Plot Overview Nick Carraway, a young man from Minnesota, moves to New York in the summer of 1922 to

learn about the bond business. He rents a house in the West Egg district of Long Island, a wealthy but unfashionable area populated by the new rich, a group who have made their fortunes too recently to have established social connections and who are prone to garish displays of wealth. Nick’s next-door neighbor in West Egg is a mysterious man named Jay Gatsby, who lives in a gigantic Gothic mansion and throws extravagant parties every Saturday night.

Nick is unlike the other inhabitants of West Egg—he was educated at Yale and has social connections in East Egg, a fashionable area of Long Island home to the established upper class. Nick drives out to East Egg one evening for dinner with his cousin, Daisy Buchanan, and her husband, Tom, an erstwhile classmate of Nick’s at Yale. Daisy and Tom introduce Nick to Jordan Baker, a beautiful, cynical young woman with whom Nick begins a romantic relationship. Nick also learns a bit about Daisy and Tom’s marriage: Jordan tells him 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. Not long after this revelation, Nick travels to New York City with Tom and Myrtle. At a vulgar, gaudy party in the apartment that Tom keeps for the affair, Myrtle begins to taunt Tom about Daisy, and Tom responds by breaking her nose.

As the summer progresses, Nick eventually garners an invitation to one of Gatsby’s legendary parties. He encounters Jordan Baker at the party, and they meet Gatsby himself, a surprisingly young man who affects an English accent, has a remarkable smile, and calls everyone “old sport.” Gatsby asks to speak to Jordan alone, and, through Jordan, Nick later learns more about his mysterious neighbor. Gatsby tells Jordan that he knew Daisy in Louisville in 1917 and is deeply in love with her. He spends many nights staring at the green light at the end of her dock, across the bay from his mansion. 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. After an initially awkward reunion, Gatsby and Daisy reestablish their connection. Their love rekindled, they begin an affair.

After a short time, Tom grows increasingly suspicious of his wife’s relationship with Gatsby. At a luncheon at the Buchanans’ house, Gatsby stares at Daisy with such undisguised passion that Tom realizes Gatsby is in love with her. Though Tom is himself involved in an extramarital affair, he is deeply outraged by the thought that his wife could be unfaithful to him. He forces the group to drive into New York City, where he confronts Gatsby in a suite at the Plaza Hotel. Tom asserts that he and Daisy have a history that Gatsby could never understand, and he announces to his wife that Gatsby is a criminal—his fortune comes from bootlegging alcohol and other illegal activities. Daisy realizes that her allegiance is to Tom, and Tom contemptuously sends her back to East Egg with Gatsby, attempting to prove that Gatsby cannot hurt him.

When 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. The next day, Tom tells Myrtle’s husband, George, that Gatsby was the driver of the car. George, who has leapt to the conclusion that the driver of the car

that killed Myrtle must have been her lover, finds Gatsby in the pool at his mansion and shoots him dead. He then fatally shoots himself.

Nick stages a small funeral for Gatsby, ends his relationship with Jordan, and moves back to the Midwest to escape the disgust he feels 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, the American dream of happiness and individualism has disintegrated into the mere pursuit of wealth. Though Gatsby’s power to transform his dreams into reality is what makes him “great,” Nick reflects that the era of dreaming—both Gatsby’s dream and the American dream—is over.

Nick mistakes Gatsby for another guest, telling the stranger that “this man Gatsby sent over his chauffeur with an invitation,” but that he “hasn’t even seen the host” yet. Gatsby announces himself and apologizes for being a poor host. Now knowing that this stranger is Gatsby, Nick notes a subtle contradiction in the man’s behavior. On the one hand, Gatsby has an earnest smile that exhibits “a quality of eternal reassurance.” Yet Gatsby’s “elaborate formality of speech” also indicates “that he was picking his words with care,” and hence may not be as earnest—or honest—as he first appears.

Even though she was still in love with Gatsby, Daisy most likely married Tom because she knew he could provide her with more material comforts. In Chapter 4 Jordan recounts how, the day before the wedding, she found Daisy drunk, sobbing, and clutching a letter. Daisy has thrown away a pearl necklace Tom gave her – a necklace that cost $350,000. Presumably, the letter is from Gatsby, who most likely has learned of the wedding and is begging Daisy to reconsider. While Tom has just given her an insanely expensive necklace, Gatsby is still a student, living abroad, and has yet to make his fortune. Daisy must know Tom will be far more likely to provide her with the lifestyle she’s accustomed to. Once Daisy takes a bath and calms down, she consents to marry Tom, and appears, initially at least, happy with her decision.

Tom finds out about the affair between Gatsby and Daisy in Chapter 7, just before the three of them, along with Nick, take a trip to New York. Although no one explicitly communicates this fact, Tom picks up on suspicious body language. Specifically, he notices Gatsby and Daisy exchange glances: “Their eyes met, and they stared together at each other, alone in space.” Nick watches Tom as he, in turn, watches the exchange between his wife and Gatsby. Nick writes: “She had told [Gatsby] that she loved him, and Tom Buchanan saw. He was astounded.” Even though Tom realizes the nature of Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship early in Chapter 7, he does not confront Gatsby until later in the chapter, in a room at the Plaza Hotel. Nevertheless, the moment Tom sees what’s going on marks the beginning of the end.

At the end of the Chapter 7, Myrtle runs out in front of Gatsby’s car because she mistakes it for Tom’s car. The mistake occurs because, earlier in the day, Tom suggests that he and Gatsby swap cars for the drive to New York. Gatsby drives straight to New York, but Tom, driving Gatsby’s car, stops for gas at the Wilsons’ garage. Myrtle sees Tom from the room where her husband has locked her up. Later that night, Tom and Gatsby drive their own cars back from the city. When Myrtle sees the yellow car coming down the road, she assumes it’s Tom, breaks out of her room, and runs out to seek his help. Myrtle’s mistake proves fatal when Daisy, who’s driving Gatsby’s car, accidentally hits her, killing her instantly.

Although the main events of the novel end with Gatsby’s murder and George’s suicide, The Great Gatsby concludes with a chapter in which Nick reflects on the aftermath of Gatsby’s death. This final chapter furnishes Nick with more information about the mysterious Gatsby

and his struggle to climb the social ladder. Nick meets Gatsby’s father, Henry C. Gatz, a “solemn” and “helpless” old man who believed his son had a bright future. Mr. Gatz also discovers and shares with Nick records of Gatsby’s self-improvement routines, saying: “Jimmy was bound to get ahead.” In addition to shedding light on Gatsby’s character, the final chapter also demonstrates just how alone Gatsby really was in life. Although Nick contacts many of Gatsby’s acquaintances as he organizes the funeral, almost no one shows up to pay respects. Daisy, who has run away with Tom, doesn’t even bother to send flowers or a note. The only person to appear, aside from Nick and Mr. Gatz, is Owl Eyes, who concludes the funeral with words that sum up Gatsby’s tragic life: “The poor son-of-a-bitch.”

In the book’s final pages, Nick ties his story of Gatsby to the idea of the American Dream, a notion that Nick imagines was born when Dutch sailors first arrived in the place that would become New York. Nick recreates the historical moment of discovery: “I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors’ eyes—a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby’s house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams...” The Dutch both literally and figuratively cleared the way for Gatsby. Not only did they cut down the trees where his house would later be built, but in doing so they also laid the foundations for a “new world” that would later become the United States of America. In Nick’s mind, the moment of initial discovery was perhaps “the last time in history” when humans encountered something expansive enough to match their natural “capacity for wonder.” Hence, the American Dream was born before America even came into being.

Nick links the American Dream to Gatsby’s love for Daisy, in that both are unattainable. As Nick explains on the novel’s final page, Gatsby spent years hoping for a happy future with Daisy, but this future always receded into the distance. Nick claims that Gatsby’s hopes for the future were elusive because they didn’t relate to the future at all. Instead, these hopes actually bore him “back ceaselessly into the past,” back to that promise-filled moment when the Dutch sailors first set eyes on America. Nick puts the matter thus: “[Gatsby] had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him.” In the end, then, both Gatsby and America are tragic because they remain trapped in an old dream that has not and may never become a reality.

Nick Carraway’s perceptions and attitudes regarding the events and characters of the novel are central to The Great Gatsby. Writing the novel is Nick’s way of grappling with the meaning of a story in which he played a part.Although he describes himself as tolerant and nonjudgmental, he also views himself as morally privileged, having a better sense of “decencies” than most other people. While Nick has a strong negative reaction to his experiences in New York and eventually returns to the Midwest in search of a less morally ambiguous environment, even during his initial phase of disgust, Gatsby stands out for him as an exception. Nick admires Gatsby highly, despite the fact that Gatsby represents everything Nick scorns about New York. Gatsby clearly poses a challenge to Nick’s customary ways of thinking about the world, and Nick’s struggle to come to terms with that challenge inflects everything in the novel.

In the world of East Egg, alluring appearances serve to cover unattractive realities. The marriage of Tom and Daisy Buchanan seems menaced by a quiet desperation beneath its pleasant surface. Unlike Nick, Tom is arrogant and dishonest, advancing racist arguments at dinner and carrying on relatively public love affairs. Daisy, on the other hand, tries hard to be shallow, even going so far as to say she hopes her baby daughter will turn out to be a

fool, because women live best as beautiful fools. Jordan Baker furthers the sense of sophisticated fatigue hanging over East Egg: her cynicism, boredom, and dishonesty are at sharp odds with her wealth and beauty. As with the Buchanans’ marriage, Jordan’s surface glamour covers up an inner emptiness.

The relationship between geography and social values is an important motif in The Great Gatsby. Each setting in the novel corresponds to a particular thematic idea or character type. This first chapter introduces two of the most important locales, East Egg and West Egg. Though each is home to fabulous wealth, and though they are separated only by a small expanse of water, the two regions are nearly opposite in the values they endorse. East Egg represents breeding, taste, aristocracy, and leisure, while West Egg represents ostentation, garishness, and the flashy manners of the new rich. East Egg is associated with the Buchanans and the monotony of their inherited social position, while West Egg is associated with Gatsby’s gaudy mansion and the inner drive behind his self-made fortune. The unworkable intersection of the two Eggs in the romance between Gatsby and Daisy will serve as the fault line of catastrophe.

Unlike the other settings in the book, the valley of ashes is a picture of absolute desolation and poverty. It lacks a glamorous surface and lies fallow and gray halfway between West Egg and New York. The valley of ashes symbolizes the moral decay hidden by the beautiful facades of the Eggs, and suggests that beneath the ornamentation of West Egg and the mannered charm of East Egg lies the same ugliness as in the valley. The valley is created by industrial dumping and is therefore a by-product of capitalism. It is the home to the only poor characters in the novel.

The undefined significance of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg’s monstrous, bespectacled eyes gazing down from their billboard makes them troubling to the reader: in this chapter, Fitzgerald preserves their mystery, giving them no fixed symbolic value. Enigmatically, the eyes simply “brood on over the solemn dumping ground.” Perhaps the most persuasive reading of the eyes at this point in the novel is that they represent the eyes of God, staring down at the moral decay of the 1920s. The faded paint of the eyes can be seen as symbolizing the extent to which humanity has lost its connection to God. This reading, however, is merely suggested by the arrangement of the novel’s symbols; Nick does not directly explain the symbol in this way, leaving the reader to interpret it.

The fourth and final setting of the novel, New York City, is in every way the opposite of the valley of ashes—it is loud, garish, abundant, and glittering. To Nick, New York is simultaneously fascinating and repulsive, thrillingly fast-paced and dazzling to look at but lacking a moral center. While Tom is forced to keep his affair with Myrtle relatively discreet in the valley of the ashes, in New York he can appear with her in public, even among his acquaintances, without causing a scandal. Even Nick, despite being Daisy’s cousin, seems not to mind that Tom parades his infidelity in public.

The sequence of events leading up to and occurring at the party define and contrast the various characters in The Great Gatsby. Nick’s reserved nature and indecisiveness show in the fact that though he feels morally repelled by the vulgarity and tastelessness of the party, he is too fascinated by it to leave. This contradiction suggests the ambivalence that he feels toward the Buchanans, Gatsby, and the East Coast in general. The party also underscores Tom’s hypocrisy and lack of restraint: he feels no guilt for betraying Daisy with Myrtle, but he feels compelled to keep Myrtle in her place. Tom emerges in this section as a boorish bully who uses his social status and physical strength to dominate those around him—he subtly taunts Wilson while having an affair with his wife, experiences no guilt for his

immoral behavior, and does not hesitate to lash out violently in order to preserve his authority over Myrtle. Wilson stands in stark contrast, a handsome and morally upright man who lacks money, privilege, and vitality.

Fitzgerald also uses the party scene to continue building an aura of mystery and excitement around Gatsby, who has yet to make a full appearance in the novel. Here, Gatsby emerges as a mysterious subject of gossip. He is extremely well known, but no one seems to have any verifiable information about him. The ridiculous rumor Catherine spreads shows the extent of the public’s curiosity about him, rendering him more intriguing to both the other characters in the novel and the reader.

Fitzgerald has delayed the introduction of the novel’s most important figure—Gatsby himself—until the beginning of Chapter 3. The reader has seen Gatsby from a distance, heard other characters talk about him, and listened to Nick’s thoughts about him, but has not actually met him (nor has Nick). Chapter 3 is devoted to the introduction of Gatsby and the lavish, showy world he inhabits. Fitzgerald gives Gatsby a suitably grand entrance as the aloof host of a spectacularly decadent party. Despite this introduction, this chapter continues to heighten the sense of mystery and enigma that surrounds Gatsby, as the low profile he maintains seems curiously out of place with his lavish expenditures. Just as he stood alone on his lawn in Chapter 1, he now stands outside the throng of pleasure-seekers. In his first direct contact with Gatsby, Nick notices his extraordinary smile—“one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it.” Nick’s impression of Gatsby emphasizes his optimism and vitality—something about him seems remarkably hopeful, and this belief in the brilliance of the future impresses Nick, even before he knows what future Gatsby envisions.

Many aspects of Gatsby’s world are intriguing because they are slightly amiss—for instance, he seems to throw parties at which he knows none of his guests. His accent seems affected, and his habit of calling people “old sport” is hard to place. One of his guests, Owl Eyes, is surprised to find that his books are real and not just empty covers designed to create the appearance of a great library. The tone of Nick’s narration suggests that many of the inhabitants of East Egg and West Egg use an outward show of opulence to cover up their inner corruption and moral decay, but Gatsby seems to use his opulence to mask something entirely different and perhaps more profound. From this chapter forward, the mystery of Jay Gatsby becomes the motivating question of the book, and the unraveling of Gatsby’s character becomes one of its central mechanisms. One early clue to Gatsby’s character in this chapter is his mysterious conversation with Jordan Baker. Though Nick does not know what Gatsby says to her, the fact that Jordan now knows something “remarkable” about Gatsby means that a part of the solution to the enigma of Gatsby is now loose among Nick’s circle of acquaintances.

Chapter 3 also focuses on the gap between perception and reality. At the party, as he looks through Gatsby’s books, Owl Eyes states that Gatsby has captured the effect of theater, a kind of mingling of honesty and dishonesty that characterizes Gatsby’s approach to this dimension of his life. The party itself is a kind of elaborate theatrical presentation, and Owl Eyes suggests that Gatsby’s whole life is merely a show, believing that even his books might not be real. The novel’s title itself—The Great Gatsby—is suggestive of the sort of vaudeville billing for a performer or magician like “The Great Houdini,” subtly emphasizing the theatrical and perhaps illusory quality of Gatsby’s life.

Nick’s description of his life in New York likewise calls attention to the difference between substance and appearance, as it emphasizes both the colorful allure of the city and its

dangerous lack of balance: he says that the city has an “adventurous feel,” but he also calls it “racy,” a word with negative moral connotations. Nick feels similarly conflicted about Jordan. He realizes that she is dishonest, selfish, and cynical, but he is attracted to her vitality nevertheless. Their budding relationship emphasizes the extent to which Nick becomes acclimated to life in the East, abandoning his Midwestern values and concerns in order to take advantage of the excitement of his new surroundings.

