NAME: THE GREAT GATSBY UNITCPT FETTERMANPERIOD: DATE:

In 1925 The Great Gatsby was published and hailed as an artistic and material success for its young author, F. Scott Fitzgerald. It examines the results of the Jazz Age generation’s adherence to false material values. In nine chapters Fitzgerald presents the rise of Jay Gatsby, as related in a first-person narrative by Nick Carraway. Carraway reveals the story of a farmer’s son-turned racketeer, named Jay Gatz. His ill-gotten wealth is acquired solely to gain acceptance into the sophisticated, moneyed world of the woman he loves- Daisy Buchanan. His romantic illusions about the power of money to buy respectability and the love of Daisy-the “golden girl” of his dreams- are skillfully and ironically interwoven with episodes that depict what Fitzgerald viewed as the callousness and moral irresponsibility of the affluent American society of the 1920s.

Fitzgerald eloquently proclaimed in 1920 that “An author ought to write for the youth of his generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmasters of ever afterward.” Although this edict-- perhaps a prophecy-- was triumphantly fulfilled by The Great Gatsby, the novel was written by a man of his own time about his time.

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS

To what extent does Gatsby’s wealth, and all the luxuries that it provides, affect his ability to achieve what he desires? How do other characters’ attitudes toward wealth affect what happens throughout the narrative? Can class status be changed?

How does the historical context of when a text was written, or the historical setting of the narrative, affect current readers’ interpretations? To what extent is Fitzgerald’s message sustained or lost to present-day audiences?

How do Fitzgerald’s descriptions of geography and setting influence our understanding of character motivations and conflicts?

To what extent are characters disillusioned, or unsatisfied with their lives (e.g., their relationships, employment, social status, wealth, families, personal histories, etc.)

The Roaring Twenties

“And so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past…”

1920The 18th Amendment, establishing Prohibition, becomes law.The 19th Amendment passes, giving 26 million women the right to vote.Warren G. Harding is elected president.

1921Charlie Chaplin stars in The Kid.  / Rorschach inkblot tests first used."Shoeless" Joe Jackson and others banned from baseball in wake of the "Black Sox" scandal.1922James Joyce's Ulysses published. / T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land published. / First issue of Reader's Digest published

1923First transcontinental nonstop flight takes off from New York and lands in San Diego.President Harding dies; Calvin Coolidge takes oath of office.

1924George Gershwin premieres Rhapsody in Blue.J. Edgar Hoover appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation, later named FBI.The ten-millionth Model T rolls off the Ford assembly line.1925Charles Scribner's Sons publishes The Great Gatsby.First issue of the New Yorker goes to press.1926The value of bootlegging in the U.S. estimated at $3.6 billion.Henry Ford institutes the 5-day workweek and 8-hour workday.

1927The Jazz Singer opens as the first talking motion picture.Charles Lindbergh lands his Spirit of St. Louis in Paris after the first transatlantic flight.Ford introduces the Model A. Duke Ellington opens a four-year residency at the Cotton Club in New York City.1928Walt Disney makes his first Mickey Mouse silent short, Plane Crazy, and succeeds with his second one, Steamboat Willie, which was synchronized with sound. Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to make a transatlantic flight.Herbert Hoover is elected president.

1929March 26: The New York Stock Exchange hits a record high, with 8.2 million shares traded.The Gerber Co. invents canned baby food.Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms is published.October 29: On Black Tuesday, the stock market crashes.

INTRODUCTION TO THE NOVEL

F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel The Great Gatsby is a tragic love story, a mystery, and a social commentary on American life. Although it was not a commercial success for Fitzgerald during his lifetime, this lyrical novel has become an acclaimed masterpiece read and taught throughout the world. Unfolding in nine concise chapters, The Great Gatsby concerns the wasteful lives of four wealthy characters as observed by their acquaintance, narrator Nick Carraway. Like Fitzgerald himself, Nick is from Minnesota, attended an Ivy League university, served in the U.S. Army during World War I, moved to New York after the war, and questions—even while participating in—high society.

Having left the Midwest to work in the bond business in the summer of 1922, Nick settles in West Egg, Long Island, among the nouveau riche epitomized by his next-door neighbor Jay Gatsby. A mysterious man of thirty, Gatsby is the subject of endless fascination to the guests at his lavish all-night parties. He is rumored to be a hero of the Great War. Others say he served as a German spy. Gatsby claims to have attended Oxford University. As Nick learns more about Gatsby, every detail about him seems questionable, except his love for the charming Daisy Buchanan.

