'The Great Gatsby'

1. 'The Great Gatsby'

2. 'The Great Gatsby' Chapter 1

3. Gatsby and 'The American Dream' • In order to fully understand the significance of the novel, it is important that we gain an appreciation of the historical background of the novel. • Perhaps the most important thing that we need to consider is how this novel fits within the context of ‘The American Dream’

4. Gatsby and 'The American Dream' • It is easy to forget that America is in many ways a country in its infancy. The Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776 and it contained an idealised belief that America would be a land of equals. • Against the backdrop of European class structure, the founding fathers of American Independence envisioned a society in which inherited class structures no longer existed. It was to be a society of equals.

5. Gatsby and 'The American Dream' • At its heart, the idealised vision of the American dream is the belief in the concept of a ‘meritocracy’, a structure of society in which the hard working reach their goals. It is a system that values hard work and aspiration above all else. • This vision of society has determined the policies of numerous political leaders including British politicians such as Margaret Thatcher as well as American Presidents such as Ronald Reagan.

6. Gatsby and 'The American Dream' • One of the founding fathers in particular, Thomas Jefferson, believed that America should be a land of opportunity. There was a sense of limitless possibility across this vast new continent. It was in every way a brave new world. • As a character, Gatsby in many ways embodies this spirit of opportunity. He is not held back by his background in the pursuit of his goals.

7. Gatsby and 'The American Dream' • Despite this, Gatsby’s character is tainted by the seemingly corrupt ways in which he gains his success…and his wealth. • The belief that he could succeed on the basis of hard work is simply not enough. Gatsby is driven by his pursuit of Daisy, and in his opinion he will only gain her affections with the simultaneous pursuit of wealth. • The power of the Buchanan highlights that wealth still overpowers hard work.

9. Chapter 1 • The opening Chapter introduces us to the narrator, Nick Carraway. The events of the Chapter see Nick visit his cousin Daidy Buchanan and her husband Tom. • Tom and Daisy live across Long Island Sound in the more fashionable ‘East Egg’. Nick has recently moved into a small rented house in the less fashionable neighbourhood of ‘West Egg’. • The Chapter serves as an introduction to the Buchanans and their failings.

10. Nick Carraway • Nick is presented as both the narrator of and a character within the story. • Nick has come to West Egg having relocated to the East Coast of America. He is a bond salesman, however he is clearly from a wealthy background. • Nick’s narration is a little self conscious. He appears frustrated by the Buchanans and by the failure of those around him. He declares that Gatsby had an ‘extraordinary’ gift for hope.

11. Daisy Buchanan • Daisy will ultimately be unveiled as the object of Gatsby’s affection. Love of her is his driving motivation, yet from the outset, Nick makes it clear that Daisy is a figure who is fundamentally unworthy of his affection. • Daisy’s name implies her delicacy, yet our first interaction with her highlights a falseness about her actions. • There is a crushing emptiness about her life. She claims to be p-p-aralysed with happiness, yet this paralysis is her failing.

12. Tom Buchanan • Tom Buchanan is an old university acquaintance of Nick’s. He is vastly wealthy and represents the upper class of American society. His surname connects him to a Scottish clan highlighting that even this fledgling nation has its past linked in the history of other countries. • Tom’s affair and the carelessness of it is a theme to be repeated throughout the novel, while his racist views highlight a growing unease at the heart of America-and highlight the clear inequality of this great nation of equals.

13. 'The Great Gatsby' Chapter 2

14. Chapter 2 • Chapter 2 sees Nick and Tom make their way to New York where they meet with Tom’s mistress Myrtle Wilson. • Myrtle lives in the ‘Valley of Ashes’ between West Egg and the city itself. • Myrtle is married to a motor mechanic by the name of George Wilson. • In New York, Nick attends a party that is held in the apartment that Tom has rented for Myrtle.

15. Chapter 2 • The party includes Myrtle’s sister Catherine as well as some of their neighbours. • During a heated exchange about his marriage, Tom breaks Myrtle’s nose.

16. Myrtle Wilson • Myrtle Wilson is Tom Buchanan’s mistress, and she is everything that Daisy is not. Where Daisy appears intentionally vacuous, Myrtle clearly has a mind and voice of her own and she is not afraid to use it. • Myrtle lives in the desolate valley of ashes and sees her liaison with Tom as being her only means of escape. Tom provides her with the lifestyle that she aspires to…even although she is fully aware that he is married.