The luncheon with Wolfshiem gives Nick his first unpleasant impression that Gatsby’s fortune may not have been obtained honestly. Nick perceives that if Gatsby has connections with such shady characters as Wolfshiem, he might be involved in organized crime or bootlegging. It is important to remember the setting of The Great Gatsby, in terms of both the symbolic role of the novel’s physical locations and the book’s larger attempt to capture the essence of America in the mid-1920s. The pervasiveness of bootlegging and organized crime, combined with the burgeoning stock market and vast increase in the wealth of the general public during this era, contributed largely to the heedless, excessive pleasure-seeking and sense of abandon that permeate The Great Gatsby.

On the other hand, Jordan’s story paints Gatsby as a lovesick, innocent young soldier, desperately trying to win the woman of his dreams. Now that Gatsby is a full-fledged character in the novel, the bizarre inner conflict that enables Nick to feel such contradictory admiration and repulsion for him becomes fully apparent—whereas Gatsby the lovesick soldier is an attractive figure, representative of hope and authenticity, Gatsby the crooked businessman, representative of greed and moral corruption, is not.

As well as shedding light on Gatsby’s past, Chapter 4 illuminates a matter of great personal meaning for Gatsby: the object of his hope, the green light toward which he reaches. Gatsby’s love for Daisy is the source of his romantic hopefulness and the meaning of his yearning for the green light in Chapter 1.

Like the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg, the green light can be interpreted in many ways, and Fitzgerald leaves the precise meaning of the symbol to the reader’s interpretation. Many critics have suggested that, in addition to representing Gatsby’s love for Daisy, the green light represents the American dream itself. Gatsby’s irresistible longing to achieve his dream, the connection of his dream to the pursuit of money and material success, the boundless optimism with which he goes about achieving his dream, and the sense of his having created a new identity in a new place all reflect the coarse combination of pioneer individualism and uninhibited materialism that Fitzgerald perceived as dominating 1920s American life.

After Gatsby’s history with Daisy is revealed, a meeting between the two becomes inevitable, and it is highly appropriate that the theme of the past’s significance to the future is evoked in this chapter. As the novel explores ideas of love, excess, and the American dream, it becomes clearer and clearer to the reader that Gatsby’s emotional frame is out of sync with the passage of time. His nervousness about the present and about how Daisy’s attitude toward him may have changed causes him to knock over Nick’s clock, symbolizing the clumsiness of his attempt to stop time and retrieve the past.

Gatsby’s character throughout his meeting with Daisy is at its purest and most revealing. The theatrical quality that he often projects falls away, and for once all of his responses seem genuine. He forgets to play the role of the Oxford-educated socialite and shows himself to be a love-struck, awkward young man. Daisy, too, is moved to sincerity when her emotions get the better of her. Before the meeting, Daisy displays her usual sardonic

humor; when Nick invites her to tea and asks her not to bring Tom, she responds, “Who is ‘Tom’?” Yet, seeing Gatsby strips her of her glib veneer. When she goes to Gatsby’s house, she is overwhelmed by honest tears of joy at his success and sobs upon seeing his piles of expensive English shirts.

One of the main qualities that Nick claims to possess, along with honesty, is tolerance. On one level, his arrangement of the meeting brings his practice of tolerance almost to the level of complicity—just as he tolerantly observes Tom’s merrymaking with Myrtle, so he facilitates the commencement of an extramarital affair for Daisy, potentially helping to wreck her marriage. Ironically, all the while Nick is disgusted by the moral decay that he witnesses among the rich in New York. However, Nick’s actions may be at least partially justified by the intense and sincere love that Gatsby and Daisy clearly feel for each other, a love that Nick perceives to be absent from Daisy’s relationship with Tom.

The truth was that Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself.

Chapter 6 further explores the topic of social class as it relates to Gatsby. Nick’s description of Gatsby’s early life reveals the sensitivity to status that spurs Gatsby on. His humiliation at having to work as a janitor in college contrasts with the promise that he experiences when he meets Dan Cody, who represents the attainment of everything that Gatsby wants. Acutely aware of his poverty, the young Gatsby develops a powerful obsession with amassing wealth and status. Gatsby’s act of rechristening himself symbolizes his desire to jettison his lower-class identity and recast himself as the wealthy man he envisions.

Fitzgerald continues to explore the theme of social class by illustrating the contempt with which the aristocratic East Eggers, Tom and the Sloanes, regard Gatsby. Even though Gatsby seems to have as much money as they do, he lacks their sense of social nuance and easy, aristocratic grace. As a result, they mock and despise him for being “new money.” As the division between East Egg and West Egg shows, even among the very rich there are class distinctions.

It is worth noting that Fitzgerald never shows the reader a single scene from Gatsby’s affair with Daisy. The narrative is Nick’s story, and, aside from when they remake each other’s acquaintance, Nick never sees Gatsby and Daisy alone together. Perhaps Nick’s friendship with Gatsby allows him to empathize with his pain at not having Daisy, and that Nick refrains from depicting their affair out of a desire not to malign him. Whatever the reason, Fitzgerald leaves the details of their affair to the reader’s imagination, and instead exposes the menacing suspicion and mistrust on Tom’s part that will eventually lead to a confrontation.

The importance of time and the past manifests itself in the confrontation between Gatsby and Tom. Gatsby’s obsession with recovering a blissful past compels him to order Daisy to tell Tom that she has never loved him. Gatsby needs to know that she has always loved him, that she has always been emotionally loyal to him. Similarly, pleading with Daisy, Tom invokes their intimate personal history to remind her that she has had feelings for him; by controlling the past, Tom eradicates Gatsby’s vision of the future. That Tom feels secure enough to send Daisy back to East Egg with Gatsby confirms Nick’s observation that Gatsby’s dream is dead.

Gatsby’s decision to take the blame for Daisy demonstrates the deep love he still feels for her and illustrates the basic nobility that defines his character. Disregarding her almost capricious lack of concern for him, Gatsby sacrifices himself for Daisy. The image of a pitiable Gatsby keeping watch outside her house while she and Tom sit comfortably within is an indelible image that both allows the reader to look past Gatsby’s criminality and

functions as a moving metaphor for the love Gatsby feels toward Daisy. Nick’s parting from Gatsby at the end of this chapter parallels his first sighting of Gatsby at the end of Chapter 1. In both cases, Gatsby stands alone in the moonlight pining for Daisy. In the earlier instance, he stretches his arms out toward the green light across the water, optimistic about the future. In this instance, he has made it past the green light, onto the lawn of Daisy’s house, but his dream is gone forever.

Although the reader is able to perceive this degradation, Gatsby is not. For him, losing Daisy is like losing his entire world. He has longed to re-create his past with her and is now forced to talk to Nick about it in a desperate attempt to keep it alive. Even after the confrontation with Tom, Gatsby is unable to accept that his dream is dead. Though Nick implicitly understands that Daisy is not going to leave Tom for Gatsby under any circumstance, Gatsby continues to insist that she will call him.

Throughout this chapter, the narrative implicitly establishes a connection between the weather and the emotional atmosphere of the story. Just as the geographical settings of the book correspond to particular characters and themes, the weather corresponds to the plot. In the previous chapter, Gatsby’s tension-filled confrontation with Tom took place on the hottest day of the summer, beneath a fiery and intense sun. Now that the fire has gone out of Gatsby’s life with Daisy’s decision to remain with Tom, the weather suddenly cools, and autumn creeps into the air—the gardener even wants to drain the pool to keep falling leaves from clogging the drains. In the same way that he clings to the hope of making Daisy love him the way she used to, he insists on swimming in the pool as though it were still summer. Both his downfall in Chapter 7 and his death in Chapter 8 result from his stark refusal to accept what he cannot control: the passage of time.

Gatsby has made Daisy a symbol of everything he values, and made the green light on her dock a symbol of his destiny with her. Thinking about Gatsby’s death, Nick suggests that all symbols are created by the mind—they do not possess any inherent meaning; rather, people invest them with meaning. Nick writes that Gatsby must have realized “what a grotesque thing a rose is.” The rose has been a conventional symbol of beauty throughout centuries of poetry. Nick suggests that roses aren’t inherently beautiful, and that people only view them that way because they choose to do so. Daisy is “grotesque” in the same way: Gatsby has invested her with beauty and meaning by making her the object of his dream. Had Gatsby not imbued her with such value, Daisy would be simply an idle, bored, rich young woman with no particular moral strength or loyalty.

The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg can mean anything a character or reader wants them to, but they look down on a world devoid of meaning, value, and beauty—a world in which dreams are exposed as illusions, and cruel, unfeeling men such as Tom receive the love of women longed for by dreamers such as Gatsby and Wilson.

Nick thinks of America not just as a nation but as a geographical entity, land with distinct regions embodying contrasting sets of values. The Midwest, he thinks, seems dreary and pedestrian compared to the excitement of the East, but the East is merely a glittering surface—it lacks the moral center of the Midwest. This fundamental moral depravity dooms the characters of The Great Gatsby—all Westerners, as Nick observes—to failure. The “quality of distortion” that lures them to the East disgusts Nick and contributes to his decision to move back to Minnesota.

There is another significance to the fact that all of the major characters are Westerners, however. Throughout American history, the West has been seen as a land of promise and possibility—the very emblem of American ideals. Tom and Daisy, like other members of the

upper class, have betrayed America’s democratic ideals by perpetuating a rigid class structure that excludes newcomers from its upper reaches, much like the feudal aristocracy that America had left behind. Gatsby, alone among Nick’s acquaintances, has the audacity and nobility of spirit to dream of creating a radically different future for himself, but his dream ends in failure for several reasons: his methods are criminal, he can never gain acceptance into the American aristocracy (which he would have to do to win Daisy), and his new identity is largely an act. It is not at all clear what Gatsby’s failure says about the dreams and aspirations of Americans generally, but Fitzgerald’s novel certainly questions the idea of an America in which all things are possible if one simply tries hard enough.

Throughout the novel, Nick’s judgments of the other characters are based in the values that he inherited from his father, the moral “privileges” that he refers to in the opening pages. Nick’s values, so strongly rooted in the past, give him the ability to make sense out of everything in the novel except for Gatsby. In Nick’s eyes, Gatsby embodies an ability to dream and to escape the past that may ultimately be impossible, but that Nick cherishes and values nonetheless. The Great Gatsby represents Nick’s struggle to integrate his own sense of the importance of the past with the freedom from the past envisioned by Gatsby.

Nick Carraway If Gatsby represents one part of Fitzgerald’s personality, the flashy celebrity who pursued

and glorified wealth in order to impress the woman he loved, then Nick represents another part: the quiet, reflective Midwesterner adrift in the lurid East. A young man (he turns thirty during the course of the novel) from Minnesota, Nick travels to New York in 1922 to learn the bond business. He lives in the West Egg district of Long Island, next door to Gatsby. Nick is also Daisy’s cousin, which enables him to observe and assist the resurgent love affair between Daisy and Gatsby. As a result of his relationship to these two characters, Nick is the perfect choice to narrate the novel, which functions as a personal memoir of his experiences with Gatsby in the summer of 1922.

Nick is also well suited to narrating The Great Gatsby because of his temperament. As he tells the reader in Chapter 1, he is tolerant, open-minded, quiet, and a good listener, and, as a result, others tend to talk to him and tell him their secrets. Gatsby, in particular, comes to trust him and treat him as a confidant. Nick generally assumes a secondary role throughout the novel, preferring to describe and comment on events rather than dominate the action. Often, however, he functions as Fitzgerald’s voice, as in his extended meditation on time and the American dream at the end of Chapter 9.

Nick states that there is a “quality of distortion” to life in New York, and this lifestyle makes him lose his equilibrium, especially early in the novel, as when he gets drunk at Gatsby’s party in Chapter 2. After witnessing the unraveling of Gatsby’s dream and presiding over the appalling spectacle of Gatsby’s funeral, Nick realizes that the fast life of revelry on the East Coast is a cover for the terrifying moral emptiness that the valley of ashes symbolizes. Having gained the maturity that this insight demonstrates, he returns to Minnesota in search of a quieter life structured by more traditional moral values.

Tom Buchanan Tom Buchanan is above all characterized by physical and mental hardness. Physically, he has

a large, muscle-bound, imposing frame. Tom’s body is a “cruel body” with “enormous power” that, as Nick explains, he developed as a college athlete. Tom’s strength and bulk give him an air of danger and aggression, as when he hurts Daisy’s finger and she calls him a “brute of a man, a great, big, hulking physical specimen…” Tom’s physical appearance is echoed in his mental inflexibility and single-minded way of thinking about the world. Just as

Tom uncritically repeats racist things he’s read in books, he remains unshakable regarding his troubled marriage with Daisy.

Myrtle Wilson Although The Great Gatsby is full of tragic characters who don’t get what they want,

Myrtle’s fate is among the most tragic, as she is a victim of both her husband as well as people she’s never met. Myrtle is a constant prisoner. In the beginning of the book she’s stuck in the figurative prison of her social class and her depressing marriage. Midway through, however, this immaterial prison becomes literal when George, suspicious that she’s cheating on him, locks her in their rooms above the garage. This situation only amplifies her desperation to escape, which leads to her death in Chapter 7. When she escapes and runs out in front of Gatsby’s car, she does so because she saw Tom driving it earlier in the day; she thinks he’s behind the wheel. Daisy, who doesn’t know Myrtle, is driving the car when it strikes Myrtle down; Daisy doesn’t even stop to see what happened, and escapes without consequences. The lower class characters – Gatsby, Myrtle, and George – are thus essentially sacrificed for the moral failings of the upper class characters of Tom and Daisy.

Jay Gatsby Fitzgerald delays the introduction of most of this information until fairly late in the novel.

Gatsby’s reputation precedes him—Gatsby himself does not appear in a speaking role until Chapter 3. Fitzgerald initially presents Gatsby as the aloof, enigmatic host of the unbelievably opulent parties thrown every week at his mansion. He appears surrounded by spectacular luxury, courted by powerful men and beautiful women. He is the subject of a whirlwind of gossip throughout New York and is already a kind of legendary celebrity before he is ever introduced to the reader. Fitzgerald propels the novel forward through the early chapters by shrouding Gatsby’s background and the source of his wealth in mystery (the reader learns about Gatsby’s childhood in Chapter 6 and receives definitive proof of his criminal dealings in Chapter 7). As a result, the reader’s first, distant impressions of Gatsby strike quite a different note from that of the lovesick, naive young man who emerges during the later part of the novel.

Fitzgerald uses this technique of delayed character revelation to emphasize the theatrical quality of Gatsby’s approach to life, which is an important part of his personality. Gatsby has literally created his own character, even changing his name from James Gatz to Jay Gatsby to represent his reinvention of himself. As his relentless quest for Daisy demonstrates, Gatsby has an extraordinary ability to transform his hopes and dreams into reality; at the beginning of the novel, he appears to the reader just as he desires to appear to the world. This talent for self-invention is what gives Gatsby his quality of “greatness”: indeed, the title “The Great Gatsby” is reminiscent of billings for such vaudeville magicians as “The Great Houdini” and “The Great Blackstone,” suggesting that the persona of Jay Gatsby is a masterful illusion.

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. As the novel progresses and Fitzgerald deconstructs Gatsby’s self-presentation, Gatsby

reveals himself to be an innocent, hopeful young man who stakes everything on his dreams, not realizing that his dreams are unworthy of him. Gatsby invests Daisy with an idealistic perfection that she cannot possibly attain in reality and pursues her with a passionate zeal that blinds him to her limitations. His dream of her disintegrates, revealing the corruption that wealth causes and the unworthiness of the goal, much in the way Fitzgerald sees the

American dream crumbling in the 1920s, as America’s powerful optimism, vitality, and individualism become subordinated to the amoral pursuit of wealth.