Jay Gatsby's decadent parties are thrown with one goal in mind. Read the book to see why. From the lawn of his sprawling mansion, Gatsby can see the green light glowing on Daisy’s dock, which becomes a symbol in the novel.

Though Daisy is a married socialite and a mother, Gatsby still worships her as his "golden girl." They first met when she was a young lady from an affluent family and he was a working-class military officer. Daisy pledged to wait for his return from the war. Instead she married Tom Buchanan, a wealthy classmate of Nick's. A profound commentary of Upper class privilege in the Jazz Age and beyond, The Great Gatsby explores the conflict between decency and self-indulgence.

Fitzgerald and the Jazz Age Most young American veterans of the First World War came home changed by two revelations. One was the horror of trench warfare; the other was their exposure to life in London and Paris, where artists and writers celebrated sheer survival with decadent verve. Raised by Puritan-minded parents to succeed first at Ivy League universities and then in business, masses of young men and their wives-to-be returned at least mildly shell-shocked by their conflicting experiences.

Despite serving stateside during the war, F. Scott Fitzgerald nevertheless wrote of this disenchantment and its consequences in his greatest works. Americans had two strong and opposite reactions to this state of affairs: The older generation pushed for new laws to control

social outbursts, and the new generation rejected those laws, especially the Eighteenth Amendment, which forbade the manufacture and sale of alcohol. Many Americans turned to bootleggers, who illegally either served alcohol smuggled from abroad or distilled their own.

Scholar Matthew J. Bruccoli wrote that the Great War "triggered disillusionment, moral reevaluation, social experimentation, and hedonism.... Although Fitzgerald joined the parties and chronicled them, he wrote in judgment."Not only was he the most famous writer of the 1920s, Fitzgerald also coined the term Jazz Age,which denoted an era of ragtime, jazz, stylish automobiles, and uninhibited young women with bobbed hair and short skirts.Often called the Roaring Twenties, the postwar decade sometimes appears as one long flamboyant party, where the urban rich danced the Charleston and the foxtrot until 2 a.m. In fact, one might just as convincingly describe it as a period of individual possibility and lofty aspirations to serve the greater good. In his 1931 essay "Echoes of the Jazz Age," Fitzgerald wrote, "It was an age of miracles, it was an age of art, it was an age of excess, and it was an age of satire."

September 24, 1896: Into a family that traces its ancestry to the author of "The Star Spangled Banner," Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald is born in his parents' house on Laurel Avenue in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Although Fitzgerald's father went bankrupt, Fitzgerald still played with the rich kids in town. This paradox would later inform his fiction. His awareness of his situation sharpened during his years at Princeton, where he studied from 1913 to 1917 until he accepted a commission from the U.S. Army. He never saw combat. During World War I, Fitzgerald was stationed near Montgomery, Alabama, where he began revising what became his first novel, This Side of Paradise (1920). There he also met the love of his life, Zelda Sayre, the charming, mercurial daughter of a judge. Fitzgerald's early literary successes soon made him and Zelda celebrities of the Jazz Age—a term he coined. During the 1920s, Zelda served as his editor, confidante, and rival. Their appetite for excess made them notorious in an age when excess was the norm. The Fitzgeralds moved to France in 1924 with their young daughter, Frances (nicknamed Scottie), where they fell among a group of American expatriate artists whom the writer Gertrude Stein christened the Lost Generation. In 1925 publisher Charles Scribner's Sons came out with Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, which has become his most enduring work.

Fitzgerald would not publish another novel for nine years. In 1932, Zelda suffered a breakdown from which she never fully recovered. She spent most of her remaining days in mental institutions. Fitzgerald sold stories to The Saturday Evening Post and Esquire to keep financially afloat. Implicitly acknowledging his wife's mental illness and his own alcoholism, he drew on their life abroad in the novel Tender Is the Night (1934). Fitzgerald relocated to

Hollywood in 1937 to write screenplays. His sole screen credit from this period is for the filmThree Comrades (1938). It joins his other script credit, Pusher-in-the-Face (1929), from an earlier California stint. Eventually Fitzgerald began sustained work on his novel The Last Tycoon (1941). Tragically, his end came before the book's did. Several chapters shy of finishing, Fitzgerald died of a heart attack in the apartment in Hollywood on December 21, 1940.

