AMERICAN NOVEL - ADVISOR LEC. M. ZAFER AYAR

KTU – Department of English Language and Literature

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Merve Kahriman Gül Nihan GürsoyGamze Köse Tuncay

Yaran

Moral & Social Decay

AUTHOR

PLOT

CHARACTE

RS

F.SCOTT FITZGERALD

&

He was born Sept.24.1896 in St. Poul

Minnesota

His mother Marry McQuillen was from

Irish-catholic family that had made a

small fortune in Minnesota

His father Edward Fitzgerald lost his

job and moved to his wife town and

live there with his wife’s inheritance.

He attended St. Poul Academy

His first writing was published in the

school newspaper. When he was 15 he

was sent to a catholic school in New

Jersey.

He developed his artistic development

at Princeton University.

In 1917 he Joined the Army-stationed

in Montgomery Alabama where he met

Zelda Sayre .

Zelda Sayre refused to marry him until he could publish This Side of Paradise

Like Daisy in terms of the way that she refused Gatsby because of

his economic circumstances.

He wrote many books but most published and read book was

the Great Gatsby.

The Great Gatsby was the

symbol of America. Jazz

age and American Dream.

Later he became

alcoholic and his wife also had some mental disorders. He

died of a heart attack at 44.

Nick Carraway moves to New York , He rents a house in the West Egg. Nick’s next-door neighbor in West Egg is a mysterious

man named Jay Gatsby. Nick is unlike the other inhabitants of West Egg, he was educated man. He had social connections in East Egg. Nick drives out to East Egg one evening for dinner with his

cousin, Daisy Buchanan, and her husband, Tom.Nick learns that Tom has a lover,

Myrtle Wilson, who lives in the valley of ashes, a gray industrial dumping ground between West Egg and New

York City.

PLOT

Nick receives an invitation to one of Gatsby’s legendary parties. At there Nick meets Gatsby

himself, a surprisingly young man who affects an English accent, has a remarkable smile. Nick later learns more about his mysterious neighbor Gatsby.

Gatsby’s extravagant lifestyle and wild parties are simply an attempt to impress Daisy. Gatsby now wants Nick to arrange a reunion between himself and Daisy, but he is afraid that Daisy will refuse to see him if she knows that he still

loves her.Nick invites Daisy to have tea at his house, without telling her that Gatsby will also be there. , Gatsby and Daisy reestablish their

connection.After a short time, Tom grows increasingly

suspicious of his wife’s relationship with Gatsby.

Nick, Jordan, and Tom drive through the valley of ashes, however, they discover that Gatsby’s car has struck and killed Myrtle, Tom’s lover. They rush back to Long Island, where Nick learns from

Gatsby that Daisy was driving the car when it struck Myrtle, but that Gatsby

intends to take the blame. George finds Gatsby in the pool dead. Nick makes a funeral for Gatsby, ends his relationship

with Jordan, and moves back to the Midwest to escape because he feels discust for the people surrounding

Gatsby’s life and for the emptiness and moral decay of life among the wealthy on the East Coast. Nick reflects that just as

Gatsby’s dream of Daisy was corrupted by money and dishonesty.

Tom Has social status

Rich

Likes domineering

Sophisticated

Unfaithful

Intelligent

Coarse

Unorthodoxy

Light hearted

Mocker and despiser

Tom: ‘It does her good to get away.’Nick: ‘Doesn’t her husband object?’Tom: ‘Wilson? He thinks she goes to see her sister in New York. He’s so dumb he doesn’t know he’s alive.’So Tom Buchanan and his girl and I went up together to New York… (p. 29)

Nick Young man from

Minnesota

Graduated from Yale

Works in finance sector

Goes to New York for learning bond business

Has social connections and aristocratic lineage

Cousin of Daisy

Honest

Morally justified

Confidant

Clever

Permissive

Nick: ‘Does she want to see Gatsby?’Jordan: ‘She’s not to know about it. Gatsby doesn’t want her to know. You’re just supposed to invite her to tea.’ (p. 77-78)

Mrytle Wilson Married George Wilson

Lives in valley of ashes

Mistress of Tom Buchanan

Poor

Unhappy

Wants to continue a better life

Myrtle pulled her chair close to mine, and suddenly her warm breath poured over me the story of her first meeting with Tom.‘It was on the two little seats facing each other that are always the last ones left on the train. I was going up to New York to see my sister and spend the night. He had on a dress suit and patent leather shoes and I couldn’t keep my eyes off him but every time he looked at me I had to pretend to be looking at the advertisement over his head. When we came into the station he was next to me and his white shirt-front pressed against my arm—and so I told him I’d have to call a policeman, but he knew I lied. I was so excited that when I got into a taxi with him I didn’t hardly know I wasn’t getting into a subway train. All I kept thinking about, over and over, was ‘You can’t live forever, you can’t live forever.’ ‘ (p.38)