17. Myrtle Wilson • Myrtle’s behaviour in this chapter is symbolic of the rise in consumer culture that came to symbolise the period known as ‘The Roaring 20s’. • In the chapter we see Myrtle purchase numerous items, however each of these are proof that for Tom, she too is property to be bought and paid for. His relationship with her is a material commitment rather than an emotional one. This will stand in contrast to Gatsby’s unquestioned devotion towards Daisy.

18. Symbolism 2: The Eyes of Doctor Eckleberg • Perhaps one of the most powerful symbols in the novel are the ‘Eyes of Doctor TJ Eckleberg’. • These eyes are part of an advertising hoarding in the valley of ashes. They advertise the local practice of an optician, and add further symbolic significance to the importance of consumer culture during this period. • The eyes also come to symbolise God…and indicate how the values of this American society has changed.

19. Symbolism 3: The Valley of Ashes • The Valley of Ashes as a location is perhaps the most powerful symbol of the failed ideals of the American Dream. While America held a hope that it would become a society of equals…the great valley of ashes proves that this is not the case and that clear divisions in class and opportunity really do exist.

20. 'The Great Gatsby' Chapter 3

22. Chapter 3 • Chapter 2 sees Nick be invited to one of his mysterious neighbour’s party. Here he meets Jordan Baker once again, and together they describe the grandeur of the parties. • Nick listens with interest as the various guests at the party discuss the mysterious origins of their host. Some suggest that he is a cousin of the German Kaiser, while others suggest that he has killed a man once.

24. Chapter 3 • Nick finally meets Gatsby and it is clear that he is immediately won over by his charm. His description of their first encounter highlights many of the positive qualities of the character which we will see later in the novel, while also introducing us to some of his more obvious failings. • The evening ends with Jordan explaining that she has just heard something remarkable from Gatsby that she cannot reveal to Nick.

25. The Jazz Age • Gatsby’s party brings the wealth and glamour of the period to the forefront of the novel. Fitzgerald’s description highlights the unrivalled decadence of the Jazz Age. • Fitzgerald highlights the divide between the new rich and the established order in his description of these riotous parties where the morals appear far looser than at any time in history. • The newly wealthy are seen to lack the refinement expected, while the established classes make the trip across the sound to West Egg with an almost voyeuristic enthusiasm.

26. Holding out for a Hero... • In this scenario, Gatsby is again an enigma—though he lives in a garishly ostentatious West Egg mansion, East Eggers freely attend his parties. Despite the tensions between the two groups, the blend of East and West Egg creates a distinctly American mood. While the Americans at the party possess a rough vitality, the Englishmen there are set off dramatically, seeming desperate and predatory, hoping to make connections that will make them rich. • Fitzgerald has delayed the introduction of the novel’s most important figure—Gatsby himself—until the beginning of Chapter 3. The reader has seen Gatsby from a distance, heard other characters talk about him, and listened to Nick’s thoughts about him, but has not actually met him (nor has Nick).

27. Holding out for a Hero... . Fitzgerald gives Gatsby a suitably grand entrance as the aloof host of a spectacularly decadent party. Despite this introduction, this chapter continues to heighten the sense of mystery and enigma that surrounds Gatsby, as the low profile he maintains seems curiously out of place with his lavish expenditures. In his first direct contact with Gatsby, Nick notices his extraordinary smile—“one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it.” Nick’s impression of Gatsby emphasizes his optimism and vitality—something about him seems remarkably hopeful, and this belief in the brilliance of the future impresses Nick, even before he knows what future Gatsby envisions.

28. The strangeness of Gatsby He hold vast parties yet appears to know none of his guests. His accent appears to be somewhat affected. He calls people “old sport”, which is an oddly antiquitated form of speech. There are other examples of this apparent falseness in the conduct of Gatsby. Owl Eyes, the man bizarely occupying the library is astonished to discover that the books ‘are real’. From this chapter forward, the mystery of Jay Gatsby becomes the motivating question of the book, and the unraveling of Gatsby’s character becomes one of its central mechanisms

29. 'The Great Gatsby' Chapter 4

30. Chapter 4 • Gatsby visits Nick’s house for the first time, and talks of his wartime experience. • They travel into the city, where Gatsby introduces Nick to Meyer Wolfsheim. • Later, Jordan tells Nick about Daisy’s past, her brief love affair with Gatsby, and her subsequent marriage to Tom.

