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Represents hope, could link to gatsbys harmatia and living in perpetual hope causing his downfall.

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Jay Gatsby (James Gatz)

Gatsby is, of course, both the novel's title character and its protagonist. Gatsby is a mysterious, fantastically wealthy young man. Every Saturday, his garish Gothic mansion in West Egg serves as the site of extravagant parties. Later in the novel, we learn that his real name is James Gatz; he was born in North Dakota to an impoverished farming family. While serving in the Army in World War I, Gatsby met Daisy Fay (now Daisy Buchanan) and fell passionately in love with her. He worked briefly for a millionaire, and became acquainted with the people and customs of high society. This, coupled with his love of Daisy, inspired Gatsby to devote his life to the acquisition of wealth.

Nick Carraway

The novel's narrator, Nick Carraway comes from a well-to-do Minnesota family. He travels to New York to learn the bond business; there, he becomes involved with both Gatsby and the Buchanans. Though he is honest, responsible, and fair-minded, Nick does share some of the flaws of the East Egg milieu. However, of all the novel's characters, he is the only one to recognize Gatsby's "greatness," revealing himself as a young man of unusual sensitivity.

Daisy Buchanan

Daisy is Nick's cousin, Tom's wife, and the woman that Gatsby loves. She had promised to wait for Jay Gatsby until the end of the war, but after meeting Tom Buchanan and comparing his extreme wealth to Gatsby's poverty, she broke her promise. Daisy uses her frailty as an excuse for her extreme immaturity.

Tom Buchanan

A brutal, hulking man, Tom Buchanan is a former Yale football player who, like Daisy, comes from an immensely wealthy Midwestern family. His racism and sexism are symptomatic of his deep insecurity about his elevated social position. Tom is a vicious bully, physically menacing both his wife and his mistress. He is a thoroughgoing hypocrite as well: though he condemns his wife for her infidelity, he has no qualms about carrying on an affair himself.

Jordan Baker

Daisy's longtime friend, Jordan Baker is a professional golfer who cheated in order to win her first tournament. Jordan is extremely cynical, with a masculine, icy demeanor that Nick initially finds compelling. The two become briefly involved, but Jordan rejects him on the grounds that he is as corrupt and decadent as she is.

Myrtle Wilson

An earthy, vital, and voluptuous woman, Myrtle is desperate to improve her life. She shares a loveless marriage with George Wilson, a man who runs a shabby garage. She has been having a long-term affair with Tom Buchanan, and is very jealous of his wife, Daisy. After a fight with her husband, she runs out into the street and is hit and killed by Gatsby's car.

George B. Wilson

George is a listless, impoverished man whose only passion is his love for his wife, Myrtle. He is devastated by Myrtle's affair with Tom. After her death, the magnitude of his grief drives Wilson to murder Jay Gatsby before committing suicide himself.

Henry Gatz

Gatsby's father; his son's help is the only thing that saves him from poverty. Gatz tells Nick about his son's extravagant plans and dreams of self-improvement.

Meyer Wolfsheim

A notorious underworld figure, Wolfsheim is a business associate of Gatsby. He is deeply involved in organized crime, and even claims credit for fixing the 1919 World Series. His character, like Fitzgerald's view of the Roaring Twenties as a whole, is a curious mix of barbarism and refinement (his cuff links are made from human molars). After Gatsby's murder, however, Wolfsheim is one of the only people to express his grief or condolences; in contrast, the socially superior Buchanans fail to attend Gatsby's funeral.

Dan Cody

Dan is a somewhat coarse man who became immensely wealthy during the Gold Rush. He mentored Gatsby when he was a young man and gave him a taste of elite society. Though he left Gatsby a sum of money after his death, it was later seized by his ex-wife.

Michaelis

Wilson's neighbor; he attempts to console Wilson after Myrtle's death.

Catherine

Myrtle Wilson's sister. Tom, Myrtle, and Nick visit her and her neighbors, the McKees, in New York City.

The McKees

Catherine's neighbors. The couple is shallow and gossipy and concern themselves only with status and fashion.

Ewing Klipspringer

A shiftless freeloader who almost lives at Gatsby's mansion. Though he takes advantage of Gatsby's wealth and generosity, Klipspringer fails to attend his funeral.

