THE GREAT GATSBY

The Great Gatsby

Themes

Culture Clash

– Midwest vs. East

– East Egg vs. West

Egg

– Gatsby vs. Tom

Themes

Culture Clash

– Midwest (Nick) —

moral, slow paced,

unsophisticated

– East—(Tom & Daisy)

corrupt, and

materialistic

Themes

The American Dream

– Gatsby represents the American dream

Self-made wealth and happiness – Came from a poor family in N. Dakota

The spirit of youth and resourcefulness

Ability to make something of one's self despite where you came from

Primary flaw was naïve idealism

Themes

Appearance and Reality

– Daisy and Tom’s marriage

appeared real

– The love between Gatsby and

Daisy appeared real

– Gatsby appeared to have

many people who liked him

Themes

Moral Corruption

– The wealthy

Buchanan’s

East Egg

Point of View

Nick Carraway

1st -person ("I") narrative

– How he feels about the characters

– Romantic and moralist

Flashbacks within a flashback that fill us in on the life

of Gatsby

then flash forward to foreshadow his tragedy

Setting

New York

– 1920’s

– East Egg

Old $

– corrupt,

materialistic

– West Egg

New $

idealistic

Satire

Attempts to make fun of

something that is wrong with

some aspect of human

behavior or society

A satirist will often exaggerate

faults in order to show how

absurd they are

Satire

The sense of vulgarity of the people (amusement

park)

Owl Eyes in the library – “The books are real”

The “car accident” outside of Gatsby’s

The parties intended to get Daisy’s attention

The famous “shirt” scene

Klipspringer calling for his “tennis shoes”

Quality of the name "Great" Gatsby in the title

Imagery

Points out idealism

and illusion

– Color Imagery

– The green light

Symbols

The Green Light

– Hope

– Go

– Prosperity/money

– Jealousy

– New beginning

Symbols

The Eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg

– God

– All knowing

Tom’s affair with Myrtle

Daisy running over Myrtle

– Moral judge

– Watches over the Valley of Ashes

Symbols

The Valley of Ashes

– Poor/low class society

– Dumping ground

– Moral decay of the 1920’s

Symbols

Weather

– Rain (gray)

The unknown

Mystery

– Extreme heat

Tension between characters

– Cool weather (autumn)

Cooling off of relationships

Foreshadowing

Gatsby never used his pool all summer

– Tells Nick

– Tells his gardener not to drain it

The day he decides to use it, which is just

about the last day of summer – it’s also the

last day of his life.

Quotes

“If personality is an unbroken series of

successful gestures, then there was

something gorgeous about him, some

heightened sensitivity to the promises of

life,…[Gatsby had] …an extraordinary gift for

hope, a romantic readiness such as I have

never found in any other person and which it

is not likely I shall ever find again.”

Quotes

“This is a valley of ashes—a fantastic farm where

ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and

grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of

houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally,

with a transcendent effort, of ash-gray men who

move dimly and already crumbling through the

powdery air…. [And the eyes of Doctor T.J.

Eckleburg] …brood on over the solemn dumping

ground.”

Quotes

“When the Jazz History of the World was

over, girls where putting their heads on

men’s shoulders, … swooning backward

playfully into men’s arms, … but no one

swooned backward on Gatsby, and no

French bob touched Gatsby’s shoulder, and

no singing quartets were formed with

Gatsby’s head for one link.”

Quotes

“… he began throwing them, one by one, before us, shirts of sheer linen and thick silk and fine flannel …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, [Daisy] began to cry stormily.

“They’re such beautiful shirts,” she sobbed … “It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such –such beautiful shirts before.”

Quotes

“Her voice is full of money,” [Gatsby] said

suddenly.

That was it. … that was the inexhaustible

charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it,

the cymbal’s song of it…”

Quotes

“…Gatsby was overwhelmingly aware of the

youth and mystery that wealthy imprisons

and preserves, of the freshness of many

clothes, and of Daisy, gleaming like silver,

safe and proud above the hot struggles of

the poor.”

Quotes

“You can’t repeat the past.”

“Can’t repeat the past?” he cried

incredulously. “Why of course you can!”

Quotes

Wilson: “God knows what you’ve been doing,

everything you’ve been doing. You may fool me, but

you can’t fool God!”

Standing behind him, Michaelis saw with a shock

that he was looking at the eyes of Doctor T.J.

Eckleburg, which had just emerged, pale and

enormous, from the dissolving night.

“God sees everything,” repeated Wilson.

“That’s an advertisement,” Michaelis assured him.

Quotes

“Gatsby believed in the green light, the

orgiastic future that year by year recedes

before us…tomorrow we will run faster,

stretch out our arms farther…And one fine

morning—“

Quotes

“…gradually I became aware of the old island here

that flowered once for Dutch sailors’ eyes—a fresh,

green breast of the new world. … for a transitory

enchanted moment man must have held his breath

in the presence of this continent, compelled into an

aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor

desired, face to face for the last time in history with

something commensurate to his capacity for

wonder.”

Quotes

“And so we beat on, boats against the

current, borne back ceaselessly into the

past….”