Daisy Buchanan After 1919, Gatsby dedicated himself to winning Daisy back, making her the single goal of all

of his dreams and the main motivation behind his acquisition of immense wealth through criminal activity. To Gatsby, Daisy represents the paragon of perfection—she has the aura of charm, wealth, sophistication, grace, and aristocracy that he longed for as a child in North Dakota and that first attracted him to her. In reality, however, Daisy falls far short of Gatsby’s ideals. She is beautiful and charming, but also fickle, shallow, bored, and sardonic. Nick characterizes her as a careless person who smashes things up and then retreats behind her money. Daisy proves her real nature when she chooses Tom over Gatsby in Chapter 7, then allows Gatsby to take the blame for killing Myrtle Wilson even though she herself was driving the car. Finally, rather than attend Gatsby’s funeral, Daisy and Tom move away, leaving no forwarding address.

Like Zelda Fitzgerald, Daisy is in love with money, ease, and material luxury. She is capable of affection (she seems genuinely fond of Nick and occasionally seems to love Gatsby sincerely), but not of sustained loyalty or care. She is indifferent even to her own infant daughter, never discussing her and treating her as an afterthought when she is introduced in Chapter 7. In Fitzgerald’s conception of America in the 1920s, Daisy represents the amoral values of the aristocratic East Egg set.

Jordan Baker From her very first appearance in the novel, Jordan Baker strikes Nick as mysterious, at once

aloof and alluring. Jordan belongs to the upper crust of society. Although she moved to the east coast from somewhere in the Midwest, she has quickly risen among the social ranks to become a famous golfer—a sport played mainly among the wealthy. Yet Jordan’s rise to social prominence and affluence is founded on lies. Not only did she cheat to win her first major golf tournament, but she’s also incurably dishonest. According to Nick, Jordan constantly bends the truth in order to keep the world at a distance and protect herself from its cruelty. Nick senses Jordan’s aloof yet alluring nature when he initially encounters her lounging on a couch with Daisy in Chapter 1. He writes: “She was extended full length at her end of the divan, completely motionless, and with her chin raised a little, as if she were balancing something on it which was quite likely to fall.” Here Jordan appears distant, statuesque, and beautiful, even regal with her chin tilted into the air. Yet Nick’s description also lends her appearance an air of fragility, as if she’s posing.

Jordan’s cynical and self-centered nature marks her as one of the “new women” of the Roaring Twenties. Such new women were called “flappers,” and they became famous for flouting conventional standards of female behavior. Whereas Daisy is the object of men’s fantasy and idealism, Jordan exhibits a hard-hearted pragmatism that, for Nick at least, links her more forcefully to the real world.

Themes Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work. The Decline of the American Dream in the 1920s On the surface, The Great Gatsby is a story of the thwarted love between a man and a

woman. The main theme of the novel, however, encompasses a much larger, less romantic scope. Though all of its action takes place over a mere few months during the summer of 1922 and is set in a circumscribed geographical area in the vicinity of Long Island, New York, The Great Gatsby is a highly symbolic meditation on 1920s America as a whole, in

particular the disintegration of the American dream in an era of unprecedented prosperity and material excess.

Fitzgerald positions the characters of The Great Gatsby as emblems of these social trends. Nick and Gatsby, both of whom fought in World War I, exhibit the newfound cosmopolitanism and cynicism that resulted from the war. The various social climbers and ambitious speculators who attend Gatsby’s parties evidence the greedy scramble for wealth. The clash between “old money” and “new money” manifests itself in the novel’s symbolic geography: East Egg represents the established aristocracy, West Egg the self-made rich. Meyer Wolfshiem and Gatsby’s fortune symbolize the rise of organized crime and bootlegging.

Nick compares the green bulk of America rising from the ocean to the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. Just as Americans have given America meaning through their dreams for their own lives, Gatsby instills Daisy with a kind of idealized perfection that she neither deserves nor possesses. Gatsby’s dream is ruined by the unworthiness of its object, just as the American dream in the 1920s is ruined by the unworthiness of its object—money and pleasure. Like 1920s Americans in general, fruitlessly seeking a bygone era in which their dreams had value, Gatsby longs to re-create a vanished past—his time in Louisville with Daisy—but is incapable of doing so. When his dream crumbles, all that is left for Gatsby to do is die; all Nick can do is move back to Minnesota, where American values have not decayed.

The Hollowness of the Upper Class One of the major topics explored in The Great Gatsby is the sociology of wealth, specifically,

how the newly minted millionaires of the 1920s differ from and relate to the old aristocracy of the country’s richest families. In the novel, West Egg and its denizens represent the newly rich, while East Egg and its denizens, especially Daisy and Tom, represent the old aristocracy. Fitzgerald portrays the newly rich as being vulgar, gaudy, ostentatious, and lacking in social graces and taste. Gatsby, for example, lives in a monstrously ornate mansion, wears a pink suit, drives a Rolls-Royce, and does not pick up on subtle social signals, such as the insincerity of the Sloanes’ invitation to lunch. In contrast, the old aristocracy possesses grace, taste, subtlety, and elegance, epitomized by the Buchanans’ tasteful home and the flowing white dresses of Daisy and Jordan Baker.

Themes What the old aristocracy possesses in taste, however, it seems to lack in heart, as the East

Eggers prove themselves careless, inconsiderate bullies who are so used to money’s ability to ease their minds that they never worry about hurting others. The Buchanans exemplify this stereotype when, at the end of the novel, they simply move to a new house far away rather than condescend to attend Gatsby’s funeral. Gatsby, on the other hand, whose recent wealth derives from criminal activity, has a sincere and loyal heart, remaining outside Daisy’s window until four in the morning in Chapter 7 simply to make sure that Tom does not hurt her. Ironically, Gatsby’s good qualities (loyalty and love) lead to his death, as he takes the blame for killing Myrtle rather than letting Daisy be punished, and the Buchanans’ bad qualities (fickleness and selfishness) allow them to remove themselves from the tragedy not only physically but psychologically.

Class The American Dream The American Dream refers to a shared set of ideals that guide the spirit of the United

States. These shared ideals include a notion of freedom that ensures all Americans the

possibility of upward social mobility, as long as they work for it. Every character in The Great Gatsby draws inspiration from the American Dream’s promise of wealth and prosperity. At the same time, the novel itself critiques the notion of the American Dream. Readers may end the novel wondering if the American Dream is actually attainable at all. Gatsby suffers the most from the promise of social mobility inherent to the American Dream. He spends his life believing that if he makes enough money and acquires enough possessions, he can transcend his lower-class birth and become equal to Daisy and Tom. However, even though Gatsby succeeds in acquiring wealth, he is never accepted by the upper class. Gatsby’s failure to attain the American Dream suggests the Dream is both an unattainable and unwise goal.

Love and Marriage The ideals of love and marriage are profoundly strained in The Great Gatsby, a book that

centers on two loveless marriages: the union between Tom and Daisy Buchanan and between George and Myrtle Wilson. In both cases, the marriages seem to be unions of convenience or advantage than actual love. Myrtle explains that she married George because she thought he was “a gentleman,” suggesting she hoped he’d raise her class status. Daisy nearly backed out of her marriage to Tom the day before her wedding, and Tom had an affair within a year of the wedding, but the couple is well-suited because of their shared class and desire for fun and material possessions. Even Gatsby’s all-consuming passion for Daisy seems more of a desire to possess something unattainable than actual love. Nick, meanwhile, dates Jordan Baker throughout the book, and though their relationship has its moments of warmth and kindness, both parties generally seem lukewarm and emotionally distant. “I wasn’t actually in love,” Nick recalls, “but I felt a sort of tender curiosity.” Such “tender curiosity” may be the closest thing to love in the entire novel.

Daisy’s passive role in Gatsby’s death signals a broader, more abstract antagonist that also haunts the novel: the American Dream of upward mobility. All of the characters in the book—even Nick, as he discloses in the opening pages—seek financial improvement in the hopes of securing a better life. Yet none of these characters achieves anything like happiness. Nick is the book’s most astute commentator on the illusory nature of the American Dream. On the novel’s final page, Nick specifically addresses what he considers the elusive nature of the American Dream. Even though hopeful dreaming like Gatsby’s seems to be oriented toward the future, Nick claims that such dreaming is stuck in the past. More specifically, he argues that the American Dream hearkens back to the time before America was even born, when it existed purely as an idea in some Dutch sailors’ minds. Nick’s point is that reality always falls short of the dream, and so striving to stay in the dream can just as easily lead one into a nightmare.

While both East and West Egg are wealthy communities, families with inherited wealth, or “old money,” live in the more fashionable East Egg. In West Egg, by contrast, residents whose wealth is new, like Gatsby, conspicuously mimic European aristocracy to appear established. Gatsby’s house is modeled on the Hotel de Ville (French for city hall) in Normandy, France, and was built by a brewer who offered to pay the neighbors to live in thatched cottages, like peasants. While many of the descriptions of the houses in the novel seem over the top, they are in fact based on real mansions that existed on Long Island in the 1920s. For example, an estate named Harbor Hill was also modeled on Hotels de Ville, and included farms, a blacksmith, a casino, and Turkish baths on its 650 acres. Despite such opulent displays of wealth, the novel suggests that the city, the suburbs, and the valley of

ashes all share a sense of spiritual desolation and psychological desperation. In the end, then, it seems to matter little where the characters find themselves along the corridor between New York and the twin Eggs. Nobody in The Great Gatsby is happy about their lot in life..

The Valley of Ashes First introduced in Chapter 2, the valley of ashes between West Egg and New York City

consists of a long stretch of desolate land created by the dumping of industrial ashes. It represents the moral and social decay that results from the uninhibited pursuit of wealth, as the rich indulge themselves with regard for nothing but their own pleasure. The valley of ashes also symbolizes the plight of the poor, like George Wilson, who live among the dirty ashes and lose their vitality as a result.

Tragedy The Great Gatsby can be considered a tragedy in that it revolves around a larger-than-life

hero whose pursuit of an impossible goal blinds him to reality and leads to his violent death. According to the classical definition of tragedy, the hero possesses a tragic flaw that compels him to reach for something or attempt something that precipitates a disastrous result. Writers employ the conventions of tragedy to explore characters’ relationship to fate and free will, and provide a catharsis, or emotional release, in audiences. Gatsby’s tragic flaw is his inability to wake up from his dream of the past and accept reality. His obsession with recapturing his past relationship with Daisy compels him to a life of crime and deceit. He becomes a bootlegger, does business with a gangster, and creates a false identity. He is rumored to have killed a man. He briefly attains his goal of being reunited with the object of his obsession, but willfully blinds himself to the reality of the situation: that Daisy is no longer the young woman he fell in love with in Louisville. Rather, she is a married mother with no real intention of leaving her husband. While Gatsby’s criminal behavior is self-destructive, his tragic refusal to see reality ultimately leads to his death.

Despite telling the story of Gatsby’s downfall, Nick does not present him as a particularly dark character, instead expressing admiration for Gatsby’s “extraordinary gift for hope” and “romantic readiness.” But Gatsby’s romantic hopefulness functions as a flaw, rather than a virtue. It leads him to crime, violence, and ultimately a form of suicide, when he takes the blame for Myrtle’s death. One could argue that the rigidity of the American class system means Gatsby is fated to fail to achieve his dream, an example of tragedy being determined by fate. Another interpretation is that Gatsby willfully chooses his dream over reality, a counter example of tragedy being impelled by free will. Nick suggests this interpretation when he says, about Gatsby’s last moments, “he must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream.” Either way, Gatsby’s inherent flaw leads to his ruin and the death of several characters, as in the classic definition of tragedy.

Realism The Great Gatsby is an example of literary realism because it depicts the world as it really is.

Realist novels employ geographically precise settings and locations, factual historic events, and accurate descriptions of social systems to reflect and implicitly critique contemporary society. Realist writers strive to reflect a world the reader recognizes, and provide insight into how human nature functions in this reality. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald’s characters move through Manhattan landmarks such as the Plaza Hotel, Pennsylvania Station, and Central Park. East and West Egg are recognizable as fictionalized versions of the real towns

of East and West Hampton. References to the First World War and Prohibition situate the novel in a specific time and place. The great economic disparity of the early 1920s, presented in the contrast between Gatsby’s extravagant parties and the destitute families living in the valley of ashes, also realistically portray the social order of the novel’s time. Fitzgerald’s frank acknowledgement of sex, adultery, and divorce further ground the plot in reality.

Modernism The Great Gatsby is also an example of modernism, a literary and artistic movement that

reacted against the romantic, often sentimental novels and art of the Victorian period, and reached its height during and after World War I. Modernist writers were concerned with the individual’s experience in a rapidly industrializing society, and rallied to modernist poet Ezra Pound’s declaration “Make it new!” Fitzgerald, who was part of the same group as Pound, said his goal for The Great Gatsby was to write “something new.” In the novel, the encroachment of modernity is seen in the descriptions of the valley of ashes, as well as the “red-belted ocean-going ships,” trains, and most of all, automobiles. The sardonic descriptions of the latest innovations, such as “a machine which could extract the juice…of two hundred oranges…if a little button was pressed two hundred times,” implies a certain amount of anxiety about the increasing automation of everyday life. Fitzgerald portrays both the exhilaration of urban landscapes – “the satisfaction that the constant flicker of men and women and machines gives to the restless eye” – and the lonely anonymity of workers in the “white chasms” of the city. But in other aspects Fitzgerald deviates from modernist writers such as Virginia Woolf and James Joyce. Their novels Mrs. Dalloway and Ulysses both follow one or two characters over the course of a single day, and are narrated in a stream of consciousness style of interior monologue, while Gatsby has a more traditional plot and narrative style.

Social Satire Fitzgerald’s use of irony, exaggeration, and ridicule to mock hypocritical social types also

qualifies The Great Gatsby as a social satire. Characters in social satires are frequently unsympathetic, functioning as emblems of social problems in order to highlight inequality and injustice. In Gatsby, many of the minor characters serve as symbols of the mindless excess and superficiality of the Jazz Age. Fitzgerald catalogues the many guests at Gatsby’s parties with humorous disdain: the three Mr. Mumbles, the man in the library who is shocked to discover the books on the shelves are real, the group who “flipped their noses up like goats at whosoever came near,” the girls whose last names were “either the melodious names of flowers… or the sterner ones of the great American capitalists.” Fitzgerald satirizes capitalism in general with the figure of the man selling puppies outside the train station who bears “an absurd resemblance to John D. Rockefeller.” By comparing a powerful tycoon to a street vendor, Fitzgerald satirizes the self-importance of the American ruling class.

But while some social satire retains a superficial tone throughout, The Great Gatsby goes deeper into human fallibility. The tragedy at the book’s end, in which Myrtle Wilson, Gatsby, and George Wilson all die in quick succession, is treated without humor. This chain of events illustrates the heartlessness of the characters involved, but also reveals Gatsby’s humanity, and treats him as a character worthy of the reader’s sympathy after Daisy abandons him. Nick’s comment that Gatsby is “better than the whole damn bunch put together,” and his loyalty after Gatsby is killed suggests that Gatsby’s death has true consequence. This solemn tone contrasts with the lighter, more satiric tone of the book’s beginning. Satire is often

limited in its ability to engage emotions of sadness, sympathy, and melancholy, and Fitzgerald uses a more serious tone to communicate these emotions. He expands his main characters, especially Nick and Gatsby, beyond caricature into fully realized, believable individuals.

Style The style of The Great Gatsby is wry, sophisticated, and elegiac, employing extended

metaphors, figurative imagery, and poetic language to create a sense of nostalgia and loss. The book can be read as an extended elegy, or poetic lament, for Gatsby – “the man who gives his name to this book… who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn.” Throughout the novel Nick references the fact that he is creating a written account of a time past – one he remembers with nostalgia and fondness. One of the most frequently occurring words in the book is ‘time,’ and the word ‘past’ appears often, as well, suggesting the act of remembrance and recollection. Fitzgerald describes Gatsby as an exceptionally graceful, stylish, and elegant character, and the novel’s flowing, musical sentences underscore this impression. When talking about other characters, however, the elevated, metaphoric language often creates ironic contrast with the crude nature of the characters themselves. Many of his descriptions contain an undertone of ridicule, with the most sympathetic, wistful passages reserved for the character of Gatsby and for Nick’s lost innocence.

