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After serving time during the war, Gatsby went to Oxford and studied for around five months.

"By the way, Mr. Gatsby, I understand you’re an Oxford man."

"Not exactly."

"Oh, yes, I understand you went to Oxford."

"Yes – I went there" (97).

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Ever since he was young, Gatsby recognized that his parents were poor and that he wanted nothing to do with the lower class. His fantasy was to have new parents and amass wealth. That is how his aspirations to become wealthy began.

"I suppose he'd had the name ready for a long time, even then. His parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people – his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents at all"(86).

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Gatsby's goal is to win Daisy Buchanan over. He has been in love with Daisy ever since they met, and created his wealth to measure up to her standards.

""It was a strange coincidence," I said.

"But it wasn't a coincidence at all."

"Why not?"

"Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay." (98).

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Gatsby speaks in a way that makes one feel at ease in his presence. Before he is well acquainted with Nick, he calls him 'old sport' like they are best buddies.

" ‘Want to go with me, old sport? Just near the shore along
the Sound.’
‘What time?’
‘Any time that suits you best.’ " (52).

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Gatsby has a very casual style of speech despite his extravagant parties and residence. He is very informal with Nick throughout the whole novel.

" ‘Good morning, old sport. You’re having lunch with me
today and I thought we’d ride up together' " (69).

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Gatsby is scared of what his life has become. He built his wealth on fake success but still has not achieved his ultimate goal: Daisy. He constantly envisions his past because he is afraid he will not be able to have his beloved for his own.

"He talked a lot about the past, and I gathered that he wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy. His life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was… " (102)

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Gatsby believes that if one is not content with their story, they must change it. He is so desperate to win Daisy over that he justifies committing organized crime to procure his wealth. He believes in bending the rules to achieve the life that he dreams of, and the girl that he loves.

"The truth was that Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself. He was a son of God—a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that—and he must be about His Father’s business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty. So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end" (105).

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Five years prior, Gatsby kissed Daisy under the moonlight during a late night walk. This sealed his love for her, and caused him to forever be hung up on her.

"His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy’s white face came
up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and
forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath,
his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So
he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning fork
that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his
lips’ touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete" (119).

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One of Gatsby's best qualities is his smile. His smile puts those around him at ease, it is understanding and reassuring. Nick makes note of the effect it has on him.

"He had one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced, or seemed to face, the whole external world for an instant and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself" (53).

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Gatsby's most important relationship is with Daisy. All of his work to become wealthy is for her sake, and he wants nothing more than to win her over.

"He hadn't once ceased looking at Daisy, and I think he revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from her well-loved eyes. Sometimes, too, he stared around at his possessions in a dazed way, as though in her actual and astounding presence none of it was any longer real. Once he nearly toppled down a flight of stairs" (114).

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Gatsby dresses somewhat extravagantly to flaunt his wealth without being too intimidating. He wants to measure up to Daisy's level of refinement.

"-shirts with
stripes and scrolls and plaids in coral and apple-green and
lavender and faint orange with monograms of Indian blue.
Suddenly with a strained sound, Daisy bent her head into
the shirts and began to cry stormily.

‘They’re such beautiful shirts,’ she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds. ‘It makes me sad because I’ve never
seen such—such beautiful shirts before" (99).

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Gatsby is described as a stout, middle aged man with a powerful aura. Many people describe him as gorgeous mostly because of his wealth and success. He also carries himself with elegance and confidence, which further allude those around him to believe he is truly great.

"A stout, middle-aged man with enormous owl-eyed spectacles was sitting somewhat drunk on the edge of a great
table, staring with unsteady concentration at the shelves of
books" (50)

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Gatsby lives in an extravagant mansion in West Egg next to the narrator's house.

"The one on my right
was a colossal affair by any standard—it was a factual imitation of some Hôtel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on
one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a
marble swimming pool and more than forty acres of lawn
and garden" (7).

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Gatsby is revealed to be a fake name in chapter six. It was created for the purpose of starting a new life.

"James Gatz—that was really, or at least legally, his name.
He had changed it at the age of seventeen and at the specific
moment that witnessed the beginning of his career" (104).

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The main Protagonist of this story goes by the name Jay Gatsby.

"It was Gatsby’s mansion. Or rather, as I didn’t
know Mr. Gatsby it was a mansion inhabited by a gentleman of that name " (7).

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F. Scott Fitzgerald
- He was born in Saint Paul, MN
- He published The Great Gatsby in 1925

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- The story takes place in Long Island, NY and in New York City.
- In the story they are referred to as 'West Egg' and 'East Egg'.
- The story is set in the early 1920's.

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- The title is used to build the allusion that this Gatsby character is great.
- After reading the novel the reader's find the title is ironic, as the title character is not great nor is he actually named Gatsby.

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Fitzgerald, F.Scott. The Great Gatsby. Penguin Books, 1950.