guests spread rumors about him because so little of his private life is known.
Deceitful-
"I thought you inherited your money. I did, old sport," he said automatically, "but I lost most of it in the big panic – the panic of the war.
I think he hardly knew what he was saying, for when I asked him what business he was in he answered, "That's my affair," before he realized that it wasn't the appropriate reply.
Oh, I've been in several things," he corrected himself. "I was in the drug business and then I was in the oil business. But I'm not in either one now." (5.97-103)
Idealist-
"GENERAL RESOLVES
No wasting time at Shafters or [a name, indecipherable]
No more smoking or chewing
Bath every other day
Read one improving book or magazine per week
Save $5.00 [crossed out] $3.00 per week
Be better to parents." (9.104)

Daisy-
Indecisive-"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." (7.261)
Unhappy-She is not happy in her marriage with Tom and traditional gender role. "...and asked the nurse right away if it was a boy or a girl. She told me it was a girl, and so I turned my head away and wept. 'All 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, a beautiful little fool.'" (1.116-118)
Careless-
"It was all very careless and confused. They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures...then and let other people clean up the mess they had made. . . .

Meyer Wolfsheim-
Sketchy-
"'Meyer Wolfsheim? No, he's a gambler." Gatsby hesitated, then added coolly: "He's the man who fixed the World's Series back in 1919."
Sneaky-
"Fixed the World's Series?" I repeated. […] "Why isn't he in jail?"
"They can't get him, old sport. He's a smart man." (112-118)
Jewish-
"A small, flat-nosed Jew raised his large head and regarded me..."

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Francis Scott Fitzgerald was an American fiction author, whose works helped to illustrate the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age. Zelda Fitzgerald, his wife, was an American socialite, novelist, and painter. Conflict between them stemmed from the boredom and isolation Zelda experienced when Scott was writing. She would often interrupt him when he was working, and the two grew increasingly miserable throughout the 1920s. Scott had become severely alcoholic, Zelda's behavior became increasingly erratic, and neither made any progress on their creative endeavors. "From the start Fitzgerald wanted The Great Gatsby to be a ‘consciously artistic achievement,’ something ‘beautiful and simple and intricately patterned,’” according to the book’s forward, written by Charles Scribner III. The Great Gatsby represented the roaring '20s by portraying consumer culture, the effects of Prohibition on society and economy, and predicting doom ahead(the stock market crash and Great Depression.) Two interesting facts are:  Fitzgerald narrowly missed out on serving in World War 1, and his wife Zelda was considered the quintessential 1920s “flapper.”

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Part 1
I learned that the Harlem Renaissance refers to the revival of visual and performing arts and literature in Harlem that resulted from African Americans migrating from the Southern United States to the North. The Harlem Renaissance had a significant impact on culture during the 1920's. In the story of The Great Gatsby, Jazz, part of the emergence of the Harlem Renaissance, is used to set apart this generation from the last. At all of Gatsby's parties a large band as assembled described as playing the instruments commonly found in Jazz bands, such as the trumpet and the saxophone.
Part 2
Zora Neale Hurston was an influential author of African-American literature and anthropologist, who portrayed racial struggles in the early 20th century American South. During her life, Hurston made significant strides in these areas, and was posthumously recognized for her work.