The Great GatsbyChapters 1-3: Setting & Characters

By F. Scott Fitzgerald

Title Page - Epigraph

“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*

*D’Invilliers was both Fitzgerald’s pen name and the main character in his first novel, This Side of Paradise.

Long Island, New York

East EggWest Egg

New York City Valley of Ashes

Gatsby’s Long Island

East EggWest EggValley of Ashes

New York City

West Egg = New Money

• West Egg represents ostentation, garishness, and the flashy manners of the new rich.

• West Egg is associated with Gatsby’s gaudy mansion and the inner drive behind his self-made fortune.

East Egg = Old Money• East Egg represents breeding, taste, aristocracy,

leisure, and old money.

• East Egg is associated with the Buchanans and the monotony of their inherited social position.

Valley of Ashes = Poverty• It lacks the glamorous surface of the

Eggs; lies barren and gray halfway between West Egg and New York.

• Created by industrial dumping and is home to the only poor characters in the novel [George & Myrtle Wilson]

• Symbolizes the moral decay hidden by the beautiful facades of West Egg and East Egg

• Home of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg’s billboard with its monstrous, bespectacled eyes gazing mysteriously down “…over the solemn dumping ground.”

• The eyes represent the eyes of God, staring down at the moral decay of the 1920s.

New York City = Immorality• Immoral behavior:

– Magazines [Town Tattle] & books [Simon Called Peter] in Tom’s apartment

– Lies about Daisy; gossip about Gatsby

– Tom & Myrtle’s affair is public

– Tom’s violent act; shows no remorse for Myrtle or Daisy

– Nick drunk here for only 2nd time in his life

• Loud, garish, abundant, and glittering

• To Nick, NYC is both fascinating and repulsive

Characters

Nick Carraway• Narrates the story and casts himself as the book’s

author

• Advice from father: “whenever you feel like criticizing anyone…just remember that all the people in the world haven’t had the advantages you’ve had.”– Doesn’t possess the status/money of other characters

– Does have the advantage of being able to see realistically [neither Gatsby nor the Buchanans possess this trait]

• Mid-Western Values: tolerant, open-minded, quiet, reflective, a good listener, honest– “…privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men…most

of the confidences were unsought…”

– His cardinal virtue: “I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known.”

Jay Gatsby• An air of mystery surrounds Gatsby; just the mention of

his name promotes gossip, speculation, and whispers “from people who had found little that it was necessary to whisper about…”

• Charismatic and handsome:– “…there was something gorgeous about him, some

heightened sensitivity to the promises of life…”

– “…a gift for hope, a romantic readiness…”

– “…one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance…it believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself…”

• The Host of elaborate parties every weekend in which “people were not invited -- they went there” and “conducted themselves with the rules of behavior associated with amusement parks.”

Daisy Buchanan

• An aura of beauty, charm, wealth, sophistication, grace, and aristocracy– Her voice was “low & thrilling” and contained “an

excitement” that was “difficult to forget;” it made “people lean toward her.”

– “Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it.”

• Seems to exist in dreamlike/illusionary state; protected by her money & status

• Others make decisions for her; fits the role of the subservient, docile female of the 1920s:– She says about her daughter: “I’m glad it’s a girl. And I

hope she’ll be a fool – that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”

Tom Buchanan

• Powerfully, athletically built

• Old money, aristocracy

• An arrogant, hypocritical bully

• Demands proper moral behavior from those around him but doesn’t feel compelled to live up to those expectations himself

• A “man of thirty with a rather hard mouth..arrogant eyes…an appearance of always leaning aggressively forward…a cruel body.”

Jordan Baker

• Represents one of the “new women” of the 1920s – cynical, boyish, and self-centered

• Dishonest – cheated to win her first golf tournament; continually bends the truth

• Old money, aristocracy

Myrtle & George WilsonMyrtle• Possesses a fierce desire & desperation to improve her situation in life• In NYC with Tom, she attempts to transform herself into the person she wishes she was – a woman of wealth, status, and aristocracy.

George• Owner of a rundown garage in the Valley of Ashes• An exhausted “spiritless man”

Both George & Myrtle represent that group of Americans for whom the American Dream is never truly realized.

Symbols

• Green light:

– Nick spies Gatsby: “…he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way…I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily, I glanced seaward—and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far way, that might have been the end of a dock” (20-21).

– Implication: Gatsby’s arms are stretched out towards Daisy’s dock

– Significance: hope, a chance to achieve his dream

Question:A pattern of deception permeates Chapters 1-3 of The Great Gatsby. Nick states that Jordan Baker is “incurably dishonest,” people at Gatsby’s parties “gossip” about who Gatsby truly is, Daisy and Tom are so socially elite that they seem to belong to a “distinguished secret society,” and Tom and Myrtle are having a secret (and yet not-so secret) affair. At the end of Chapter 3, Nick comments that he is “one of the few honest people” he has ever known.

Why, in your opinion, do you believe these characters feel the need for deception? What is the significance of all these lies?