While an elegy is often written in a reverential style, Fitzgerald undercuts the sense of mourning in Gatsby with sharp, sardonic wit. Nick’s narration of Gatsby’s parties and Long Island society contains many subtly satiric observations. “Instead of rambling, this party had preserved a dignified homogeneity, and assumed to itself the function of representing the staid nobility of the countryside—East Egg condescending to West Egg, and carefully on guard against its spectroscopic gayety.” The ornate words “homogeneity” and “spectroscopic” point toward Nick’s high level of education and suggest that the novel speaks to a highly educated reader. In describing the relationship between East and West Egg as “condescending” and “on guard,” Fitzgerald also imbues the passage with a sense of elitism. Nick’s rarified tone is juxtaposed against the behavior of the guests themselves, who grow increasingly less sophisticated as the party wears on and the Champagne flows. By the end of the evening, the last guests are nearly incoherent – “wonder’ff tell me where there’s a gas’line station?” – their inelegant speech thrown into relief against the elegance of Nick’s description of the party.

The sophisticated style is also indicated by the extended metaphors and elaborate imagery that characterize the novel. For example, in the description of the same party, Nick observes: “The groups change more swiftly, swell with new arrivals, dissolve and form in the same breath; already there are wanderers, confident girls who weave here and there among the stouter and more stable, become for a sharp, joyous moment the center of a group, and then, excited with triumph, glide on through the sea-change of faces and voices and color under the constantly changing light.” Held together by semicolons and conjunctions, this lengthy descriptive sentence gives the reader a vivid vision of the scene. We get a strong sense of continual movement (“dissolve and form,” “wanderers,” “glide on,” “constantly changing”), much like a dance, implying that the partygoers are accustomed to moving effortlessly through life. The passage also includes a subtle extended metaphor of the ocean (“swell,” “dissolve and form,” “sea-change”), adding to the sense of ceaseless motion.

Fitzgerald uses rhetorical devices such as alliteration and repetition to contribute to the text’s evocative mood. For example, when Gatsby and Tom visit Myrtle in the city, Nick imagines someone looking up at them illuminated in a window, saying: “Yet high over the city our line of yellow windows must have contributed their share of human secrecy to the casual watcher in the darkening streets, and I was him too, looking up and wondering. I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.” The list of contrasts (“within” and “without,” “enchanted” and “repelled”) illustrate Nick’s restlessness and fascination with the city. Even the most casual observations are highly stylized, often more poetic than literal, like Nick’s description of an enraged wife who appears “like an angry diamond,” or the city “rising up out of the river in white heaps and sugar lumps.” These metaphoric descriptions are contrasted with the vernacular speech of many of the lower class characters, such as the Wilsons. “I just got wised up to something funny… that’s why I been bothering you about the car,” Mr. Wilson tells Tom. Whereas some other writers of the time period, such as Ernest Hemingway, preferred to use simple language, Fitzgerald delights in the poetic capacities of his prose, and in juxtaposing elevated, imagistic language with the rough voices and brutish nature of many of his characters.

Point of View The Great Gatsby is written in first-person limited perspective from Nick’s point of view. This

means that Nick uses the word “I” and describes events as he experienced them. He does not know what other characters are thinking unless they tell him. Although Nick narrates the book, in many ways he is incidental to the events involved, except that he facilitates the meeting of Daisy and Gatsby. For the most part, he remains an observer of the events around him, disappearing into the background when it comes time to narrate crucial meetings between Gatsby, Tom, and Daisy. In several extended passages his voice disappears completely, and he relates thoughts and feelings of other characters as though he is inside their heads. When Gatsby tells Nick about his past with Daisy, Nick writes directly from Gatsby’s point of vie “His heart beat faster as Daisy’s white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl… his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited…” These passages are presented as recollections Gatsby has told Nick, so they don’t violate the first-person narration.

Whenever a novel is narrated in the first person by one of the characters, a key question for the reader is how much faith we should put in the narrator’s reliability. When a story is told from one person’s perspective, the narrator will almost always be unreliable in some way, simply because the narrator brings his or her own biases to bear on the situation. Some narrators deliberately lie to the reader. We call these narrators, or any narrator whose words can largely not be trusted, “unreliable narrators.” Nick Carraway is not a classically unreliable narrator, because Fitzgerald gives no indications that Nick is lying to the reader or that his version of events directly contradicts anyone else’s. He apparently tries to be as truthful as possible. He tells us right away that he has an uncanny ability to reserve judgment and get people to trust him, which encourages us to see him as a reliable narrator. At the same time, he also says “I am one of the few honest people I have ever known.” His very need to describe himself this way makes the reader question how much Nick can actually be trusted.

Nick is also unreliable because of his fondness for Gatsby, which affects his view of the story and is contrasted by his clear distaste for the other characters in the book. He sees Gatsby as a symbol of hope, which makes his perspective biased and occasionally makes us

question his representation of Gatsby or Daisy as characters. Nick’s bias becomes clear in the earliest pages of the book, when he tells us that “there was something gorgeous about him [Gatsby], some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life.” We are inclined to see Gatsby as a sensitive genius and to side with him in the romantic triangle between Gatsby, Daisy, and Tom. The less appealing aspects of Gatsby’s character – the fact that he is involved in adultery, or that his wealth comes from unsavory sources, and he may be mixed up in organized crime – are justified as the romantic lengths to which he’ll go to be reunited with Daisy. Nick feels contempt for Tom, and, to a lesser degree, Daisy, and his personal feelings for the characters similarly color his presentation of events.

Tone The tone of The Great Gatsby veers between scornful and sympathetic, with caustic scorn

gradually giving way to melancholic sympathy toward the end. The tone of the opening paragraphs of the novel is also melancholic because Nick narrates these paragraphs from a later perspective, as part of the framing of the narrative. Once he’s established his framing device, Nick becomes wry and satiric in describing the Long Island social scene. Nick is both impressed and disturbed by his neighbors’ hedonistic lifestyles. He extensively details the decadence of Gatsby’s extravagant parties, and comments on Tom and Daisy in a tone of aloof reproach. When Nick finds out about Tom’s affair with Myrtle, he says, “To a certain temperament the situation might have seemed intriguing—my own instinct was to telephone immediately for the police.” He does not actually phone the police, or even tell Daisy about the affair, preferring to remain passive and confine his concerns to critical observations. He continues to visit Daisy, Tom, and Gatsby and enjoy their benevolence. In these opening chapters the tone remains coolly bemused by the excesses and romantic entanglements of others.

As the book proceeds, and Nick becomes friendly with Gatsby, he gets drawn into the love triangle between Tom, Daisy, and Gatsby, and the tone becomes both more emotional and more melancholy. Nick is less sardonic, and more earnest in his storytelling. His tone becomes sympathetic, even admiring, as he gets to know Gatsby as a person and understand the source of his obsession with Daisy. The tone then becomes even more intimate, as Nick starts to identify with Gatsby: “Through all he said… I was reminded of something – an elusive rhythm, a fragment of lost words, that I had heard somewhere a long time ago.” In the famous final line of the book, the extent of this melancholic tone reaches its climax as Nick concludes, “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” Here, the tone is one of complete identification as Nick includes himself (and the reader) as susceptible to the pull of the past. The alliteration of “b” sounds reinforces this impression of circularity and makes us further feel the pain and helplessness of the characters.

Foreshadowing Foreshadowing is a significant technique in The Great Gatsby. From the book’s opening

pages, Fitzgerald hints at the book’s tragic end, with the mysterious reference to the “foul dust that floated in the wake of (Gatsby’s) dreams.” Fitzgerald also employs false foreshadowing, setting up expectations for one thing to happen, such as saying “Gatsby turned out all right at the end,” then reversing it. Throughout the novel, foreshadowing enforces the sense of tragic inevitability to events, as though all the characters are doomed to play out their fates. The use of foreshadowing heightens the sense that no character can escape his or her predetermined role in life.

Daisy’s unattainability

The first time we (and Nick) see Gatsby, he is standing with his arms outstretched, “trembling,” reaching for the green light, which Fitzgerald describes as insubstantial – it is “minute and far away,” and “might have been the end of a dock.” In this way he suggests that Gatsby’s quest is toward something ephemeral. When Nick looks again, Gatsby has disappeared into the “unquiet darkness” – foreshadowing his disappearance into death at the end of the book. The inaccessibility of the green light tells us to expect a narrative in which the object of desire will never be obtained. Despite being reunited with Daisy, Gatsby is unable to fully attain her, just as the green light will never come closer to his grasp.

Tom’s relationship with Myrtle Another subtle instance of foreshadowing comes when Tom takes Nick to Myrtle’s

apartment and the reader comes to understand Tom’s attachment to Daisy. After Myrtle enrages Tom by repeating Daisy’s name, Tom hits her and breaks her nose. This attack reveals Tom’s brutal nature and pinpoints the relationship between Myrtle and Tom as a stressor for the story. When Myrtle’s sister tells Nick that Daisy won’t divorce Tom because she’s Catholic, Nick is “shocked at the elaborateness of the lie,” suggesting Daisy and Tom are more enmeshed than Myrtle knows. This revelation foreshadows Daisy’s later refusal to say she never loved Tom. The passage also sets up the scene after Myrtle is killed, when Nick sees Daisy and Tom together and remarks on the “unmistakable air of natural intimacy about the couple.” Daisy’s manslaughter of Myrtle is the resolution of the foreshadowing of both violence and the strength of the bond between Tom and Daisy in the party scene. The surprising element is that Daisy, not Tom, kills Myrtle, which reverses our expectations. In this way, Fitzgerald manipulates foreshadowing in order to surprise the reader.

Gatsby’s fate In a more misleading instance of foreshadowing, Nick implies that Gatsby will have a happy

ending; only after the reader has finished the book does the true meaning of Nick’s words become clear. In the opening pages Nick says that “Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.” The reader may take the first proclamation as proof that Gatsby survives the story or ends up with Daisy, but in fact Gatsby dies at the end of the novel. The red herring increases the reader’s surprise when this occurs. Upon re-reading the passage, we understand another meaning of the phrase, which is that Gatsby turns out to be a hero rather than a villain of the story. In the second part of the quotation Nick tells us that the story will end sorrowfully and will have a lasting negative impact on him; this also turns out to be true.

Myrtle killed by a car Myrtle’s death in a hit-and-run car accident is both directly and indirectly foreshadowed.

Automobiles are a preoccupation of the novel, with many references to cars and driving. Early in the book, Nick leaves Gatsby’s party and sees a car in a ditch, “violently shorn of one wheel,” an image echoed later by the sight of Mytle’s “left breast swinging loose like a flap” after she is hit by the car. Next, Jordan nearly runs over a workman with her car, then tells Nick she’s not concerned about being a careless driver because, “it takes two to make an accident.” These scenes foreshadow the scene when Daisy hits Myrtle, who has run out into the road – an accident caused by both Daisy and Myrtle’s carelessness. Direct foreshadowing appears near the end of the book, when Nick and Tom and Jordan leave New York. Nick has just realized it’s his birthday; he is thirty, and the years ahead of him promise only “a thinning briefcase of enthusiasm, thinning hair.” Nick is suddenly aware of his own mortality, so when he says, “we drove on toward death through the cooling twilight,” the

sentence can be read as a general reference to mortality. But in fact the line is a specific foreshadowing of Myrtle’s death, which will happen soon down the road.

The color green is traditionally associated with money, and the green light also symbolizes the wealth that Gatsby believes will enable him to win Daisy back from Tom. But Gatsby is discounting the important distinction between wealth and class made by other characters in the novel. Through his illegal activities Gatsby has acquired great wealth, but he is still shut out of the upper classes by those born into wealth, like Tom and Daisy. While green is the color of money due to its association with American paper currency, it’s interesting to note that Daisy is associated with gold and silver, more stable, enduring forms of currency. Daisy is described as “the golden girl,” and “gleaming like silver, safe and proud above the hot struggles of the poor.” In this sense, the green light represents the type of money that is available to someone like Gatsby who is willing to do anything to attain it, while the inherited wealth of Daisy and Tom, linked to their class status, remains out of reach.

In its largest sense, then, the green light represents the American Dream. The American Dream is the idea that someone from a lower-class background can work hard and move up the social ladder because American society has historically had more class mobility than other countries. The novel explores whether the promise of the American Dream is actually true. On the surface, Gatsby appears to have achieved the American Dream, because he has managed to move from a lower-class background into the highest echelons of New York society, entirely through his own self-invention. In reality, though,Gatsby illustrates the hollowness of the American Dream, because even once he has accomplished this goal, he still is unable to attain Daisy, who represents a traditional elite background. Tom consistently mocks Gatsby for his humble beginnings, calling him a “common swindler who’d have to steal the ring he put on (Daisy’s) finger.” This not only implies that the American Dream is ultimately unfulfilling, but it also suggests that despite the illusion of social mobility, people from the lower classes will never be fully accepted by those who were born into wealth.

That the American Dream is as unattainable as the green light at the end of the dock is evidenced by the aftermath of the car crash that serves as the climax of the novel. As a result of the crash, the three characters from lower class backgrounds (Gatsby, Myrtle, and George) die, while the upper class characters of Nick, Daisy, Tom, and Jordan survive. Tom and Daisy, who were born into privilege, remain insulated from the negative consequences of their actions. Here, Fitzgerald’s critique of the American Dream reaches its apex, as he implies that although working-class people can circulate with the upper classes, they will ultimately be expendable while the upper classes will carelessly maintain their own dominance. At the end of the novel, Fitzgerald writes, “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic 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.” This description shows that the American Dream’s most important quality is its inaccessibility: a dream is not a reality.

Jay Gatsby represents the American Dream. Coming from nothing, Gatsby becomes a major in the Army, makes a large fortune as a bootlegger, and eventually gets the girl of his dreams. That his life comes crashing down around him symbolizes the death of the American Dream, which Fitzgerald criticizes for its materialism and superficiality.

For Gatsby, the green light on Daisy's dock symbolizes love, hope, and the desire for something that ultimately proves unattainable, as Gatsby dies in his quest to attain the American Dream. This green light becomes a powerful symbol of Gatsby's obsession with an ideal.

East Egg and West Egg symbolize the physical and social divide between the old money (as represented by Tom Buchanan) and the new money or nouveau riche (as represented by Jay Gatsby). This divide corresponds to a difference in class, social status, and respectability.

Point of ViewThe Great Gatsby is told from the point of view of Nick Carraway, one of the main characters. The technique is similar to that used by British novelist Joseph Conrad one of Fitzgerald's literary influences, and shows how Nick feels about the characters. Superbly chosen by the author, Nick is a romantic, moralist, and judge who gives the reader retrospective flashbacks that fill us in on the life of Gatsby and then flash forward to foreshadow his tragedy. Nick must be the kind of person whom others trust. Nick undergoes a transformation himself because of his observations about experiences surrounding the mysterious figure of Jay Gatsby. Through this first-person (“I”) narrative technique, we also gain insight into the author's perspective. Nick is voicing much of Fitzgerald's own sentiments about life. One is quite simply that “you can never judge a book by its cover” and often times a person's worth is difficult to find at first. Out of the various impressions we have of these characters, we can agree with Nick's final estimation that Gatsby is worth the whole “rotten bunch of them put together.”