Owl Eyes

An eccentric, bespectacled man whom Nick meets at one of Gatsby's parties. He is one of the few people to attend Gatsby's funeral.

Themes

Honesty

Honesty is does not seem to determine which characters are sympathetic and which are not in this novel in quite the same way that it does in others. Nick is able to admire Gatsby despite his knowledge of the man's illegal dealings and bootlegging. Ironically, it is the corrupt Daisy who takes pause at Gatsby's sordid past. Her indignation at his "dishonesty," however, is less moral than class-based. Her sense of why Gatsby should not behave in an immoral manner is based on what she expects from members of her milieu, rather than what she believes to be intrinsically right. The standards for honesty and morality seem to be dependent on class and gender in this novel. Tom finds his wife's infidelity intolerable, however, he does not hesitate to lie to her about his own affair.

Decay

Decay is a word that constantly comes up in The Great Gatsby, which is appropriate in a novel which centers around the death of the American Dream. Decay is most evident in the so-called "valley of ashes." With great virtuosity, Fitzgerald describes a barren wasteland which probably has little to do with the New York landscape and instead serves to comment on the downfall of American society. It seems that the American dream has been perverted, reversed. Gatsby lives in West Egg and Daisy in East Egg; therefore, Gatsby looks East with yearning, rather than West, the traditional direction of American frontier ambitions. Fitzgerald portrays the chauvinistic and racist Tom in a very negative light, clearly scoffing at his apocalyptic vision of the races intermarrying. Fitzgerald's implication seems to be that society has already decayed enough and requires no new twist.

Gender Roles

In some respects, Fitzgerald writes about gender roles in a quite conservative manner. In his novel, men work to earn money for the maintenance of the women. Men are dominant over women, especially in the case of Tom, who asserts his physical strength to subdue them. The only hint of a role reversal is in the pair of Nick and Jordan. Jordan's androgynous name and cool, collected style masculinize her more than any other female character. However, in the end, Nick does exert his dominance over her by ending the relationship. The women in the novel are an interesting group, because they do not divide into the traditional groups of Mary Magdalene and Madonna figures, instead, none of them are pure. Myrtle is the most obviously sensual, but the fact that Jordan and Daisy wear white dresses only highlights their corruption.

Violence

Violence is a key theme in The Great Gatsby, and is most embodied by the character of Tom. An ex-football player, he uses his immense physical strength to intimidate those around him. When Myrtle taunts him with his wife's name, he strikes her across the face. The other source of violence in the novel besides Tom are cars. A new commodity at the time that The Great Gatsby was published, Fitzgerald uses cars to symbolize the dangers of modernity and the dangers of wealth. The climax of the novel, the accident that kills Myrtle, is foreshadowed by the conversation between Nick and Jordan about how bad driving can cause explosive violence. The end of the novel, of course, consists of violence against Gatsby. The choice of handgun as a weapon suggests Gatsby's shady past, but it is symbolic that it is his love affair, not his business life, that kills Gatsby in the end.

Class

Class is an unusual theme for an American novel. It is more common to find references to it in European, especially British novels. However, the societies of East and West Egg are deeply divided by the difference between the noveau riche and the older moneyed families. Gatsby is aware of the existence of a class structure in America, because a true meritocracy would put him in touch with some of the finest people, but, as things stand, he is held at arm's length. Gatsby tries desperately to fake status, even buying British shirts and claiming to have attended Oxford in an attempt to justify his position in society. Ultimately, however, it is a class gulf that seperates Gatsby and Daisy, and cements the latter in her relationship to her husbad, who is from the same class as she is.

Religion

It is interesting that Fitzgerald chooses to use some religious tropes in a novel that focuses on the American Dream, a concept which leaves no room for religion save for the doctrine of individualism. The most obvious is the image of the "valley of ashes," which exemplifies America's moral state during the "Roaring Twenties." This wasteland is presided over by the empty eyes of an advertisement. Fitzgerald strongly implies that these are the eyes of God. This equation of religion with advertising and material gain are made even more terrifying by the fact that the eyes see nothing and can help no one (for example, this "God" can do nothing to prevent Myrtle or Gatsby's deaths).

