The Great Gatsby

1. The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

2. Tidbits F. Scott Fitzgerald 1896-1940 Named after great uncle Frances Scott Key From the midwest: St. Paul, MN Married to Zelda Sayre - m 1930 The dominant influences on F. Scott Fitzgerald were aspiration, literature, Princeton, Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, and alcohol. Coined “The Jazz Age” The Great Gatsby was published in 1925

3. Title Significance of the title, The Great Gatsby: Focus on the “Great” as in a magician trying to perform magic, “The Great…” There is irony in describing Gatsby as Great

4. Setting • 1922 New York • Each setting reveals characters/values/personalities • East Egg – old money • West Egg – new money • Valley of the Ashes – working class, poor • New York City – used to define social status, money

5. Answers • Each setting reveals characters/values/personalities • East Egg – old money: Tom and Daisy Buchanan • West Egg – new money: Jay Gatsby • Valley of the Ashes – working class, poor: George &Myrle Wilson • New York City – used to define social status, money: Tom and Myrtle’s apartment, trips with Gatsby

6. Themes Outward appearance can be deceptive Wealth/love can breed careless and reckless behavior The attainment of a dream may be less satisfying than the pursuit of that dream The “American Dream” is corrupted by the desire for wealth The blind (total, obsessive, all-consuming) pursuit of a dream is destructive

7. Chapter 1 Characters: Nick Carraway: narrator

8. Chapter Three

9. Illusions “In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars”(43). “Rolls-Royce became an omnibus”(43) “A tray of cocktails floated at us through the twilight” Jay Gatsby signs the invitation in “a majestic hand”(46). “excused himself with a small bow”(53). Gatsby “didn’t [just] drift coolly out of nowhere”(54) “She had a fight with a man who says he’s her husband”(56).”fights with men said to be their husbands”(56).

10. Excess “corps of caters” (44). “enough colored lights to make a Christmas tree of Gatsby’s garden”(44). “Every Friday five crates of oranges and lemons; “extract the juice of two hundred oranges- every Monday…” (43). “eight servants with mops and scrubbing brushes”(43). Baked hams, and pasty pigs and turkeys; pit full of oboes and trombones and saxophones…(44) PAY ATTENTION TO ASYNDETON AND POLYSYNDETON AND KNOW THE DIFFERENCE

11. Colors Nick wears a white suit to the party(46). “Yellow cocktail music”(44). “chauffer in a uniform of robin’s egg blue”(44). “Jordan’s slender golden arm”(47).

12. Allusion “This fella’s a regular Belasco”(50).

13. Characterization of Gatsby Delayed introduction Innuendo: German spy, killed a man, doesn’t want trouble with anyone Not recognized “rare smile with a quality of eternal reassurance in it” (rare – you may only come “across one 4 or 5 times in a life”)(52). Face: focuses on you; understands you, believes in you…(53). “an elegant young rough-neck, a year or two over thirty”(53). “formality of speech”(53). “tanned skin drawn attractively tight on his face”(54)

14. Gatsby Air of mystery: innuendo, delayed meeting, Jordan’s secret meeting “standing alone” “short hair” “nothing sinister” “not drinking”

15. Jordan “slender golden arm” “jauntiness” (55) “

16. Nick