SettingAs in all of Fitzgerald's stories, the setting is a crucial part of The Great Gatsby. West and East are two opposing poles of values: one is pure and idealistic, and the other is corrupt and materialistic. The Western states, including the Midwest, represent decency and the basic ethical principles of honesty, while the East is full of deceit. The difference between East and West Egg is a similar contrast in cultures. The way the characters line up morally correlates with their geographical choice of lifestyle. The Buchanans began life in the West but gravitated to the East and stayed there. Gatsby did as well, though only to follow Daisy and to watch her house across the bay.

Gatsby’s mansion Gatsby’s mansion. Garish, multilevel home located on “West Egg.” The narrator Nick

Carraway describes it as colossal, as ostentatious as it is roomy. Situated on forty acres, the mansion is the site of numerous glitzy and riotous parties thrown by Gatsby, hoping to pique Daisy Buchanan’s interest. The mansion, however, is much more than a lure for Gatsby’s long lost love; it is a symbol of the man himself and his dream of materialism as a vehicle to success both literally and romantically. Gatsby’s home parallels his persona—grand, mysterious, and richly adorned. It is the emblem of a successful businessman and the symbol of what he hopes to recover in Daisy and her love. The mansion is also a representation of a shortsighted American Dream: that material success, in and of itself, will bring one status and happiness. Unfortunately, the dream is based on hollow underpinnings, on the vacuous Daisy and the misguided concept that large amounts of money can be made and used without responsibility. Conversely, the mansion serves also as a symbol of Gatsby’s vision, aspiration, idealism, and belief in the American Dream of the self-made man. Thus, it is simultaneously a symbolic representation of the “great” Gatsby and of the flawed one. Ultimately, Nick Carraway describes the mansion as “that huge

incoherent failure of a house.” The mansion exists as both a vision and failure of such a vision.

East Egg East Egg and West Egg. Fictionalized opposing peninsulas of Long Island Sound described as

resembling a giant pair of eggs. They are contrasted in terms of fashionableness, color, and type of wealth. The East Egg mansions glitter along the water; they are more chic and are representative of older, Eastern, inherited wealth. The West Egg residences are more derivative and imitative, representative of the nouveau riche, affluent newcomers not yet accepted into the highest echelons of wealth. It is Gatsby’s habitation in West Egg that denotes his aspiration to a social status that seems unattainable. The Buchanans, who reside on East Egg, represent the arrogance of an exclusive clique who attend Gatsby’s parties and share in the fruits of his wealth but who essentially despise him. Tom Buchanan, who has inherited his fortune, does not value it in terms of the traditional American ethics of hard work, integrity, fairness, and success coupled with responsibility. The two Eggs also represent the larger framework of an East symbolic of European antiquity, old money, and corruption, and a West symbolic of independence, new money, and the pioneering spirit. Certainly Nick Carraway values Western ideals over Eastern, and at the conclusion of the novel he returns, in a westerly direction, to the traditional and conservative Midwest whence he came.

Valley of Ashes Valley of Ashes. Generally considered to be Flushing in New York City’s borough of Queens,

this place exists as a gray, dead, powdery area—even the homes seem to be composed of ashes—passed by motorcars on their way to New York. Here Myrtle and George Wilson live and operate a garage and gasoline station. The valley is a metaphoric representation of the wasteland the American Dream becomes when ethics and morals are disassociated from it. The valley is also the locus of those, such as George and Myrtle, who are victimized by the arrogant wealthy who base their lives on pleasure, avoidance of boredom, and dishonesty. If East and West Egg are two renditions of attainment of the American Dream, the Valley of Ashes is its demise. Literally it is the site where Daisy kills Myrtle, without compunction, and George decides to murder Gatsby. Finally, overlooking the valley are the giant blue eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg, who stares down on the ashes from a billboard. A central symbol of guilt, judgment, and God, it invests the valley with a moral intensity that allies the novel with existential themes and statements about the moral bankruptcy of the modern world, a vast gray, ashen wasteland.

*New York City *New York City. Certain integral scenes take place in this city and often entail

irresponsibility, adultery, violence, and drunkenness. New York is where Tom Buchanan takes his mistress, where Nick witnesses Tom brutalizing her, where Gatsby reveals his illicit love affair with Daisy, and where a lot of alcohol is consumed. Symbolically, the city represents careless consumption and irresponsible immorality. New York in the 1920’s was a glittering den of writers, socialites, wealthy entrepreneurs, and other moneyed persons who were known for their extravagance and excesses.

he Great Gatsby is a story told by Nick Carraway, who was once Gatsby's neighbor, and he tells the story sometime after 1922, when the incidents that fill the book take place. As the story opens, Nick has just moved from the Midwest to West Egg, Long Island, seeking his fortune as a bond salesman. Shortly after his arrival, Nick travels across the Sound to the more fashionable East Egg to visit his cousin Daisy Buchanan and her husband, Tom, a

hulking, imposing man whom Nick had known in college. There he meets professional golfer Jordan Baker. The Buchanans and Jordan Baker live privileged lives, contrasting sharply in sensibility and luxury with Nick's more modest and grounded lifestyle. When Nick returns home that evening, he notices his neighbor, Gatsby, mysteriously standing in the dark and stretching his arms toward the water, and a solitary green light across the Sound.

One day, Nick is invited to accompany Tom, a blatant adulterer, to meet his mistress, Myrtle Wilson, a middle-class woman whose husband runs a modest garage and gas station in the valley of ashes, a desolate and run-down section of town that marks the convergence of the city and the suburbs. After the group meets and journeys into the city, Myrtle phones friends to come over and they all spend the afternoon drinking at Myrtle and Tom's apartment. The afternoon is filled with drunken behavior and ends ominously with Myrtle and Tom fighting over Daisy, his wife. Drunkenness turns to rage and Tom, in one deft movement, breaks Myrtle's nose.

Following the description of this incident, Nick turns his attention to his mysterious neighbor, who hosts weekly parties for the rich and fashionable. Upon Gatsby's invitation (which is noteworthy because rarely is anyone ever invited to Gatsby's parties — they just show up, knowing they will not be turned away), Nick attends one of the extravagant gatherings. There, he bumps into Jordan Baker, as well as Gatsby himself. Gatsby, it turns out, is a gracious host, but yet remains apart from his guest — an observer more than a participant — as if he is seeking something. As the party winds down, Gatsby takes Jordan aside to speak privately. Although the reader isn't specifically told what they discuss, Jordan is greatly amazed by what she's learned.

As the summer unfolds, Gatsby and Nick become friends and Jordan and Nick begin to see each other on a regular basis, despite Nick's conviction that she is notoriously dishonest (which offends his sensibilities because he is "one of the few honest people" he has ever met). Nick and Gatsby journey into the city one day and there Nick meets Meyer Wolfshiem, one of Gatsby's associates and Gatsby's link to organized crime. On that same day, while having tea with Jordan Baker, Nick learns the amazing story that Gatsby told her the night of his party. Gatsby, it appears, is in love with Daisy Buchanan. They met years earlier when he was in the army but could not be together because he did not yet have the means to support her. In the intervening years, Gatsby made his fortune, all with the goal of winning Daisy back. He bought his house so that he would be across the Sound from her and hosted the elaborate parties in the hopes that she would notice. It has come time for Gatsby to meet Daisy again, face-to-face, and so, through the intermediary of Jordan Baker, Gatsby asks Nick to invite Daisy to his little house where Gatsby will show up unannounced.

The day of the meeting arrives. Nick's house is perfectly prepared, due largely to the generosity of the hopeless romantic Gatsby, who wants every detail to be perfect for his reunion with his lost love. When the former lovers meet, their reunion is slightly nervous, but shortly, the two are once again comfortable with each other, leaving Nick to feel an outsider in the warmth the two people radiate. As the afternoon progresses, the three move the party from Nick's house to Gatsby's, where he takes special delight in showing Daisy his meticulously decorated house and his impressive array of belongings, as if demonstrating in a very tangible way just how far out of poverty he has traveled.

At this point, Nick again lapses into memory, relating the story of Jay Gatsby. Born James Gatz to "shiftless and unsuccessful farm people," Gatsby changed his name at seventeen, about the same time he met Dan Cody. Cody would become Gatsby's mentor, taking him on in "a vague personal capacity" for five years as he went three times around the Continent.

By the time of Cody's death, Gatsby had grown into manhood and had defined the man he would become. Never again would he acknowledge his meager past; from that point on, armed with a fabricated family history, he was Jay Gatsby, entrepreneur.

Moving back to the present, we discover that Daisy and Tom will attend one of Gatsby's parties. Tom, of course, spends his time chasing women, while Daisy and Gatsby sneak over to Nick's yard for a moment's privacy while Nick, accomplice in the affair, keeps guard. After the Buchanans leave, Gatsby tells Nick of his secret desire: to recapture the past. Gatsby, the idealistic dreamer, firmly believes the past can be recaptured in its entirety. Gatsby then goes on to tell what it is about his past with Daisy that has made such an impact on him.

As the summer unfolds, Gatsby and Daisy's affair begins to grow and they see each other regularly. On one fateful day, the hottest and most unbearable of the summer, Gatsby and Nick journey to East Egg to have lunch with the Buchanans and Jordan Baker. Oppressed by the heat, Daisy suggests they take solace in a trip to the city. No longer hiding her love for Gatsby, Daisy pays him special attention and Tom deftly picks up on what's going on. As the party prepares to leave for the city, Tom fetches a bottle of whiskey. Tom, Nick, and Jordan drive in Gatsby's car, while Gatsby and Daisy drive Tom's coupe. Low on gas, Tom stops Gatsby's car at Wilson's gas station, where he sees that Wilson is not well. Like Tom, who has just learned of Daisy's affair, Wilson has just learned of Myrtle's secret life — although he does not know who the man is — and it has made him physically sick. Wilson announces his plans to take Myrtle out West, much to Tom's dismay. Tom has lost a wife and a mistress all in a matter of an hour. Absorbed in his own fears, Tom hastily drives into the city.

The group ends up at the Plaza hotel, where they continue drinking, moving the day closer and closer to its tragic end. Tom, always a hot-head, begins to badger Gatsby, questioning him as to his intentions with Daisy. Decidedly tactless and confrontational, Tom keeps harping on Gatsby until the truth comes out: Gatsby wants Daisy to admit she's never loved Tom but that, instead, she has always loved him. When Daisy is unable to do this, Gatsby declares that Daisy is going to leave Tom. Tom, though, understands Daisy far better than Gatsby does and knows she won't leave him: His wealth and power, matured through generations of privilege, will triumph over Gatsby's newly found wealth. In a gesture of authority, Tom orders Daisy and Gatsby to head home in Gatsby's car. Tom, Nick, and Jordan follow.

As Tom's car nears Wilson's garage, they can all see that some sort of accident has occurred. Pulling over to investigate, they learn that Myrtle Wilson, Tom's mistress, has been hit and killed by a passing car that never bothered to stop, and it appears to have been Gatsby's car. Tom, Jordan, and Nick continue home to East Egg. Nick, now disgusted by the morality and behavior of the people with whom he has been on friendly terms, meets Gatsby outside of the Buchanans' house where he is keeping watch for Daisy. With a few well-chosen questions, Nick learns that Daisy, not Gatsby, was driving the car, although Gatsby confesses he will take all the blame. Nick, greatly agitated by all that he has experienced during the day, continues home, but an overarching feeling of dread haunts him.

Nearing dawn the next morning, Nick goes to Gatsby's house. While the two men turn the house upside down looking for cigarettes, Gatsby tells Nick more about how he became the man he is and how Daisy figured into his life. Later that morning, while at work, Nick is unable to concentrate. He receives a phone call from Jordan Baker, but is quick to end the discussion — and thereby the friendship. He plans to take an early train home and check on Gatsby.

The action then switches back to Wilson who, distraught over his wife's death, sneaks out and goes looking for the driver who killed Myrtle. Nick retraces Wilson's journey, which placed him, by early afternoon, at Gatsby's house. Wilson murders Gatsby and then turns the gun on himself.

After Gatsby's death, Nick is left to help make arrangements for his burial. What is most perplexing, though, is that no one seems overly concerned with Gatsby's death. Daisy and Tom mysteriously leave on a trip and all the people who so eagerly attended his parties, drinking his liquor and eating his food, refuse to become involved. Even Meyer Wolfshiem, Gatsby's business partner, refuses to publicly mourn his friend's death. A telegram from Henry C. Gatz, Gatsby's father, indicates he will be coming from Minnesota to bury his son. Gatsby's funeral boasts only Nick, Henry Gatz, a few servants, the postman, and the minister at the graveside. Despite all his popularity during his lifetime, in his death, Gatsby is completely forgotten.

Nick, completely disillusioned with what he has experienced in the East, prepares to head back to the Midwest. Before leaving, he sees Tom Buchanan one last time. When Tom notices him and questions him as to why he didn't want to shake hands, Nick curtly offers "You know what I think of you." Their discussion reveals that Tom was the impetus behind Gatsby's death. When Wilson came to his house, he told Wilson that Gatsby owned the car that killed Myrtle. In Tom's mind, he had helped justice along. Nick, disgusted by the carelessness and cruel nature of Tom, Daisy, and those like them, leaves Tom, proud of his own integrity.

On the last night before leaving, Nick goes to Gatsby's mansion, then to the shore where Gatsby once stood, arms outstretched toward the green light. The novel ends prophetically, with Nick noting how we are all a little like Gatsby, boats moving up a river, going forward but continually feeling the pull of the past.

The Great Gatsby, published in 1925, is hailed as one of the foremost pieces of American fiction of its time. It is a novel of triumph and tragedy, noted for the remarkable way its author captures a cross-section of American society. In The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald, known for his imagistic and poetic prose, holds a mirror up to the society of which he was a part. The initial success of the book was limited, although in the more than 75 years since it has come to be regarded as a classic piece of American short fiction. In 1925, however, the novel served as a snapshot of the frenzied post-war society known as the Jazz Age, while today it provides readers with, among other things, a portal through which to observe life in the 1920s. Part of Fitzgerald's charm in The Great Gatsby, in fact, is his ability to encapsulate the mood of a generation during a politically and socially crucial and chaotic period of American history.

To understand Fitzgerald's genius more fully, one must be aware of the politics that underlie the story. To remove the story from its full historical context is to do it a grave injustice. The novel, published in 1925, explores life in the early- to mid-1920s. Politically speaking, this was a time of growth and prosperity, as well as a time of corruption. World War I, the first war of its kind anyone had ever known, had ended in 1919. When Warren G. Harding assumed the presidency in 1920, one of his goals was to bring the country back to business as usual. However, this proved to be a difficult task because Harding's administration was

plagued by scandal and corruption, as well as opposition mounted by both unions and organized crime.

After WWI ended, Harding's administration targeted business as a means of rebuilding the country. What this entailed, however, included undermining striking laborers and largely siding with management in labor dispute issues over such things as minimum wage, unions, child labor, and so on. In addition to favoring management in labor disputes, Harding and his successor, Calvin Coolidge, enacted tax legislation that benefited the wealthy more so than any other group. In addition, because of administrative policy decisions, industries such as agriculture, textiles, and certain types of mining suffered greatly, and as a result, cities grew as people moved to urban areas to make a living. Many of them, however, remained trapped in a purgatory of sorts, looking for a better life but unable to get it, not unlike the people in The Great Gatsby's valley of ashes.

Economically, the 1920s boasted great financial gain, at least for those of the upper class. Between 1922 and 1929, dividends from stock rose by 108 percent, corporate profits increased by 76 percent, and personal wages grew by 33 percent. Nick Carraway's journey to the East to make his fortune in the bond business is not entirely unfounded. Largely because of improvements in technology, productivity increased while overall production costs decreased, and the economy grew. All this would come to a grinding halt, however, with the stock market crash of 1929, sending the U.S. into the greatest depression it has ever known. Fitzgerald, of course, couldn't have forecasted the crash, but in The Great Gatsby, he does suggest, on one level, that society was living in excess and without curbing its appetite somewhat, ruin was just around the corner.

