THE GREAT
GATSBY
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
(1925)
SETTING
• When: summer of 1922
• Where: Long Island, New York (approximately 30 miles from New York
City)
• East Egg (Cow Neck)
•
The old, established money. Most desirable location
• West Egg (Great Neck)
•
The less fashionable of the two
• The Valley of the Ashes
•
Middle – Lower class area nearby East Egg & West Egg
• Novel is told as a reflection of an older Nick Carraway recalling the events of
the summer in 1922
NICK CARRAWAY
• Narrator of the novel who has grown up in a wealthy Midwest
family and raised with the values of hard work, perseverance,
justice, etc. However, he is a complex character. A graduate at
New Haven where he first met Tom Buchanan; he served in
WWI. Following the war he moves east at the age of 29 to
work in the bond business and then meets Jay Gatsby and
Daisy Buchanan, as well as the social elite. Nick lives next
door to Jay Gatsby in West Egg; Carraway’s house is not nearly
as lavish as Gatsby’s.
• While honest, responsible, and fair-minded, Nick does share
some of the flaws of the East Egg milieu
• A young man with unusual sensitivities
• he is the only one to recognize Gatsby's "greatness,"
JAY GATSBY
(AKA JAMES GATZ)
• Nouveau rich businessman; desires to be reunited with Daisy
Buchanan
• Lives in West Egg
• Every Saturday, his garish Gothic mansion serves as the site of
extravagant parties.
• born in North Dakota to an impoverished farming family; served
in the Army in World War I, and met Daisy Fay (now Daisy
Buchanan) and fell passionately in love with her. He worked briefly
for a millionaire, and became acquainted with the people and
customs of high society. This, coupled with his love of Daisy,
inspired Gatsby to devote his life to the acquisition of wealth.
DAISY FAY
BUCHANAN
• A married woman with a daughter that comes in
contact with former lover Jay Gatsby after five years
of no contact. She is the object of Gatsby’s
affections; symbolically represents women of the
elite social class
• Lives in East Egg
• American equivalent of aristocrats
• Nick Carraway’s cousin
• Married to Tom Buchanan
• She had promised to wait for Jay Gatsby until the
end of the war, but after meeting Tom Buchanan and
comparing his extreme wealth to Gatsby's poverty,
she broke her promise.
• Daisy uses her frailty as an excuse for her extreme
immaturity.
TOM BUCHANAN
• Lives in East Egg with his wife Daisy
• a former Yale football player who, like Daisy, comes from
an immensely wealthy Midwestern family.
• Racist and sexist reveal his insecurities about his
elevated social position
• A bully, physically aggressive to both his wife and his
mistress.
• A hypocrite who condemns his wife’s infidelities, but
carries on with his mistress, Myrtle Wilson
JORDAN BAKER
• Daisy's friend, a woman with whom Nick
becomes romantically involved during the
course of the novel.
• A competitive golfer who cheated to win her
first tournament
• From Louisville, Kentucky
• Continually bends the truth
• Beautiful
• Not married
• Represents one of the “new women” of the
1920s—cynical, boyish, and self-centered.
MINOR CHARACTERS
• Myrtle Wilson
• An earthy, vital, and voluptuous woman, Myrtle is desperate to improve her life. She shares a
loveless marriage with George Wilson, a man who runs a shabby garage. She has been having a longterm affair with Tom Buchanan, and is very jealous of his wife, Daisy.
• George Wilson
• George is a lazy, impoverished man whose only passion is his love for his wife, Myrtle. Owner of a
shabby garage; he is devastated by Myrtle's affair with Tom.
• Meyer Wolfsheim
• A notorious underworld (mob/organized crime) figure, Wolfsheim is a business associate of Gatsby.
He claims credit for fixing the 1919 World Series. Wolfshiem inhabits Fitzgerald's view of the
Roaring Twenties as a whole, is a curious mix of barbarism and refinement (his cuff links are made
from human molars).
MORE MINOR CHARACTERS
• Dan Cody
•
A somewhat coarse man who became immensely wealthy during the Gold Rush. He mentored Gatsby when he was a young man and gave him a taste of
elite society. Though he left Gatsby a sum of money after his death, it was later seized by his ex-wife.
• Michaelis
•
The Wilsons’ neighbor
• Catherine
•
Myrtle Wilson's sister. Tom, Myrtle, and Nick visit her and her neighbors, the McKees, in New York City.
• The McKees
•
Catherine's neighbors. The couple is shallow and gossipy and concern themselves only with status and fashion.
• Ewing Kipspringer
•
A shiftless freeloader who almost lives at Gatsby's mansion. Though he takes advantage of Gatsby's wealth and generosity, he is a fair-weathered friend.
• Owl Eyes
•
An eccentric, bespectacled man whom Nick meets at one of Gatsby's parties.
SYMBOLISM TO ANNOTATE & CONTEMPLATE
• Fitzgerald’s use of colors (worksheet will be provided)
• The archetype each character represents
• a typical character that seems to represent such universal patterns of human
nature
• Consumer objects
• Jay Gatsby’s house
• Memorable home depicted in complete detail in Chapter 1
•
“The one on my right was a colossal affair by any standard--it was a factual
imitation of some Hotel 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
• Each characters choice in clothes, cars and homes
• Where one lives
• The Valley of Ashes, West Egg, East Egg