Fitzgerald and his Other Works Zelda Sayre refused to marry Fitzgerald unless he could provide for her. Following his honorable discharge from the Army in 1919, he moved to New York alone to revise his manuscript of This Side of Paradise. Twice rejected by the publisher Charles Scribner's Sons, the novel amounted to a thinly veiled autobiography of Fitzgerald's Princeton years. When Scribner finally published This Side of Paradise in 1920, Fitzgerald won not only literary fame and temporary financial security, but also the hand of his beloved Zelda.This initial success established a pattern: After every novel, Scribner published a collection of new Fitzgerald short stories. During his lifetime, Fitzgerald was best known as the author of more than 150 stories, originally published in such magazines as The Saturday Evening Post, McCall's, Redbook, and Esquire. The collections—Flappers and Philosophers (1920), Tales of the Jazz Age (1922), All the Sad Young Men (1926), and Taps at Reveille (1935)—include such frequently anthologized pieces as "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz," "Babylon Revisited," and "Bernice Bobs Her Hair."In his lifetime, Fitzgerald earned more money from his stories than from all his novels combined. His first Post story in 1920 sold for $400; by 1928, some were bringing in $3,500 apiece.These stories provided a way for Fitzgerald to test themes and situations that he would later develop in his novels. For example, literary critics identify four stories from All the Sad Young Men—"Absolution," "Winter Dreams," "The Sensible Thing," and "The Rich Boy"—as the "Gatsby-cluster," since he stripped and reused passages from them for his 1925 masterpiece.High living in Europe and low sales for Gatsby silenced Fitzgerald as a novelist for nine years, until he published Tender Is the Night in 1934. The novel records the marriage of psychologist Dick Diver and his patient Nicole Warren. As with the emotionally ravaged Anthony and Gloria Patch from his 1922 novel The Beautiful and The Damned, readers often interpret Dick and Nicole as alter egos for their author and his wife.Fitzgerald's final works deal comically and tragically with Hollywood. His college friend and literary editor, Edmund Wilson, edited his unfinished novel The Last Tycoon for publication in 1941. Its hero, Monroe Stahr, is partly based on Irving Thalberg, MGM's "boy wonder" producer. Fitzgerald's seventeen Pat Hobby stories, written

for Esquire, chronicle their hapless hero's misadventures as a screenwriter. Scribner published a collection of them posthumously in 1962.Other posthumous collections include The Crack- Up (1945), The Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald(1951), and The Basil and Josephine Stories (1973). These and the other books mentioned here demonstrate how much more there is to Fitzgerald than just one book, however great.

Fitzgerald at the Movies Fitzgerald's masterpiece has not had the best of luck at the movies. Only the 1974 incarnation, starring Robert Redford as Jay Gatsby—and written by Francis Ford Coppola after Truman Capote failed to deliver—even approaches the poetry of the original. However, despite Redford's artful performance, Fitzgerald scholar Matthew J. Bruccoli prefers Alan Ladd's 1949 interpretation of the role, finding Redford too intelligent to capture Gatsby's naiveté.

THE GREAT GATSBY , FITZGERALD AND PROHIBITION F. Scott Fitzgerald circa 1920

The Roaring Twenties, the Jazz Age, and what F. Scott Fitzgerald would later describe as “the greatest, gaudiest spree in history” have all come to describe America under the influence of Prohibition. In Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, we are introduced to the opulent lives of wealthy east coasters during one of the rowdiest periods in American history. How accurate is this portrait of Prohibition America, and what influences led our country into an era of drunken excess?

In the early 1920’s World War I had just come to an end. A new generation flocked from small towns to big cities in search of excitement, opportunity, and a “modern” way of living. Electronics like radios became more common, particularly in metropolitan households. Flashy new car designs rolled down city streets. Women had finally earned the right to vote, and their hard-fought equality and independence was reflected in their fashion– shorter haircuts, higher hemlines, less curvy silhouettes. Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin were creating names for themselves on the big screen. It was an era of change—and that change was not welcomed by all. Alcohol flowed like water in homes across the country, and drunkards filled America’s prisons and poorhouses. A powerful group of activists made it their mission to eradicate liquor in an effort to help the country return to simpler times. The movement, known as Prohibition, may well go down as one of the biggest legislative backfires in American history.

Alcohol dependence was a growing problem in the U.S. for over a century before Prohibition came into law. In 1830, American boys and men aged 15 and older drank an average of 88 bottles of whiskey per year, 3 times what Americans drinks today. Drinking wasn’t a new thing; alcohol had been an important part of the American food culture since Colonial times. Americans routinely drank at every meal– breakfast, lunch, and dinner. In the early 1700’s, the most common drinks were weak beer and cider, which were only

mildly intoxicating (around 2% alcohol content, compared to today’s beers which average between 4-6%). By the 1800’s, as American farmers began cultivating more grains, increasingly potent forms of distilled liquor became available, including rum and whiskey. Americans replaced weaker ciders and beers with these more potent distilled liquors. Before long, alcohol dependence became a widespread epidemic. Men lost their jobs and neglected their families, under the spell of “demon liquor.” Societies dedicated to sober living formed in several major cities. A movement began, and the groundwork was put in place for outlawing alcohol at the national level. A constitutional amendment to ban alcohol sales and production became law in 1920.