The commercial growth of the 1920s resulted in rampant materialism, such as that chronicled in The Great Gatsby. As people began to have more money, they began to buy more. In turn, as people began to buy more, profits grew, more goods were manufactured, and people earned more money, thereby enabling the economic growth cycle. People began to spend their money on consumer goods — cars, radios, telephones, and refrigerators — at a rate never before seen. People also began to spend time and money on recreation and leisure. Professional sports began to grow in popularity, and movies and tabloid newspapers gained a foothold on America, helping everyone to share, in one way or another, in the growing materialism that categorized the Jazz Age.

In addition to economics, Fitzgerald takes other national issues into consideration in The Great Gatsby. For example, in Chapter 1, Tom has an intense dislike for outsiders. Later, other characters, including Nick, refer negatively to immigrants who live in the community of West Egg. Although to modern readers the comments and allusions may seem to lack motivation, such is not the case. Immigration to America was at its peak in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Although immigration waned during the war years, by June of 1921, immigration had returned again to pre-war levels (800,000 people between June of 1920 and June of 1921) and organized labor began lobbying against immigrants, whom they believed were taking away jobs from American citizens. Business leaders and various special interest groups also began to worry about the influx of immigrants, citing anti-American political fanaticism as a likely problem. In response, Congress passed a series of restriction bills and laws, setting quotas that limited the number

of immigrants allowed in a particular year (164,000 in 1924 and 1925; 150,000 after July 1, 1927). The quota was entirely discriminatory, particularly to people from southern and eastern Europe and from Asia. Although readers may not like what Fitzgerald's characters imply, there is certainly a historical basis behind it.

Another aspect of The Great Gatsby that has historical roots centers on the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution: prohibition. Enacted in 1919 (and ultimately repealed in 1933), this amendment made it illegal for anyone to manufacture, sell, or transport liquor of any sort. Millions of Americans hailed this amendment as a moral advance, curbing America's growing penchant for immorality and all the vices that went (in their eyes) hand in hand with drunkenness. Despite the millions who supported prohibition, millions also broke the law and drank the outlawed liquor. Not surprisingly, when the illegal liquor business became lucrative, organized crime stepped in to meet the demand. Manufacturing and distributing alcohol were big businesses during the years of prohibition and helped make the fortunes of the nouveaux riches (newly rich) found within Fitzgerald's novel, including Meyer Wolfshiem and Gatsby himself. An understanding of prohibition also helps explain why Fitzgerald puts such an emphasis on drinking within the novel.

Although political issues underlie The Great Gatsby, so, too, do social issues. In many ways, Fitzgerald's Jazz Age characters are a fairly honest representation of what could be found in the social circles of the country's younger generation. Many of the men in The Great Gatsby had served in WWI, and like their real-life counterparts, they returned from the war changed. They found the ideas and attitudes waiting for them at home to be representative of an outmoded way of thinking, and so they rebelled. The women at home, too, found post-war America to be too constrictive for their tastes. Many women had entered the workforce when the men went to war and were unwilling to give up the by-products of their employment — social and economic freedom — when the men returned from the war. In addition, the Nineteenth Amendment, enacted in 1920, gave women the right to vote, making their independence even more necessary. In the 1920s, young men and women (including Fitzgerald himself) refused to be content maintaining the status quo, and so they openly and wholeheartedly rebelled.

Socially, the 1920s marked an era of great change, particularly for women. In a symbolic show of emancipation, women bobbed their hair, that one great indicator of traditional femininity. To complement their more masculine look, women also began to give up wearing corsets, the restrictive undergarment intended to accentuate a woman's hips, waist, and breasts, as if to reinvent themselves, according to their own rules. Other things women did that were previously unheard of included smoking and drinking openly, as well as relaxing formerly rigid attitudes toward sex. Fitzgerald picks up on the social rebellion of his peers particularly well in The Great Gatsby. He shows women of all classes who are breaking out of the molds that society had placed them into. Myrtle, for instance, wishes to climb the social ladder, and so she is determined to do so at all costs. Daisy attempts to break away from the restrictive society in which she was raised, yet she cannot make the break entirely and so she falls back into the only thing she knows: money. Jordan Baker, too, is an emancipated woman. She passes time as a professional golfer, a profession made possible largely because of the social and economic progress of the 1920s.

Part of what makes Fitzgerald's novel such a favorite piece is the way he is able to analyze the society of which he was also a part. Through his characters, he not only captures a snapshot of middle- and upper-class American life in the 1920s, but also conveys a series of criticisms as well. Through the characterization in The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald explores the human condition as it is reflected in a world characterized by social upheaval and uncertainty, a world with a direct underlying historical basis. By emphasizing social groupings and how they do or do not interact with each other (see the Critical Essays section in this Note for further explorations), Fitzgerald establishes a sense the urgency. The Jazz Age society so clearly shown in The Great Gatsby is, in effect, on a very dangerous course when people like Tom, Daisy, and Jordan are at the top of the ladder, working hard to ensure no one else climbs as highly as they. Through Gatsby, Fitzgerald demonstrates the enterprising Jazz Ager, someone who has worked hard and profited from listening and responding to the demands of the society. Unfortunately, despite his success, Gatsby (and all of the people he represents) is never able to capture his elusive dreams. Fitzgerald's story, although a fiction, is informed by reality, helping to make it one of the most treasured pieces of early twentieth century American fiction.

ay Gatsby The protagonist who gives his name to the story. Gatsby is a newly wealthy Midwesterner-turned-Easterner who orders his life around one desire: to be reunited with Daisy Buchanan, the love he lost five years earlier. His quest for the American dream leads him from poverty to wealth, into the arms of his beloved and, eventually, to death.

Nick Carraway The story's narrator. Nick rents the small house next to Gatsby's mansion in West Egg and, over the course of events, helps Gatsby reunite with Daisy (who happens to be Nick's cousin). Nick's Midwestern sensibility finds the East an unsettling place, and he becomes disillusioned with how wealthy socialites like the Buchanans lead their lives.

Daisy Buchanan Beautiful and mesmerizing, Daisy is the apex of sociability. Her privileged upbringing in Louisville has conditioned her to a particular lifestyle, which Tom, her husband, is able to provide her. She enraptures men, especially Gatsby, with her diaphanous nature and sultry voice. She is the object of Gatsby's desire, for good or ill, and represents women of an elite social class.

Tom Buchanan Daisy's hulking brute of a husband. Tom comes from an old, wealthy Chicago family and takes pride in his rough ways. He commands attention through his boisterous and outspoken (even racist) behavior. He leads a life of luxury in East Egg, playing polo, riding horses, and driving fast cars. He is proud of his affairs and has had many since his marriage. Myrtle Wilson is merely the woman of the moment for Tom.

Pammy Buchanan Toddler daughter of Tom and Daisy Buchanan. Little mention is made of her and she represents the children of the Jazz Agers. She has very little parental contact, yet the reader is always vaguely aware of her presence.

Jordan Baker Professional golfer of questionable integrity. Friend of Daisy's who, like Daisy, represents women of a particular class. Jordan is the young, single woman of wealth, admired by men wherever she goes. She dates Nick casually, but seems offended when he is

the first man not to fall for her charms. Although she is savvy, she comes off as somewhat shallow in her approach to life.

Myrtle Wilson Married lover of Tom Buchanan. Myrtle serves as a representative of the lower class. Through her affair with Tom she gains entrée into the world of the elite, and the change in her personality is remarkable. She conducts a secret life with Tom, wherein she exhibits all the power and dominance she finds lacking in her everyday life. She eventually suffers a tragic end at the hands of her lover's wife.

George Wilson Myrtle's unassuming husband. He runs a garage and gas station in the valley of ashes and seems trapped by his position in life. Eventually, he finds out about his wife's double life and his response to it helps drive her to her death. Distraught at what happens, Wilson becomes Fitzgerald's way of expressing the despair prevalent in the seemingly trapped lower-middle class.

Catherine Sister of Myrtle Wilson who is aware of her sister's secret life and willing to partake of its benefits.

Meyer Wolfshiem Gatsby's business associate and link to organized crime. A professional gambler, Wolfshiem is attributed with fixing the 1919 World Series. Wolfshiem helped build Gatsby's fortune, although the wealth came through questionable means.

Michaelis George Wilson's restaurateur neighbor who comforts Wilson after Myrtle is killed. One of the few charitable people to be found in the novel.

Ewing Klipspringer Convivially known as Gatsby's "boarder." Klipspringer is a quintessential leech, a representative of the people who frequented Gatsby's partys.

Dan Cody Worldly mentor of Jay Gatsby. Cody took Gatsby under his wing when Gatsby was a young man and taught him much about living adventurously and pursuing dreams.

Henry C. Gatz Father of Jay Gatsby. Comes from the Midwest to bury his son. Gatz serves as a very tangible reminder of Gatsby's humble heritage and roots.

ick Carraway, the story's narrator, has a singular place within The Great Gatsby. First, he is both narrator and participant. Part of Fitzgerald's skill in The Great Gatsby shines through the way he cleverly makes Nick a focal point of the action, while simultaneously allowing him to remain sufficiently in the background. In addition, Nick has the distinct honor of being the only character who changes substantially from the story's beginning to its end. Nick, although he initially seems outside the action, slowly moves to the forefront, becoming an important vehicle for the novel's messages.

On one level, Nick is Fitzgerald's Everyman, yet in many ways he is much more. He comes from a fairly nondescript background. He hails from the upper Midwest (Minnesota or Wisconsin) and has supposedly been raised on stereotypical Midwestern values (hard work, perseverance, justice, and so on). He is a little more complex than that, however. His family, although descended from the "Dukes of Buccleuch," really started when Nick's grandfather's brother came to the U.S. in 1851. By the time the story takes place, the Carraways have only

been in this country for a little over seventy years — not long, in the great scope of things. In addition, the family patriarch didn't exhibit the good Midwestern values Nick sees in himself. When the civil war began, Nick's relative "sent a substitute" to fight for him, while he started the family business. This little detail divulges a few things: It places the Carraways in a particular class (because only the wealthy could afford to send a substitute to fight) and suggests that the early Carraways were more tied to commerce than justice. Nick's relative apparently doesn't have any qualms about sending a poorer man off to be killed in his stead. Given this background, it is interesting that Nick would come to be regarded as a level-headed and caring man, enough of a dreamer to set goals, but practical enough to know when to abandon his dreams.

Also contributing to Nick's characterization as an Everyman are his goals in life. He heads East after World War I, seeking largely to escape the monotony he perceives to permeate the Midwest and to make his fortune. He is an educated man who desires more out of life than the quiet Midwest can deliver (although it is interesting that before living in the city any length of time he retreats to the country). What helps make Nick so remarkable, however, is the way that he has aspirations without being taken in — to move with the socialites, for example, but not allowing himself to become blinded by the glitz that characterizes their lifestyle. When he realizes what his social superiors are really like (shallow, hollow, uncaring, and self-serving), he is disgusted and, rather than continuing to cater to them, he distances himself. In effect, motivated by his conscience, Nick commits social suicide by forcefully pulling away from people like the Buchanans and Jordan Baker.

In addition to his Everyman quality, Nick's moral sense helps to set him apart from all the other characters. From the first time he interacts with others (Daisy, Tom, and Jordan in Chapter 1), he clearly isn't like them. He is set off as being more practical and down-to-earth than other characters. This essence is again brought to life in Chapter 2 when he doesn't quite know how to respond to being introduced into Tom and Myrtle's secret world (notice, however, that he doesn't feel the need to tell anyone about his adventures).

In Chapter 3, again Nick comes off as less mercenary than everyone else in the book as he waits for an invitation to attend one of Gatsby's parties, and then when he does, he takes the time to seek out his host. From these instances (and others like them spread throughout the book) it becomes clear that Nick, in many ways, is an outsider.

Nick has what many of the other characters lack — personal integrity — and his sense of right and wrong helps to elevate him above the others. He alone is repulsed by the phony nature of the socialites. He alone is moved by Gatsby's death. When the other characters scatter to the wind after Gatsby's death, Nick, unable to believe that none of Gatsby's associates will even pay their last respects, picks up the pieces and ensures Gatsby isn't alone in his death. Through the course of The Great Gatsby Nick grows, from a man dreaming of a fortune, to a man who knows only too well what misery a fortune can bring.

Like Nick, Gatsby comes from the Midwest (North Dakota, although his father later comes from Minnesota). Early in the book, he is established as a dreamer who is charming, gracious, and a bit mysterious. As the story unfolds, however, the reader learns more and more what precipitates the mystery: that everything he has done in his adult life has been

with the sole purpose of fulfilling the most unrealistic of dreams — to recapture the past. Gatsby is in many ways, as the title suggests, great, but when looking at him critically, some of the things he stands for may not be so admirable.

In one sense, Gatsby's rags-to-riches success story makes him an embodiment of the American dream. He started life with little, as the son of fairly unsuccessful farmers. By the time he was a young man he had even less, having voluntarily estranged himself from his family, unable to come to terms with the lot he had been dealt in life. While on his own, he had the opportunity to reinvent himself, and due solely to his own ingenuity, Jimmy Gatz evolved into Jay Gatsby. As such, life became much different (although he was missing one key ingredient: money). He was no longer tied to his early years, but could imagine whatever past for himself he desired. And then he fell in love, a fateful incident that would change the course of his life forever. After meeting Daisy, everything he did was for the singular purpose of winning her. Money was, essentially, the issue that prevented their being together, and so Gatsby made sure he would never again be without it. Gatsby's drive and perseverance in obtaining his goal is, in many senses, commendable. He is a self-made man (in all respects) and as such, is admirable.

However, all positive traits aside, there are aspects of Jay Gatsby that call into question that admiration. Gatsby's money did not come from inheritance, as he would like people to believe, but from organized crime. The story takes place during the time of prohibition and Gatsby has profited greatly from selling liquor illegally. In addition, while people come to Gatsby's parties in droves, he really knows very little about them. In fact, he doesn't want to know much about them, just whether they know Daisy. Finally, Gatsby's friendship with Nick really begins to blossom only after he finds out that Nick is Daisy's cousin.

In assessing Gatsby, one must examine his blind pursuit of Daisy. Everything he does, every purchase he makes, every party he throws, is all part of his grand scheme to bring Daisy back into his life for good. In one sense, this is a lovely romantic gesture, but in another sense, it perpetuates a childish illusion. By being so focused on his dream of Daisy, Gatsby moves further and further into a fantasy world. His inability to deal with reality sets him outside the norm and, eventually, his holding on to the dream leads to his death. By the end of Chapter 7, Gatsby is standing guard outside of Daisy's house on a needless vigil. He is completely unable to realize that his dream is not a reality and so stands watching for a sign from Daisy. He sees what he is doing as noble, honorable, and purposeful. The reader, however, sees the futility of his task as he becomes a parody of his former self. Gatsby is, quite literally, fatally idealistic. He can't wait to distance himself from his past in terms of his family, but yet he lives his adult life trying to recapture the past he had with Daisy. What makes matters worse, too, is that he is in love with the idea of Daisy, not Daisy as she herself is.

aisy is The Great Gatsby's most enigmatic, and perhaps most disappointing, character. Although Fitzgerald does much to make her a character worthy of Gatsby's unlimited devotion, in the end she reveals herself for what she really is. Despite her beauty and charm, Daisy is merely a selfish, shallow, and in fact, hurtful, woman. Gatsby loves her (or at least the idea of her) with such vitality and determination that readers would like, in many senses, to see her be worthy of his devotion. Although Fitzgerald carefully builds Daisy's

character with associations of light, purity, and innocence, when all is said and done, she is the opposite from what she presents herself to be.

From Nick's first visit, Daisy is associated with otherworldliness. Nick calls on her at her house and initially finds her (and Jordan Baker, who is in many ways an unmarried version of Daisy) dressed all in white, sitting on an "enormous couch . . . buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon . . . [her dress] rippling and fluttering as if [she] had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house." From this moment, Daisy becomes like an angel on earth. She is routinely linked with the color white (a white dress, white flowers, white car, and so on), always at the height of fashion and addressing people with only the most endearing terms. She appears pure in a world of cheats and liars. Given Gatsby's obsession with Daisy and the lengths to which he has gone to win her, she seems a worthy paramour.

