Secret Society
“That was always my experience –
a poor boy in a rich town; a poor boy in a rich
boy’s school; a poor boy in a rich man’s club
at Princeton…However, I have never been
able to forgive the rich for being rich, and it
has colored my entire life and works.”
--F. Scott Fitzgerald
The high school social scene is rife
with drama.
Who’s out? Who’s in? What’s cool? What’s not?
Behind many of the questions is a
burning
desire to belong.
To assert their status in a crowd, students must
learn the unwritten and unspoken codes of
behavior.
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What are some unspoken codes of behavior?
 Don’t chew with your mouth open
 Don’t pick up the purse of the girl that sits in front of you
and start looking for something to write with
 Don’t ask random people in the hall for lunch money
 Don’t stalk the person you have a crush on
 Don’t make Tarzan noises when you see your crush and her
friends
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What else?
Factors that affect the perception of social
status in The Great Gatsby are
- wealth
- race
- geographical origins
- other factors, such as
education, occupation, etc.

In this novel, “class struggle” in America is
portrayed as an intensely personal affair,
as much a tension within the mind of a single
character as a conflict between the
characters.
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Nick Carraway says Daisy “looked at him with an
absolute smirk on her lovely face as if she had
asserted her membership in a rather distinguished
secret society to which she and Tom belonged.”
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Nick, a transplanted Midwesterner uneasy in the East,
is anxious to belong yet sensitive to the subtle snub;
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His mixed emotions are suggested in the juxtaposition
of “lovely” and “smirk” in his description of Daisy.
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We will explore the nature of the “secret society” in
Daisy’s smirk.
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You will receive a handout “Shhh…Secret
Society” for your group to work on.
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New Gatsby Groups:
Tim
Cameron
Anna Emily
Parker Camelia
Hali
Kaitlin
Dylan
Eli
Christen Tytiana
Andrew Marissa
Tori
Zach
“It’s up to us who are the dominant race to watch out
or those other races will have control of things”
 This coincides with the rising of prominence of
African-Americans in Harlem just a few miles away
 Assignment:
 1 In your groups, consult the textbook and compile 10
important ideas about the Harlem Renaissance.
 2 Find one poem from the Harlem Renaissance and
read it to your group.
 3 Read to bio about the poet.
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How is class status related to the historical
context of the novel? That is, what do you think
class status has to do with the influx of
immigrants and the rising prominence of
African-Americans?
What makes Nick Carraway different from the
members of the secret society? Why does he feel
he is on the outside?
Discuss how feeling on the outside, as Nick does,
changes the way you might perceive things?
“That was always my experience –
a poor boy in a rich town; a poor boy in a rich boy’s
school; a poor boy in a rich man’s club at
Princeton…However, I have never been able to
forgive the rich for being rich, and it has colored my
entire life and works.”
--F. Scott Fitzgerald
Assignment: On the index card provided, paraphrase
the above quote. What is he really saying here? Be
prepared to share with the class.
Facts about F. Scott Fitzgerald
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Named after his distant cousin, Francis Scott Key, who wrote
“The Star Spangled Banner”
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Born 1896 in St. Paul, MN
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Mom came from money; pops really never got it together
financially
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As a result, the family moved often
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The Fitzgeralds had all the traditions of old money…except
the money.
Enrolling Scott in a private school, but he always
felt like he was on the fringes looking in.
 He did gain some measure of fame among his
peers at school for his detective stories.
 In 1913 he enrolled in Princeton University
 He was an indifferent student (a nice way of
saying he made poor grades)
 He dabbled in campus theater productions and
then began working on his first novel
 By 1916 he was on academic probation , so he
joined the Army, which sent him to Alabama.
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In Alabama, Fitzgerald met his future wife,
Zelda
She was 18, a celebrated southern belle, the
youngest daughter of an Alabama Supreme
Court judge
She was celebrated for her beauty
She and Fitzgerald became engaged, but she
was unwilling to marry him until he had
enough money to support her in the way to
which she was accustomed
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After his discharge from the Army, Fitzgerald
went to NYC to seek his fortune
Zelda broke off the engagement
For eight months Fitzgerald worked for $9o a
month writing advertising copy
He then returned to St. Paul and locked himself
in a room to revise his novel. It paid off – This
Side of Paradise catapulted him to instant fame
The magazines began buying his short stories as
fast as he could write them
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Zelda agreed to be his wife
Fitzgerald was the golden boy of American
literature
The couple moved into a luxury New York
apartment
They were the center of a glittering crowd
Their only child was born in 1922
He then wrote a play and expected to hit it big,
so the Fitzgeralds moved to Great Neck, Long
Island, in order to be near Broadway
The play failed.
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The distractions of Great Neck and NYC
prevented him from making progress on his
third novel, and his drinking increased.
He was an alcoholic; Zelda was often
smashed, too, and their fights were
legendary
The following spring they moved to Paris
where they partied some more.
There Fitzgerald completed The Great
Gatsby, which did not sell well.
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For the next nine years they wandered
aimlessly throughout Europe, drinking and
carousing.
Zelda’s mental health started to crack.
He did complete another novel.
By 1936 he was in debt, unable to write,
separated from his wife and child, and
incapacitated by poor health.
In the summer of 1937 he went to Hollywood,
lured by a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
 He was paid well, but still unable to pay off his
debts.
 He became the cliché of a fine writer reduced to
a drunken, disillusioned hack. He died in 1940.
 Her mental health shattered, Zelda entered a
mental institution. She perished in a fire in
Highland Hospital in 1948.
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In the 1920s, America was in the midst of the greatest
period of prosperity the country had ever known.
Economists have pointed out that only a small
amount of money was required to be considered welloff in the 1920s because prices and taxes were low.
It’s estimated that a person earning $6,000 or more a
year was in a select income group, about 5% of the
population.
In reality, this era proved to be a brief boom indeed, a
precarious period of prosperity lasting a scant five
years.
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F. Scott Fitzgerald’s work and life illustrate
American culture in the 1920s.
The Great Gatsby is one of the masterpieces of
American literature.
The Great Gatsby is not only a brilliant comment
on the 1920s, but also an ironic and tragic
treatment of the American success (American
dream) myth.
Fitzgerald produced a fair amount of hack work,
but when he was good, he was very good.
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“If personality is an unbroken
series of successful gestures,
then there was something
gorgeous about him, some
heightened sensitivity to the
promises of life, as if he were
related to one of those intricate
machines that register
earthquakes ten thousand miles
away.” Nick Carraway describing
Jay Gatsby
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Free Response 1:
Why was Nick Carraway
fascinated with Jay Gatsby?
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"Everyone suspects himself of at
least one of the cardinal virtues,
and this is mine: I am one of the
few honest people that I have
ever known.“
Nick Carraway
Free response 2:
Why did the author, F. Scott
Fitzgerald, feel the need to let
Nick inform readers he was
honest?
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Clearly, it is Gatsby’s desire to be “in” that
leads him to change his name, hold the
parties, and act as lavishly as he does.
Theme of inclusion and exclusion evolves:
1)Gatsby’s stance, like Nick’s, seems curiously
ambivalent.
2)Nick’s stance, like Gatsby’s, seems curiously
ambivalent (two-sided).