World War I

Because The Great Gatsby is set in the Roaring Twenties, the topic of the Great War is unavoidable. The war was crucial to Gatsby's development, providing a brief period of social mobility which, Fitzgerald claims, quickly closed after the war. Gatsby only came into contact with a classy young debutante like Daisy as a result of the fact that he was a soldier and that no one could vouch for whether he was upper-class or not. The war provided him with further opportunities to see the world, and make some money in the service of a millionaire. Gatsby's opportunities closed up after the end of the war, however, when he found upon returning to America that the social structure there was every bit as rigid as it was in Europe. Unable to convince anyone that he is truly upper-class (although his participation in the war gave him some leeway about lying), Gatsby finds himself unable to break into East Egg society.

Brief Biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald

F. Scott Fitzgerald grew up in Minnesota, attended a few private schools (where his performance was mediocre), and went to Princeton University. In 1917, Princeton put Fitzgerald on academic probation. He enlisted in the Army. On base in Alabama in 1918, he met and fell in love with Zelda Sayre, who refused to marry him unless he could support her. He returned to New York to pursue fame and fortune. The publication of his first novel, This Side of Paradise, in 1920, made Fitzgerald a literary star. He married Zelda one week later. In 1924, the couple moved to Paris, where Fitzgerald began work on The Great Gatsby. Though now considered his masterpiece, the novel sold only modestly. The Fitzgeralds returned to the United States in 1927. Fitzgerald published several more novels, including Tender is the Night (1933), but none matched the success of his first. Deep in debt because of their ritzy lifestyle, the Fitzgeralds began to spiral into alcoholism and mental illness. Fitzgerald died of a heart attack on December 21, 1940. Zelda died eight years later in a fire.

Historical Context of The Great Gatsby

Fitzgerald coined the term "Jazz Age" to refer to the period more commonly known as the Roaring Twenties. Jazz is an American style of music marked by its complex and exuberant mix of rhythms and tonalities. The Great Gatsby portrays a similarly complex mix of emotions and themes that reflect the turbulence of the times. Fresh off the nightmare of World War I, Americans were enjoying the fruits of an economic boom and a renewed sense of possibility. But in The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald's stresses the darker side of the Roaring Twenties, its undercurrent of corruption and its desperate, empty decadence.

Other Books Related to The Great Gatsby

Modernist fiction attempted to represent the sense of emptiness and disillusionment that dominated Europe and the United States after World War I. In this way, Gatsby can be considered as related to such modernist works as James Joyce's Ulysses (1922) and Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway (1925). But The Great Gatsby and all of Fitzgerald's works are best compared to those written by other Americans such as Ernest Hemingway, members of the "Lost Generation" of American writers who moved to Europe after World War I. All these writers depicted the reality, corruption, and sadness of the human condition, but Fitzgerald most effectively portrayed the American cultural moment he called the "Jazz Age."

Key Facts about The Great Gatsby

Full Title: The Great Gatsby

Where Written: Paris and the US, in 1924

When Published: 1925

Literary Period: Modernism

Genre: Novel

Setting: Long Island, Queens, and Manhattan, New York in the summer of 1922

Climax: The showdown between Gatsby and Tom over Daisy

Point of View: First person

Extra Credit for The Great Gatsby

Puttin' on the Fitz. Fitzgerald spent most of his adult life in debt, often relying on loans from his publisher, and even his editor, Maxwell Perkins, in order to pay the bills. The money he made from his novels could not support the high-flying cosmopolitan life his wife desired, so Fitzgerald turned to more lucrative short story writing for magazines like Esquire. Fitzgerald spent his final three years writing screenplays in Hollywood.

Another Failed Screenwriter. Fitzgerald was an alcoholic and his wife Zelda suffered from serious mental illness. In the final years of their marriage as their debts piled up, Zelda stayed in a series of mental institutions on the East coast while Fitzgerald tried, and largely failed, to make money writing movie scripts in Hollywood.