As the story continues, however, more of Daisy is revealed, and bit-by-bit she becomes less of an ideal. Given that she is fully aware of her husband's infidelities, why doesn't she do anything about it? Because he has money and power and she enjoys the benefits she receives from these things, she is willing to deal with the affairs. In addition, when she attends one of Gatsby's parties, aside from the half-hour she spends with Gatsby, she has an unpleasant time. She finds the West Egg nouveaux riches to be tedious and vulgar, an affront to her "old money" mentality. Another incident that calls Daisy's character into question is the way she speaks of her daughter, Pammy. "I hope she'll be a fool," she says, "that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool." Clearly, she has some experience in this area and implies that the world is no place for a woman; the best she can do is hope to survive and the best way to do that is through beauty rather than brains. Later, in Chapter 7 when Pammy makes her only appearance, Daisy treats her like an object, showing her off for guests, suggesting Daisy's lack of concern for her child. Daisy's life revolves around Daisy, allowing Pammy in only when it's convenient. Clearly, in real life Daisy isn't all the way Gatsby remembers — but blinded by his dream, he cannot see the truth.

Although Daisy seems to have found love in her reunion with Gatsby, closer examination reveals that is not at all the case. Although she loves the attention, she has considerations other than love on her mind. First, she knows full well Tom has had affairs for years. Might this not motivate her to get back at him by having an affair of her own? Next, consider Daisy's response to Gatsby's wealth, especially the shirts — does someone in love break into tears upon being shown an assortment of shirts? For Daisy (and Gatsby too, for that matter) the shirts represent wealth and means. When Daisy bows her head and sobs into the shirts, she is displaying her interest in materialism. She doesn't cry because she has been reunited with Gatsby, she cries because of the pure satisfaction all his material wealth brings her. He has become a fitting way in which to get back at Tom. When Tom and Gatsby have their altercation at the hotel in Chapter 7, Daisy's motivations are called into question: Her inability to deny having loved Tom speaks well for her, but at the same time, it suggests that her attachment to Gatsby has been purely business. Tom also knows that after Daisy realizes Gatsby is not of their same social circles, she will return to Tom for the comfort and protection that his money and power bring.

Although Daisy's true self comes out more and more each time Nick encounters her, her final actions help show what she has been really made of. When she hits and kills Myrtle Wilson, and then leaves the scene, readers know (as poor Gatsby still does not) that she is void of a conscience. Perhaps all that white that has surrounded her isn't so much purity (although Gatsby, of course, would see it as such), but perhaps the white represents a void, a lack (as in a lack of intellectualism and a lack of conscience). To Daisy, Myrtle is expendable. She is not of the social elite, so what difference does her death make? To add insult to injury, as if she hadn't betrayed Gatsby enough already, she abandons Gatsby in his death. After killing Myrtle, Daisy returns home. She and Tom resolve their differences and leave soon thereafter, moving presumably to another city where they will remain utterly unchanged and life will continue as it always does. Daisy, although ethereal in some qualities, is decidedly devilish in others.

In The Great GatsbyFitzgerald offers up commentary on a variety of themes — justice, power, greed, betrayal, the American dream, and so on. Of all the themes, perhaps none is more well developed than that of social stratification. The Great Gatsby is regarded as a brilliant piece of social commentary, offering a vivid peek into American life in the 1920s. Fitzgerald carefully sets up his novel into distinct groups but, in the end, each group has its own problems to contend with, leaving a powerful reminder of what a precarious place the world really is. By creating distinct social classes — old money, new money, and no money — Fitzgerald sends strong messages about the elitism running throughout every strata of society.

The first and most obvious group Fitzgerald attacks is, of course, the rich. However, for Fitzgerald (and certainly his characters), placing the rich all in one group together would be a great mistake. For many of those of modest means, the rich seem to be unified by their money. However, Fitzgerald reveals this is not the case. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald presents two distinct types of wealthy people. First, there are people like the Buchanans and Jordan Baker who were born into wealth. Their families have had money for many generations, hence they are "old money." As portrayed in the novel, the "old money" people don't have to work (they rarely, if ever, even speak about business arrangements) and they spend their time amusing themselves with whatever takes their fancy. Daisy, Tom, Jordan, and the distinct social class they represent are perhaps the story's most elitist group, imposing distinctions on the other people of wealth (like Gatsby) based not so much on how much money one has, but where that money came from and when it was acquired. For the "old money" people, the fact that Gatsby (and countless other people like him in the 1920s) has only just recently acquired his money is reason enough to dislike him. In their way of thinking, he can't possibly have the same refinement, sensibility, and taste they have. Not only does he work for a living, but he comes from a low-class background which, in their opinion, means he cannot possibly be like them.

In many ways, the social elite are right. The "new money" people cannot be like them, and in many ways that works in their favor — those in society's highest echelon are not nice people at all. They are judgmental and superficial, failing to look at the essence of the people around them (and themselves, too). Instead, they live their lives in such a way as to perpetuate their sense of superiority — however unrealistic that may be. The people with newly acquired wealth, though, aren't necessarily much better. Think of Gatsby's

partygoers. They attend his parties, drink his liquor, and eat his food, never once taking the time to even meet their host (nor do they even bother to wait for an invitation, they just show up). When Gatsby dies, all the people who frequented his house every week mysteriously became busy elsewhere, abandoning Gatsby when he could no longer do anything for them. One would like to think the newly wealthy would be more sensitive to the world around them — after all, it was only recently they were without money and most doors were closed to them. As Fitzgerald shows, however, their concerns are largely living for the moment, steeped in partying and other forms of excess.

Just as he did with people of money, Fitzgerald uses the people with no money to convey a strong message. Nick, although he comes from a family with a bit of wealth, doesn't have nearly the capital of Gatsby or Tom. In the end, though, he shows himself to be an honorable and principled man, which is more than Tom exhibits. Myrtle, though, is another story. She comes from the middle class at best. She is trapped, as are so many others, in the valley of ashes, and spends her days trying to make it out. In fact, her desire to move up the social hierarchy leads her to her affair with Tom and she is decidedly pleased with the arrangement.

Because of the misery pervading her life, Myrtle has distanced herself from her moral obligations and has no difficulty cheating on her husband when it means that she gets to lead the lifestyle she wants, if only for a little while. What she doesn't realize, however, is that Tom and his friends will never accept her into their circle. (Notice how Tom has a pattern of picking lower-class women to sleep with. For him, their powerlessness makes his own position that much more superior. In a strange way, being with women who aspire to his class makes him feel better about himself and allows him to perpetuate the illusion that he is a good and important man.) Myrtle is no more than a toy to Tom and to those he represents.

Fitzgerald has a keen eye and in The Great Gatsby presents a harsh picture of the world he sees around him. The 1920s marked a time of great post-war economic growth, and Fitzgerald captures the frenzy of the society well. Although, of course, Fitzgerald could have no way of foreseeing the stock market crash of 1929, the world he presents in The Great Gatsby seems clearly to be headed for disaster. They have assumed skewed worldviews, mistakenly believing their survival lies in stratification and reinforcing social boundaries. They erroneously place their faith in superficial external means (such as money and materialism), while neglecting to cultivate the compassion and sensitivity that, in fact, separate humans from the animals.

In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald proudly tackles the theme of spirituality. His attack is subtle, making his message heard most forcefully by what is missing, rather than what is there. The world of The Great Gatsby is one of excess, folly, and pleasure, a world where people are so busy living for the moment that they have lost touch with any sort of morality, and end up breaking laws, cheating, and even killing. As debauched as this may sound, however, they have not abandoned spirituality altogether. Rather, Fitzgerald's post-war partiers have substituted materialism and instant creature comforts for philosophic principles, thus suggesting a lack of order and structure in the worlds of East Egg, West Egg, and beyond.

Several elements suggest an imbalance in the moral makeup of the characters found in The Great Gatsby. In Nick's opening statements, he is attempting to set himself up as an honorable and trustworthy man. His reason for doing so, however, isn't made entirely clear until readers are introduced to the people with whom he interacts. Barely halfway through the first chapter, Fitzgerald reveals that Tom Buchanan is not only having an affair, but he is shamelessly bold in his refusal to cover it up; his wife knows and although she is a bit irritated, she has come to accept Tom's ways. In addition, those in East Egg discuss things of such great importance as what to do on the longest day and why living in the East is ideal, showing that the supposedly social elite are perhaps a bit out of touch with reality. They clearly treat people as objects, and are unconcerned with whether their actions impede on anyone else's.

After the Buchanan's dinner party, The Great Gatsby is again and again filled with excess. In fact, every one of the seven deadly sins (pride, envy, wrath, sloth, avarice, gluttony, and lust) is well represented. None of the characters, including Nick, are free from the deadly vices, which, at least in times past, have traditionally marked the downfall of a community. It is interesting to note that although the seven deadly sins are depicted time and time again by the people in The Great Gatsby, the theological counterpart to the seven deadly sins, the seven cardinal virtues (faith, hope, love, prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance) are nearly invisible. Gatsby, of course, has more hope than all the others put together, but in the end, that one thing, no matter how strong, can't save him.

Although countless acts of questionable integrity can be found within the pages of The Great Gatsby, the final and most blatant acts of immorality, of course, come near the book's end. Daisy shows her true self when she runs down Myrtle without even stopping. Gatsby becomes the target for another man's murderous rage when he is gunned down by Wilson (assisted, through association, by Tom). And finally, the last great act of disregard for one's fellow human comes in perhaps the most surprising and disturbing form of all: the lack of mourners at Gatsby's funeral. Despite how people had clamored to be associated with him in life, in death he became useless to them, and so their interests took them elsewhere (with, of course, the sole exception of Nick).

Fitzgerald uses the acts and actions of his characters to convey a sense of growing moral decrepitude, but he compounds his message through other means as well. First, there is the giant billboard, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg, which, as George Wilson reveals, represent the eyes of God, which can be interpreted in two ways. On one hand, he could be suggesting that a watchful presence overlooks society all the time, and will hold the world accountable for its actions. Given this interpretation, Fitzgerald seems to be urging readers to remember that they themselves are being watched, so they had better prepare to account for their actions. On the other hand, George's statement may be taken as a testament to his skewed judgment. Has he fallen so far away from standard religion that he does, in fact, believe the enormous eyes watching over the valley of ashes are the eyes of God? Does he interpret the eyes literally, as opposed to metaphorically? If so, Fitzgerald is offering a less uplifting message, suggesting that society has fallen so far away from traditional religious teachings that people have lost all faith and can only misread the significance of the material world around us.

Finally, Fitzgerald uses geography to represent his message of spiritual dysfunction, beginning with the distinct communities of East Egg and West Egg. Granted, their differences are largely socioeconomic, but when looking at the inhabitants of each Egg, the West Eggers stand somewhat above the East Eggers (albeit not by much). Whereas no one in East Egg has any virtues to redeem themselves, West Egg does have Nick, the one character in the book who has a fairly good sense of right and wrong. Just as Fitzgerald favored one Egg over the other (despite it being perceived as the less fashionable Egg), he also pits regions of the country against each other, with similar results. There is no denying that Fitzgerald sees the Midwest as a land of promise.

He acknowledges it is less glamorous and exciting than the East, but it has a pureness about it that the East lacks. All his characters come from the Midwest, and in the end, the East does them in. As Nick says, "we possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life." Nick is the only one to realize this, however, and so after he has become completely disillusioned with life in the East, he heads home, presumably to a land that is still connected to the basic tenets of human compassion and charity.

In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald presents a world in which value systems have gone out of balance. He is not espousing a heavy-handed Christian message, but rather he is encouraging readers to stop and take inventory of their lives. Although some may see Fitzgerald as implying a return to God is necessary for survival, the text supports something far more subtle: Fitzgerald is urging a reconsideration of where society is and where it is going.

What Exactly Is “The American Dream”? The American Dream is the belief that anyone, regardless of race, class, gender, or

nationality, can be successful in America (read: rich) if they just work hard enough. The American Dream thus presents a pretty rosy view of American society that ignores problems like systemic racism and misogyny, xenophobia, tax evasion or state tax avoidance, and income inequality. It also presumes a myth of class equality, when the reality is America has a pretty well-developed class hierarchy.

The 1920s in particular was a pretty tumultuous time due to increased immigration (and the accompanying xenophobia), changing women’s roles (spurred by the right to vote, which was won in 1919), and extraordinary income inequality. The country was also in the midst of an economic boom, which fueled the belief that anyone could “strike it rich” on Wall Street. However, this rapid economic growth was built on a bubble which popped in 1929. The Great Gatsby was published in 1925, well before the crash, but through its wry descriptions of the ultra-wealthy, it seems to somehow predict that the fantastic wealth on display in 1920s New York was just as ephemeral as one of Gatsby’s parties.

In any case, the novel, just by being set in the 1920s, is unlikely to present an optimistic view of the American Dream, or at least a version of the dream that’s inclusive to all genders, ethnicities, and incomes. With that background in mind, let’s jump into the plot!

The Title Features the Name of a Character

Usually, when a novel is titled with the name of one of the characters, that either means that we’re about to read a biography or that the named person is the main character (for instance, Jane Austen’s Emma or J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter).

So, here, the fact that “Gatsby” is in the title shows us that the focus of the story will be on him. In this case, this focus goes both ways. The novel is biographical, meaning, the novel is the story of Gatsby’s life. But also, Gatsby is, in fact, the protagonist of the story. It’s helpful for the title to show us this, since in this book the first-person narrator turns out not to be the main character.

Great? Great! Great.

Now let’s investigate four possible readings of the second part of the title, which all depend on the meaning of the word “great.”

o Shallow and Straight-Faced This version takes “great” as a straightforward compliment, meaning “wonderful.” In this

version, Gatsby is great because he is the richest, coolest, handsomest dude, who drives the best car and throws the most banging parties. In this take, the title means total admiration: Gatsby is nothing but greatness. This reading of the title applies best in the beginning of the novel, when Gatsby is all mysterious rumors, swirling success, and unimaginable luxury, and when Nick is in his thrall.

o Mocking and Ironic On the other hand, we could be dealing with the “oh, that’s just great.” version of this

word. As we - and the novel’s characters - learn more about Gatsby, the initial fascination with him turns into disappointment. In this reading, the “great” turns bitter. In reality, Gatsby’s money comes from crime. His parties, house, and material wealth don’t make him happy. He’s a moral bankrupt who is chasing after a married woman. And he hates his real self and has created a whole new fake persona to live out a teenage fantasy. This reading of the title works when Gatsby seems like a sad, shallow shell of “greatness” – he’s like a celebrity brand with no there there.

o Deep and Soulful Another possibility is that “great” here means “intense and grand.” After all, even though

Gatsby is a hollow shell of a man who’s propped up by laundered money, Nick firmly believes that he stands head and shoulders above the old money set because everything Gatsby does, he does for the truest of true love. Nick, who starts out being on the fence about Gatsby, comes to think of his love for Daisy as something that elevates Gatsby. For Nick, this love marks Gatsby as the only one who matters of all the people he met during that summer ("They're a rotten crowd....You're worth the whole damn bunch put together" (8.45)).

o Theatrical The final possibility is that this “great” sounds like the stage name of a magician (like “The

Great Cardini,” master card illusionist). This version of Gatsby is also completely fitting: after all, he literally transforms into a totally different man during the course of his life. And, it wouldn’t be the last time that the novel was interested in the way Gatsby is able to create a spectacle, or the way he seems to be acting on a stage rather than actually living. For example, Nick says Gatsby reminds him of a “turbaned ‘character’ leaking sawdust at every pore” (4.31), while one of Gatsby’s guests compares him to David Belasco, a famous theater producer (3.50).

he Epigraph Poem of The Great Gatsby The novel is prefaced by this four-line poem: Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her;

If you can bounce high, bounce for her too,Till she cry "Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover,I must have you!"