31. Chapter 4 Some of the animals are horned and masculine in nature – the Hornbeams, Blackbucks (note reference to ‘dirty money’), Hammerheads and Cecil Roebuck. Some are animals characterised by their wily, industrious natures – the Leeches, ‘Rot-gut’ Ferret and Edgar Beaver. Another distinct group are characterised by their association to fish and pungent smells – the Fishguards, Ripley Snells, Mrs Ulysses Swett, S.B. Whitebait. Faustina O’Brien also reminds us of the legend of Faust, the character who sold himself to the devil. All of these characters, with their weirdly negative world associations are shown, by their lack of interest in Gatsby, who ‘sold out’ to the world of glamour and wealth.

32. Chapter 4 Look over the conversation Nick and Gatsby have in the car on the way to New York. As a group, discuss what we learn about Gatsby’s character and how Nick feels about him. Think about: • Gatsby's restlessness • His attitude towards all his objects • The information (lies?) he tells Nick about his life • Quotes which describe the way he says those ‘facts’ • Whether Nick believes him or not You must refer closely to the text and provide quotations and analysis.

33. Chapter 4 Gatsby’s possessions do not make him happy. He seems to get no intrinsic pleasure from the collected artefacts around him and seems self-consciously aware of the pretence upon which he has built his public persona. As such he ‘chokes’ on his lie to Nick that he was educated at Oxford and seems burdened by an intense energy: ‘he was never quite still; there was always a tapping foot somewhere or the impatient opening and closing of a hand’. He seems to be aware that he could be exposed at any time – unlike the complacent Tom, who revels luxuriously in the splendour of his castle, Gatsby seems never to be at rest with himself.

34. Chapter 4 He props up his history with handy objects of authenticity such as war medal and photographs of his time at Oxford, almost like a man on the run from the law. His stores are overblown, unrealistic and tinged with equal measure of fantasy and self-pity (note the way he keeps referring cryptically to the ‘sad thing that happened to me’ and, how, when the war came, he ‘tried very hard to die in order to forget it!) These unwittingly comical reflections stretch his credibility to the limit and Nick is left feeling ‘more annoyed than interested’ in the favour that Gatsby has asked him.

35. Jordan's Revelation At this point, Nick re-tells the story of Gatsby and Daisy’s love affair from Jordan’s point of view. He relates her words as if they were exactly as he remembers them of the October in 1917. • Does this effect the reliability of Nick’s narrative style? • Can Jordan be trusted to tell the truth? • She has already been shown as a liar – do we feel comfortable hearing the story from her perspective?

36. Jordan's Revelation Jordan tells how Daisy had been the ‘most popular girl’ in their Louisville hometown when they were growing up. The colour white is mentioned in connection to her three times, thus establishing her as the archetypal fairy-virgin whose parents don’t approve of the relationship she has formed with a young soldier (Gatsby) and force her to finish with him. She is shown to get over this disappointment quickly by becoming engaged to Tom Buchanan the next February, Jordan, her bridesmaid, tells of how she discovered Daisy drunk on her bed on the day of her wedding breakfast, clutching a letter in her hand (from Gatsby) and crying uncontrollably.

37. Jordan's Revelation Daisy, through choice, has become an emblem of Tom’s old money. She abandons her romantic urges, casts off her emotional coat and embarks on a marriage which will offer stability of status. Note the effort of the others to ‘ice’ her into submission, cooling her truer passion for the man she loved, and they way they ‘hook’ her into her dress. For she has, indeed, become a piece of meat in this transaction. This is borne out in Jordan’s recollection of how Tom began cheating on her almost immediately after the wedding was over, as well as his love of alcohol. Jordan then informs Nick that Gatsby's ‘favour’ is to ask him to invite Daisy round to his house for tea, in an attempt to rekindle an affair that had been extinguished by ice and snow years earlier.

38. 'The Great Gatsby' Chapter 5

39. Chapter 5 • Nick organises a meeting at his house between Gatsby and Daisy • Alone with Nick, Gatsby discloses that the money which bought his mansion was made in just three years • Gatsby gives them a guided tour of his house, displaying his possessions, especially his expensive, imported clothes • Nick muses on the nature of Gatsby's desire for this woman, and remarks on the intensity of their relationship, eventually he leaves them alone

40. Gatsby's Blazing House

41. Chapter 5 • Aims for today… • To watch the events of Chapter 5 in the film. • To recap the key moments and discuss their significance. • To chart the development of Gatsby’s relationship with Daisy in the chapter. • To read on to Chapter 6.