Jay GatsbyProtagonist

Wealthy-youngFrom West EggGood-hearted

LoyalHopeful

DishonestSelf-invention

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. (Ch.6 –

106)

*

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no

matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. And then one fine

morning—So we beat on, boats against the current,

borne back ceaselessly into the past. (Ch.9 – 171)

“I wouldn’t ask too much of her,” I ventured. “You can’t repeat the past.”

“Can’t repeat the past?” he cried incredulously. “Why of course you can!”

He looked around him wildly, as if the past were lurking here in

the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand.

"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.“

(Ch.6 – 106)

DaisyNick’s cousin

Tom’s wifeGatsby’s lover

Beautiful, charmingNot faithful

Sophisticated but careless

Fond of money, luxury

I called up Daisy half an hour after we found him, called her instinctively and without hesitation. But she and Tom had gone away early that afternoon,

and taken baggage with them."Left no address?"

"No.""Say when they'd be back?"

"No.""Any idea where they are? How I could

reach them?""I don't know. Can't say." (Ch.9 – 156)

They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and

creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness,

or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made. (Ch.9 – 170)

JordanBaker

Daisy’s friendThe woman whom Nick

lovesGolfer

New-womanSelf-centered

It made no difference to me. Dishonesty in a woman is a thing you never blame deeply – I was casually sorry, and then I forgot. It was

on that same house party that we had a curious conversation about driving a car. It started because she passed so close to some workmen that our fender flicked a button on

one man's coat. …

At her first big golf tournament there was a row that nearly reached the newspapers—a

suggestion that she had moved her ball from a bad lie in the semi-final round. The thing approached the proportions of a scandal—

then died away. A caddy retracted his statement and the only other witness

admitted that he might have been mistaken. The incident and the name had remained

together in my mind. (Ch.3 – 58)

GEORGE WILSONMRTYLE’S HUSBANDOWNER OF AUTO SHOPCATASTROPHIC END LIKE GATSBY

It was after we started with Gatsby toward the house that the

gardener saw Wilson’s body a little way off in the grass, and the holocaust

was complete. (Ch.8 – 154)

OWL EYES Strange Drunk Wearing glasses Guest of Gatsby in party

Owl Eyes: Do you know her? I met her somewhere last night. I’ve been drunk for about a week now, and I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library.’Nick: ‘Has it?’Owl Eyes: ‘A little bit, I think. I can’t tell yet. I’ve only been here an hour. Did I tell you about the books? They’re real. They’re——‘Nick: ‘You told us.’ (p. 47)

MEYER WOLFSHEIM Friend of Gatsby Wealthy Does illegal business Introduces himself as a gambler

Nick: ‘Now he’s dead,’ I said after a moment. ‘You were his closest friend, so I know you’ll want to come to his funeral this afternoon.’Wolfsheim: ‘I’d like to come.’Nick: ‘Well, come then.’The hair in his nostrils quivered slightly and as he shook his head his eyes filled with tears.Wolfsheim: ‘I can’t do it—I can’t get mixed up in it,’ he said.Nick: ‘There’s nothing to get mixed up in. It’s all over now.’Wolfsheim: ‘When a man gets killed I never like to get mixed up in it in any way. I keep out. When I was a young man it was different—if a friend of mine died, no matter how, I stuck with them to the end. You may think that’s sentimental but I mean it—to the bitter end.’I saw that for some reason of his own he was determined not to come, so I stood up. (p. 162-163)

‘What I called up about was a pair of shoes I left there. I

wonder if it’d be too much trouble to have the butler

send them on. You see they’re tennis shoes and I’m sort

of helpless without them. My address is care of B. F.——‘

I didn’t hear the rest of the name because I hung up the

receiver.

After that I felt a certain shame for Gatsby—one gentleman

to whom I telephoned implied that he had got what he

deserved. However, that was my fault, for he was one of

those who used to sneer most bitterly at Gatsby on the

courage of Gatsby’s liquor and I should have known

better than to call him. (Ch.9 – 160)

KLIPSPRINGER

Shallow freeloaderNot loyalSelfish

Works Cited

Fitzgerald F. Scott, The Great

Gatsby. Penguin Books

www.planetebook.com

www.sparknotes.com