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Nick employs incorrect orthography to mock her way of speaking incorrectly

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1)     ‘I wanted the wanted no more riotous extensions with privileged glimpse into the human heart’ – showing the scorn of the East but how they made themselves, so they have a glimpsing into the ‘human heart’

2)     The sun rises in the East shows hope a new beginning and highlighting the wealth in the East and the freshness of the East

3)     Tom Buchanan’s House is always naturally lit and natural with plants and light – the wealth is pure and not superficial, and everything is grown, and they are born into wealth its not made as its all natural.

4)     ‘Fashionable palaces glittered across the water’– palaces are associated with royalty and glittered is natural and light bonces around naturally suggesting the wealth and the hope is natural and has been for a long time

5)     Tom Buchanan ‘id be a god damn fool to move anywhere else’ blunt lexis and how only the truly rich live here and it’s the perfect place for him

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west egger but from east egg background - bias!!!!!!!

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1)     The sun sets in the West foreshadowing Gatsby death and the hope is lost in the west.

2)     ‘The less fashionable of the two’ – but portraying superficiality as the wealth is forced.

3)     Gatsby House is always lit up by artificial light’- showing that the wealth is fake and superficial.

4)     ‘It was a matter of chance that is should have rented.’ to ‘all for eighty dollars a month’ they have imitated the wealthy, Gatsby presents wealth but doesn’t have the social breeding to go with it

5)     The green light comes from East Egg and shines onto West Egg showing hope and West Egg is the darker side

6)     Gatsby House is the same as the hotel Daleville, but it is all false- showing the people in the West are as wealthy as those in the East but it’s all fake

7)     ‘with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, as things grow in fast movies’ showing everything is artificially and like a fast-paced movie as it’s not real

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Morality
Class
The American Dream

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"gonnegtion"- emphasized communication of pronunciation

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fixed the 1919 world basketball series

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1)     Says he is not a judgmental person, yet judges those of the East and Gatsby himself- ‘No- Gatsby turned out alright in the end’

a)     Gatsby is representing everything he is meant to hate, he is the unaffected scorn- doesn’t have the cultural breeding.

b)      This implies Gatsby hope and light affects everyone.

2)     He comes from a wealthy background and a long line of wealth- ‘well-to-do people in this Middle Western city’

a)    He uses Latinate lexis showing he Is a well-educated man

3)     ‘I’m the most honest person I know’- ironic as he is judgmental and bias.

a)     ‘I’m inclined to reserve all judgement’ then judges the scorn of the East and judges their wealth through generations

4)     In the first 3 pages he changes his opinion 3 times painting him as a dishonest narrator- ‘Gatsby turned alright in the end’

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Money
Gatsby wears a gold tie to meet Daisy
Showy gOLD CAR
yELLOW= COLOUR OF SPECTACLES

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Daisy wears white
Daisy had a white car
Purity/innocence=Gatsby's idealized vision of Daisy

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Dominance of colour grey

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Gatsbys inability to finish sentences

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Colour/fertility
Hope

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Symbolism throughout

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represents absolute poverty and hopelessness

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First person narrator, retrospective

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Gatsby's mansion is a factual imitation of some hotel de ville in Noprmandy

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The heat towards the end is a metaphor for the building tension.

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East European sounding Gatz to West European sounding Gatsby- to sound more acceptable

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the american dream is corrupt - it's no longer a vision of building a life, its about getting rich only and showing it off.

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Jordan is assertive and chooses her words wisely (doesn't blab like Daisy)

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Jordan is assertive and chooses her words wisely (doesn't blab like Daisy)

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Gatsby and the West Egg symbolises the rise of organised crime and bootlegging to gain a wealthy status .

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Gatsby's possessions are an example of ostentatious behaviour. 

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Gatsby's possessions are an example of ostentatious behaviour. 

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Green light= Gatsby's hope. His dream is visible but not able to be accessed. 

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Green light= Gatsby's hope. His dream is visible but not able to be accessed. 

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The Valley of Ashes= extended metaphor for lack of hope

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The Valley of Ashes= extended metaphor for lack of hope

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Daisy is catholic

Tom is having a affair with myrtle

Gatsby is a Oxford man

Gatsby has killed a man

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incomplete utterance caused my confusion

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incomplete utterance caused my confusion

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Gatsby uses aposiopesis

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East Egg is natural, natural light and natural gardens. this depicts the naturalness of the money that is in East Egg, and how everyone that lives there are born into wealth