42. Chapter 5 • Perhaps he wishes his house to be a beacon of light to Daisy, in the same way that her green dock light is a source of spiritual satisfaction to him. • He seems like a man who is afraid of the dark – or of the ghostliness that comes from an empty house. • For Gatsby, the ‘show’ of his home must go on to face off the darkness troubling him. • His life is essentially empty – notice how he talks about ‘glancing into some of the rooms’ in his house, as if checking to see that everything is ‘perfect’. • His home is a showpiece, an emblem of spiritual death.

43. Gatsby and Daisy As a group you are going to look through the chapter and analyse the way that the relationship between Gatsby and Daisy changes. Consider first his feelings as he prepares for her arrival and how these change as he shows her around his grand home. If you can…look out for the significance of the weather… Describe the relationship between Gatsby and Daisy and how it develops in this chapter.

44. Gatsby and Daisy The episode in which Gatsby and Daisy are reunited in his mansion is clearly a highly significant one. It is an encounter that carries an enormous amount of weight in the novel and, discloses to us that Daisy falls terribly short of the ideal version lodged in Gatsby's heart and imagination. It might seem obvious that Gatsby and Daisy have a lot of catching up to do, and would feel the need to talk at length, yet dialogue is kept to a minimum. Their feelings for one and other are communicated through their actions and through what remains unsaid.

45. Gatsby and Daisy • At 4pm, when Daisy arrives, the rain has ‘cooled to a damp mist’. The connections of ‘cool’ and ‘damp’ to Daisy’s character are clear from the previous chapter, where we learned that her feelings for Gatsby faded as his letter became a damp pulp. • At the height of Gatsby’s discomfort – when Nick finds the tensions too unbearable to remain indoors – it is again ‘pouring’. • When Nick returns, Daisy and Gatsby have happily reacquainted. Significantly, ‘the sun shone again’, there are ‘twinkle bells of sunshine in the room’ and Gatsby is again ‘an ecstatic patron of recurring light’.

46. Gatsby and Daisy As Gatsby falls into an anti-climax, Daisy begins to cry. The introduction of the symbol of Gatsby’s shirts is very important here. Daisy breaks down at the sight of Gatsby throwing – almost obsessively – his shirts onto his bed.

47. Gatsby and Daisy He took out a pile of shirts and began throwing them, one by one, before us, shirts of sheer linen and thick silk and fine flannel, which lost their folds as they fell and covered the table in a many-coloured disarray. While we admired he brought more and the soft rich heap mounted higher – 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.

48. Gatsby and Daisy Daisy’s moment of release – when the ‘soft rich heap’ dumbfounds her – occurs at a moment of simultaneous wonder and disappointment. Gatsby is, by now, ‘running down like an over wound clock’, a result of having spent so many years obsessing over Daisy ‘at an inconceivable pitch of intensity’. His rather bewildered sense of sadness and anti-climax combines with Daisy’s sense of wonder and awe at the spectacle of social status laid out before her. Like the time she was dog-chained by Tom's status symbol (the pearls) she reacts to Gatsby's shirts with tears. The curious mixture of happiness and tears (sunshine and rain) provides a rainbow – depicted by the multicoloured array of shirts on the bed.

49. Gatsby and Daisy Daisy’s moment of release – when the ‘soft rich heap’ dumbfounds her – occurs at a moment of simultaneous wonder and disappointment. Gatsby is, by now, ‘running down like an over wound clock’, a result of having spent so many years obsessing over Daisy ‘at an inconceivable pitch of intensity’. His rather bewildered sense of sadness and anti-climax combines with Daisy’s sense of wonder and awe at the spectacle of social status laid out before her. Like the time she was dog-chained by Tom's status symbol (the pearls) she reacts to Gatsby's shirts with tears. The curious mixture of happiness and tears (sunshine and rain) provides a rainbow – depicted by the multicoloured array of shirts on the bed.

50. Gatsby and Daisy You should now all be able to chart the change and development of Gatsby’s feelings towards Daisy but now we will focus on his anti-climatic feelings for Daisy at the end of the chapter. In groups, write a detailed description of how Gatsby feels about Daisy at the end of this chapter. Refer to key quotations and remember to give your own opinions.