Geography of The Great Gatsby
In Context
Focus: The Lost Generation
BEFORE
1920 F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story “Bernice
Bobs Her Hair” looks at the tension between
traditional feminine values and the liberation
of the Jazz Age, themes the author revives in
The Great Gatsby.
1922 T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land prefigures
Lost Generation writing in its exploration of the
disintegration of culture - including empty sex
and loss of spiritual meaning.
“Can’t repeat the past?” he
cried incredulously. “Why of
course you can!”
The Great Gatsby
e
Jay Gatsby
D
D
Friends
Loves
Love Affair
Criminal Partners
Meyer
Wolfshiem
Dislikes
D D
Cousins
Tom
Buchanan
Spouse
Loved
e
Nick
Carraway
Daisy
Buchanan
Friends
D
D
Dating
D
The novel’s themes are
mapped out in its highly symbolic topography.
East Egg, home to Daisy
and Tom as well as most
of Gatsby’s party guests,
stands for traditional values and old money; West
Egg where Gatsby lives, for
fashionable affluence, the
e
Jordan
Baker
The Valley
of Ashes is a
wasteland, linked
with adultery,
ugliness, poverty,
and death.
The Importance of Place
D
AFTER
1926 Ernest Hemingway, in The Sun Also Rises,
delves into the themes of love, death, and
masculinity.
1930-36 John Dos Passos explores the
American Dream with the stories of 12
characters in his U.S.A. trilogy.
New York City is
the playground of
easy money and
easy pleasure.
Myrtle
Wilson
Spouse
George
Wilson
nouveau riche. A short distance away is New York,
teeming with dubious deals
and clandestine pleasures.
In between lies a patch of
terrain where the bleakness
underlying the glamour is
depressingly apparent. It
is here that Tom’s mistress,
Myrtle Wilson, lives with her
sad, passive, garage-owning husband.
East Egg symbolizes
traditional values,
founded on bloodlines
and old money.
West Egg symbolizes false
glamour, built on enterprise
and new money.
So we beat on, boats against
the current, borne back
ceaselessly into the past.
The Great Gatsby
Color & Time
Jordan and Daisy are first seen in white
dresses, but neither is as innocent as
this choice of color might suggest.
Color in The Great Gatsby is symbolic
of the books themes: Gatsby wears
a pink suit and drives a yellow Rolls
Royce - hues denoting his desperate
need to make an impression. One of
the books most prevalent symbols is
green, the color of the light at the end
of Daisy’s mooring dock, which Gatsby
gazes at yearningly from across the
water. Nick muses on Gatsby’s belief in
that symbolic “green light, the orgastic
future that year by year recedes
before us.”
► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► F. S c o t t F i t z g e r a l d ◄ ◄ ◄ ◄ ◄ ◄ ◄ ◄
Francis Scott Fitzgerald was born
in 1896 in Saint Paul, Minnesota. In
1917 he dropped out of Princeton
University to join the army. He fell in
love with Zelda Sayre, the daughter
of a judge, marrying her after his first
novel, This Side of Paradise, brought
him success, at the age of 24. He
supported the family (they had one
daughter) by writing stories for popular
magazines. His second novel, The
Beautiful and the Damned, confirmed
his reputation as chief chronicler
and critic of the Jazz Age. In 1924
he moved with Zelda to the French
Riviera to write The Great Gatsby. The
couple later shuttled between France
and the US. Fitzgerald had a troubled
relationship with alcohol; after Tender
Is The Night came out in 1934, he
struggled for two years with drinking
and depression. In 1937 he tried his
hand at writing for Hollywood, and
died of a heart attack there in 1940
at 44.
Gatsby Vocabulary
►Privy
Informed about
something secret or not
generally known
►Feign
Give a false
appearance of
►Irrelevant
Having no bearing on
or connection with the
subject at issue
►Subdued
In a softened tone
►Turbulent
Characterized by
unrest or disorder or
insubordination
►Deft
Skillful in physical
movements; especially of
the hands
►Ravage
A destructive action
►Permeate
Spread or diffuse
through
►Vehement
Marked by extreme
intensity of emotions or
convictions
►Cordial
Politely warm and friendly
►Vacuous
Devoid of intelligence
►Asunder
Into parts or pieces
►Tumultuous
Characterized by
unrest or disorder or
insubordination
►Console
Give moral or emotional
strength to
►Impassioned
Characterized by
intense emotion
►Resourcefulness
The quality of being
able to cope with a
difficult situation
►Proprietor
Someone who owns a
business
►Retribution
A justly deserved
penalty
►Sinister
Wicked, evil, or
dishonorable
►Engrossed
Giving or marked by
complete attention to
►Defunct
No longer in force or
use; inactive
►Incredulous
Not disposed or willing
to believe; unbelieving
►Gleaming
An appearance of
reflected light
►Fluctuating
Having unpredictable
ups and downs
Chapter Review Questions
Chapter 1
♦What essential piece of advice did Nick’s
father give him?