—Thomas Parke D'Invilliers First, let’s analyze the poem, and then we can talk about who this D’Invilliers fellow is.

“Then Wear the Gold Hat”

In the most basic sense, the poem is a piece of advice. We know this because the first words, “then wear,” make it sound like we are hearing the middle of a conversation. Someone has been complaining about his romantic problems with a specific “she,” and the poem’s speaker is answering with some tips on what to do.

The advice the poem is: go out of your way to impress her with your wealth/status (“gold hat”), and with your derring-do (“bounce high”). Whatever you can possibly do to attract her attention is worth it if she ends up won over, because then she will be insatiable (“I must have you”). Of course, this image of a ‘gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover’ is clownish at best and completely absurd at worst.

The poem echoes the novel's plot and characterizations: Gatsby’s approach to winning over Daisy is exactly that of the gold-hatted, high-bouncing

lover, desperate to try anything - including buying a giant mansion next door and throwing weekly parties in the vague hope that she would show up.

The idea of putting on a hat as a way of burnishing your image is exactly what Gatsby has done in adopting his “Oxford man” persona, and relates to the way he is sometimes described as an actor or charlatan. (Nick calls Gatsby a "turbaned "character" leaking sawdust at every pore" (4.31), while owl-eye glasses party guest compares Gatsby to David Belasco, a famous theater producer in Chapter 3).

At the same time, the clear mockery of the image of this lover points to the craziness of Gatsby’s obsession and the absurdity of his monomaniacal quest for Daisy’s heart. There is

no dignity in the approach the poem recommends, as there is none in Gatsby’s as well. This idea is further reinforced when we consider that Fitzgerald originally wanted the novel to have a more satiric flavor (check out our article on The Great Gatsby 's title for more details).

The poem also connects with novel through the character of “she,” who stands in for Daisy. It's important to note that the "she" in the poem is someone to impress and win over, and not someone to learn anything about. Just like Daisy in the novel, the poem's "she" is a prize or an objective rather than a person.

Thomas Parke D’Invilliers

Guess what? There is no such poet as D’Invilliers! Fitzgerald made him up, and made up this poem as well.

In fact, D’Invilliers is a minor character in This Side of Paradise, Fitzgerald’s earlier novel about Princeton. In that book, the main character befriends D’Invilliers, who is a talented poet - but whose poems tend to ignore the problematic or unpleasant aspects of reality.

Here, the assumed name and invented persona of this poet also tie into the Gatsby journey, playing into the novel's key theme of the mutability of identity. James Gatz transforms himself into the glamorous Jay Gatsby, and this poet is a cover identity for Fitzgerald.

So, D’Invilliers was based on the Fitzgerald's buddy, poet John Peale Bishop. Couldn’t the real guy have written something to be Fitzgerald’s epigraph?

The Great Gatsby First Lines This is how Chapter 1 of this novel begins: In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been

turning over in my mind ever since. “Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember that all the people

in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.” (1.1-2) Let’s take the Great Gatsby first lines apart in a variety of ways.

What We Learn About the Narrator

The first thing we figure out is that the story is going to be told in the first person (meaning it’s narrated by an “I” voice who is a character in the story and who is present at the events he describes).

The second thing we see is that there is at least one time shift in the narration. Nick is older now, but is looking back on youth and a more “vulnerable” time. There are several different ways to interpret this vulnerability, especially before we have read further: this narrator

may be vulnerable to being hurt by others, to being influenced by bad surroundings/people, or maybe even to taking his dad’s advice at face value.

We also get our first clue into Nick’s background: he comes from money, education, and breeding (“advantages”), which will allow him to fit in reasonably well in the old-money East Coast world that he will encounter in the novel.

The Advice Given to Nick by His Father

We discover that Nick has had a hard time connecting with his dad’s advice. It’s interesting that he tells us about this difficulty before he actually tells us the advice itself - almost as if he would like us to read this bit of parental wisdom with the same ambivalence and grain of salt that he himself has. Exactly why he has been “turning it over in his mind” is not spelled out, and again could be for a variety of reasons: Nick may wonder when and where it’s applicable, useful, true, or even whether he can actually stick to it.

The “advice” from his father seems really more like a dig at Nick. The phrase “whenever you feel like criticizing anyone” makes it sound Nick often judges other people’s behavior and actionswithout considering context or circumstances. This tells us one of his main weaknesses - and it’s a pretty significant one considering Nick is going to be the eyes through which we see all the other characters!

How Nick’s Father’s Advice Shapes How Nick Tells The Story

Unlike the novel’s epigraph, which really is advice on what to do, Nick’s father’s words seem more like either a criticism of Nick’s bad habits or even a warning of some kind. In other words, the dad's-advice-framing-narrative makes the novel into a reverse Aesop’s fable, where the moral comes first and is followed by the story that proves the rule.

Primarily, this “advice” puts a big barrier between Nick and “all the people in this world”because he has had “advantages” that they haven’t. So what are these advantages?

the kind of wealth that classifies Nick as “old money” (we learn that the Carraways have been a prominent family for several generations)

a sense of morality and emotional groundedness that Nick calls "the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth” (1.3), snobbishly implying that he is ethically above most other people

This means that during the rest of the novel, this snobbishness and this tendency to dismiss everyone else as being inferior is something to watch for in Nick’s description of other people and events.

Gotta love that Nick’s dad is basically like, “Maybe check your privilege every once in a while, son.”

The Novel’s First Six Paragraphs Nick spends the first paragraphs of the novel encouraging us to trust him and to believe in

his impartiality and good judgment. Instead of launching into the plot of the story he's about to tell, Nick instead spends a significant chunk of time explaining his family background, giving us a quick bio of himself up to the point of the summer of 1922.

In other words, the first six paragraphs of The Great Gatsby are devoted to establishing Nick as both an interesting character and a relatively objective narrator. Should we accept everything he says at face value?

Nick as a Narrator

The main question we have to ask ourselves is: is Nick's first-person narrator reliable or unreliable?

On the one hand, Nick sets himself up as an objective outsider. He comes from the Midwest, a place of morality and stability, compared to the wild East that has replaced the Wild West as the site of money making and excess lawlessness. And he talks about his father’s advice making him “inclined to reserve all judgments” (1.3), which makes him an ideal confidant (“I was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men” (1.3)).

But on the other hand, Nick says that his tolerance and neutrality isn’t infinite (“After boasting this way of my tolerance, I come to the admission that it has a limit” (1.4)).

So which do we believe? Is he a neutral observer? Or a secretly judgmental critic? The fact that even this early on we have two competing descriptions of Nick reveals that he is an unreliable narrator. In other words, his opinions, biases, and agenda will color the way he tells us the story. Our job will be to tease out which parts are “fact” and which parts are just a “Nick’s eye view.”

Nick as a Character

We also learn that writing the novel is Nick’s way of grappling with the meaning of a story in which he played a part – like a form of psychotherapy. The experience he is telling us about has caused Nick to leave the East Coast jaded and disappointed. He comes “back from the East [feeling] that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart” (1.4).

Because we are listening to a story an older and wiser Nick is telling us about this formative summer, the mood is already elegiac (in other words, mournful) and sad. The summer that he is telling us about was formative, and for Nick, the novel is a coming-of-age story.

It’s not surprising that Chapter 1 ends with feelings of regret and yearning for the unreachable, culminating with the crucial image of Gatsby stretching his hands toward the unreachable Daisy.

Nick’s self-reflection here is somewhat muddy.

The Bottom Line How a book starts clues us in to the novel's narrator and setting. The Great Gatsby starts with an epigraph poem advising a disappointed lover to impress a

woman until she can no longer resist.o This is a mocking short summary of Gatsby’s undignified and increasingly desperate

approach to winning over Daisy.o The poem’s ostensible author is actually a character from one of Fitzgerald’s other novels. The first lines of The Great Gatsby show us a first-person narrator, and a time shift in the

narration. Nick’s father’s advice seems criticizes Nick for being judgmental and snobby - something we

need to watch out for in Nick’s description of other people and events. The first few paragraphs of the novel set Nick up as a character and a narrator.o He is an unreliable narrator: either an objective outsider or an intolerant observer.o The story is a coming-of-age narrative for Nick, who is telling us about the summer of

1922 as a therapy session to grapple with a formative experience.

Understanding the Ending of The Great Gatsby So why does the novel end the way it does? The novel’s abrupt and downbeat ending

mostly poses more questions than it gives answers. Why do Gatsby, Myrtle, and George Wilson die? Why does Daisy go back to Tom? Why does

no one come to Gatsby’s funeral? It all feels kind of empty and pointless, especially after all the effort that Gatsby put into crafting his life, right?

Well, that empty feeling is basically the whole point. F. Scott Fitzgerald was not particularly optimistic about the capitalist boom of the 1920s. To him, America was just like Europe in its disdain for new money, and the elites were scornful of the self-made men who were supposed to be the people living the ideals of the country. He saw that instead of actually being committed to equality, the country was still split into classes – just less acknowledged ones.

So, in the world of the novel, Gatsby, for all his wealth and greatness, can buy himself a place in West Egg, but can never join the old money world of East Egg. His forward progress is for naught because he is in an environment that only pays lip service to the American Dream ideal of achieving success through hard work.

The novel is a harsh indictment of the idea of the American Dream. Think about it: the actually “successful” people – successful in that at least they survive – (the Buchanans, Nick, and Jordan) are all old money; while those who fail (Gatsby, Myrtle, and George) are the strivers.

All in all, the novel is a vision of a deeply unbalanced and unfair world.

Interpreting the Last Paragraphs of The Great Gatsby The novel ends with a sad Nick contemplating the historic geography of Long Island: Most of the big shore places were closed now and there were hardly any lights except the

shadowy, moving glow of a ferryboat across the Sound. And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors' eyes—a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby's house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; 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.

And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic 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 one fine morning——

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. (9.151-154) It’s clear that the novel is trying to universalize Gatsby’s experience in some way. But there

are multiple layers of meaning creating this broadening of perspective. We Are All Jay Gatsby

By ending the way it does, the novel makes Gatsby explicitly represent all humans in the present and the past.

Compare this ending with the last paragraph of Chapter 1: But I didn't call to him for he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to be alone—he

stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and far as I was from him I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward—and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock. When I looked once more for Gatsby he had vanished, and I was alone again in the unquiet darkness. (1.152)

The language of the novel's ending paragraphs and the last paragraph of the first chapter links Gatsby's outstretched arms with the hopes of the Dutch sailors (the people of the past). Just as Gatsby is obsessed with the green light on Daisy’s dock, so the sailors coming to this continent for the first time longed for the “green breast of the new world.” For both, these green things are “the last and greatest of all human dreams”: for Gatsby, it’s his memory of perfect love, while for the sailors, it’s the siren song of conquest.

These two passages also connect Gatsby with the way we live today. Just as Gatsby “stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way,” so we also promise ourselves “tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.” For all of us, life is all about constantly having to will ourselves into eternal optimism in the face of elusive dreams or challenging goals.

Jay Gatsby’s Life is All of America

The novel’s last paragraphs also touch on most of the novel’s overarching themes, symbols, and motifs:

the transformation of America from the idyllic, pristine frontier to the polluted metropolis the quest to win over a lost love, or the imperfection of real love versus an ideal love the way the past always influences, hangs over, and directs the present reinvention and perseverance, the rags to riches story versus the story of impersonation and

deception the appeal and ultimate disappointment of the American Dream, and specifically the sense

that it is fading away - just as New York has been completely transformed from "green breast of land" to corrupt city, all of America is escaping the pure dreams of its people

New York City before the Europeans showed up to trash the place.

The Last Line of The Great Gatsby The last sentence of this novel is consistently ranked in the lists of best last lines that

magazines like to put together. So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. So what makes this sentence so great?

Close-Reading the Last Sentence of The Great Gatsby

On a formal level, the line is very close to poetry, using the same techniques that poems do to sound good:

It is written almost in iambics. (Iambic is a meter that alternates stressed and unstressed syllables to create a ta-DA-ta-DA-ta-DA-ta-DA pattern - it's most famous for being the meter Shakespeare used).

There’s a wave-like alliteration with the letter b, as we read the monosyllabic words “beat,” “boats,” “borne,” and “back.” (Alliteration is when words that start with the same sound are put next to each other.)

Then this repeated b resolves into the matching unvoiced p of the word “past.” (The sounds b and p are really the same sound, except when you say b you use your voice and when you say p you use the same mouth position but without using your vocal chords.)

Other literary devices are at play as well: There a double meaning in the word “borne” which can mean either “shouldered like a

heavy burden” or “given birth to.” The sentence uses the metaphor of trying to row against the flow of current. We are like

boats that propel themselves forward, while the current pushes us back toward our starting

place. For boats, this happens in space, on a body of water, while for people, this happens in time, in the relationship between the past and the future.

Interpreting the Meaning of the Last Sentence of The Great Gatsby

There are three ways to interpret how Fitzgerald wants us to take this idea that we are constantly stuck in a loop of pushing forward toward our future and being pulled back by our anchoring past.

Depressing and Fatalistic

If we go with the “heavy burden” meaning of the word “borne,” then this last line means that our past is an anchor and a weight on us no matter how hard we try to go forward in life. In this case, life only an illusion of forward progress. This is because as we move into the future, everything we do instantly turns into our past, and this past cannot be undone or done over, as Gatsby attempted.

This version of the ending says that people want to recapture an idealized past, or a perfect moment or memory, but when this desire for the past turns into an obsession, it leads to ruin, just as it lead to Gatsby's. In other words, all of our dreams of the future are based on the fantasies of a past, and already outdated, self.

Uplifting and Hopeful

If, on the other hand, we stick with the “given birth to” aspect of “borne” and also on the active momentum of the phrase “so we beat on,” then the idea of beating on is an optimistic and unyielding response to a current that tries to force us backward. In this interpretation, we resiliently battle against fate with our will and our strength - and even though we are constantly pulled back into our past, we move forward as much as we can.

Objectively Describing the Human Condition

In the final version of the last line’s meaning, we take out the reader’s desire for a “moral” or some kind of explanatory takeaway (whether a happy or sad one). Without this qualitative judgment, this means that the metaphor of boats in the current is just a description of what life is like. In this way, the last line is simply saying that through our continuing efforts to move forward through new obstacles, we will be constantly reminded and confronted with our past because we can’t help but repeat our own history, both individually and collectively.

Which of these readings most appeals to you? Why?

So, wait, "boats giving birth" is what we’re going with here?

The Bottom Line An ending tends to reveal the meaning (or lack of meaning) in everything that came before

it:o an explanation on how to feel about what has just been read.o a way to open up the world of the novel into the real world.o philosophical analysis of the nature of life or of being human - this is The Great

Gatsby ending. The Great Gatsby ends in a way that feels kind of empty and pointless, especially after all

the effort that Gatsby put into trying to recreate his and Daisy’s loveo That empty feeling underscores Fitzgerald’s pessimism about America as a place that only

pays lip service to the idea of the American Dream of working hard and achieving success The novel’s last paragraphs connect Gatsby to all of us now and for the humans of the past

and touch on many of the novel’s themeso we are like boats that propel themselves forward, while the current pushes back The last line of The Great Gatsby is a metaphor of trying to row against the flow of

current. We can take this metaphor to be:o depressing and fatalistic, that the past is an anchor and that life only an illusion of forward

progresso uplifting, that we battle against fate with our will and our strengtho objectively describing the human condition, that we can’t help but repeat our own history

What’s Next? Consider the significance of the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. Compare the meaning of the ending to our analysis of the beginning to see whether the

novel’s payoff reflects its starting assumptions. Analyze the character of Jay Gatsby to see how this flawed protagonist comes to represent

humanity’s striving for the unreachable. Investigate the themes of the American Dream and society and class to see how they are

addressed in the rest of the novel. Explore the rest of Chapter 9 to see how the novel leads up to its conclusion.