♦Name one negative thing we learn about
Tom in this chapter.
♦What is the difference between West Egg
(where Nick lives) and East Egg (where Tom
and Daisy live)?
♦How does Nick know Daisy?
♦What can you infer about Fitzgerald’s
motives for dressing Daisy in white?
♦What differences exist between Daisy
and Jordan?
Chapter 2
♦What is the name of the dreary, ashen,
barren place half way between West Egg
and New York?
♦According to Catherine, why won’t Tom
divorce Daisy and marry Myrtle Wilson?
♦According to Tom, where does George
Wilson think his wife is going during the
periods that she is actually visiting Tom?
♦What does Tom buy Myrtle in this chapter?
Chapter 3
♦A party is thrown at the beginning of the
chapter. Where does the party take place?
♦What sport does Jordan Baker play?
♦Name one rumor about Gatsby that Nick
hears at the party.
♦There is a man with “owl eyes” in Gatsby’s
library. What is this man surprised by?
Chapter 4
♦How does Gatsby claim he made his
money?
♦Gatsby seems uncomfortable and embarrassed when Nick introduces him to whom?
♦At which university does Gatsby claim he
was educated?
♦What sports event did Meyer Wolfsheim
supposedly “fix”?
♦Jordan asks Nick for a favor on behalf of
Gatsby. What does Gatsby want Nick to do
for him?
♦Can you tell why Jordan and Nick want to
help Gatsby get together with Daisy?
Chapter 5
♦What does Gatsby offer Nick in exchange
for arranging a meeting between him and
Daisy?
♦What does Nick tell Daisy when inviting
her to tea?
♦Although the day is pouring rain, Gatsby
sends someone over to Nick’s house to do
what?
♦What does Gatsby show Daisy and Nick
in his bedroom?
♦Why, according to Nick, has the green
light lost its meaning?
Chapter 6
♦What is Gatsby’s real name?
♦How does Gatsby react when Nick tells
him “You can’t repeat the past”?
♦Tom says that Gatsby is “newly rich.” How
does he think that Gatsby earned so much
money?
Chapter 7
♦Why did Gatsby fire his servants?
♦Whom is the person that Gatsby is
surprised to meet, and never believed
existed until now?
♦Why does George Wilson want to make
some money quickly?
♦Tom doesn’t believe that Gatsby is an
“Oxford man.” Is Tom right?
♦By the end of the chapter, has Gatsby
won Daisy or has Tom?
♦What is Daisy’s voice full of?
♦Why is this day important for Nick? What
is today?
Chapter 8
♦What does Nick suggest Gatsby do after
the car accident that killed Myrtle?
♦When Gatsby tells Nick about meeting
Daisy five years ago he describes her as
“the first ______ girl he had ever known.”
♦What does Wilson find in Myrtle’s drawer?
♦After shooting Gatsby, what does George
Wilson do?
♦Why did Gatsby really go to Oxford? How
did he end up there?
♦What is the current situation between Nick
and Jordan?
Chapter 9
♦How do the police describe Wilson?
♦Where is Daisy the morning after Gatsby
has been killed?
♦Which of Gatsby’s family members comes
to his funeral?
♦Name one thing that Jordan Baker
accuses Nick of.
♦What did Tom tell Wilson in the hours
before Gatsby was killed?
♦How did Gatsby really make his money?
♦What did Gatsby write out as a child?
♦What do Nick and the owl-eyed man
agree about?
Color Symbolisms:
●Gray is the color for dreariness. It
symbolizes the lack of life and/or spirit. It
is the place of no hope, no future. In the
book this place is called the valley of
ashes where everything is covered in gray
dust-even the people.
●White is the color that has the deeper
meaning of false purity or goodness. Daisy
and Jordan are always seen in white.
●Green represents so many things in
this novel. One thing is that it means is
something to hope for, to reach out for,
and a hope of new. Like the green light
that is at the end of Daisy and Tom’s dock.
●Red represents blood and death.
●Yellow is in many facets of the book.
Yellow in general means corruptness
and things that go bad. –Yellow leaves
represent decay and corruptness. –The
yellow of Gatsby’s car represents corrupt
dishonesty and deception.
●Gold represents wealth, but, more so, the
show of wealth.