Photo Source: Library of Congress

While Prohibition was meant to eradicate the temptation of liquor, it had the unintended effect of turning many law-abiding citizens into criminals. By barring liquor from the masses, the government unwittingly made it more desirable, more fashionable, and something eager consumers had to get their hands on. Prohibition gave birth to bathtub gin, cocktails, finger food and the elusive speakeasy. If you were able to provide your guests with an endless stream of libations, your popularity was assured. Better yet, if you were brave enough to invest in the illegal bootlegging business, your fortune might very well be sealed… as long as you didn’t lose your life in the process.

As the demand for illegal liquor increased, so did the methods for masking its production and consumption. Cocktails gained popularity—heavily flavored concoctions assembled to disguise the taste of potent bathtub gin with juices, herbs, sweeteners and syrups. Finger food became fashionable, which helped to increase liquor tolerance by ensuring that party-goers weren’t drinking on an empty stomach. Bootleggers, forced to produce liquor in secret, used questionable methods to ferment gin and other types of alcohol in their homes. Often poisonous ingredients, such as methanol (wood alcohol), were used. A government report from 1927 stated that nearly all of the 480,000 gallons of liquor confiscated in New York that year contained some type of poison. Jamaica ginger extract, also known as Jake, was sold in pharmacies as a headache remedy. It didn’t taste great, but it did contain high amounts of alcohol. Over time, more toxic ingredients were added that could result in paralysis, a condition often referred to as Jake Leg.

A Hooch Hound, a dog trained to detect liquor, sniffs at a flask in the back pocket of man fishing on the Potomac

Confiscated barrel and bottles of whiskey circa 1921.

Photo Source: Library of Congress

Despite the reality of the situation, overall it seemed like Americans were having a lot of fun during Prohibition. No book captures this wild and carefree time period quite like Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby. The character of millionaire Jay Gatsby represents the extremes of 1920s wealth and decadence. Gatsby devotes his life to accumulating riches in order to attract the attention of his romantic obsession, the lovely but spoiled Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby’s fortune is evident in the raucous parties he throws from his mansion on Long Island’s north shore. These decadent bashes, free flowing with food and liquor, represent the indulgent excesses of the “flapper” period:

“At least once a fortnight a corps of caterers came down with several hundred feet of canvas and enough colored lights to make a Christmas tree of Gatsby’s enormous garden. On buffet tables, garnished with glistening hors d’oeuvre, spiced baked hams crowded against salads of harlequin designs and pastry pigs and turkeys bewitched to a dark gold. In the main hall a bar with a real brass rail was set up, and stocked with gins and liquors and with cordials so long forgotten that most of his female guests were too young to know one from the other.”

THEMES

• Jazz Age / Roaring Twenties• The American Dream & the onset of the disillusionment of the American Dream

(Gatsby’s dream vs. reality)• Position of women• The Automobile• Prohibition & organized crime• Success & failure• Hope & sense of purpose• Role of time• Conflict bet. Illusion & reality (Gatsby’s dream vs reality)• Honesty vs lies• Innocence vs. Experience (in Carraway the narrator)• Class conflict

• East Egg vs. West Egg• Wilsons vs. Buchanans• Underworld lowbrows vs. Gatsby

CHARACTERS IN THE NOVELNick Carraway -  The novel’s narrator, Nick is a young man from Minnesota who, after being educated at Yale and fighting in World War I, goes to New York City to learn the bond business during the Roaring 1920s, a decade of jazz music, much wealth, and a wild lifestyle. Nick often serves as a confidant for those with troubling secrets. After moving to West Egg, a fictional area of Long Island that is home to the newly rich, Nick quickly befriends his next-door neighbor, the mysterious Jay Gatsby. The Great Gatsby is told entirely through Nick’s eyes; his thoughts and perceptions shape and color the story.

Jay Gatsby - The protagonist of the novel, Gatsby is a wealthy young man living in a Gothic mansion in West Egg. He is famous for the lavish parties he throws every Saturday night, but no one knows where he comes from, what he does, or how he made his fortune. Nick views Gatsby as a flawed man, but one whose optimism and power to transform his dreams into reality make him “great” despite his dark past.

Daisy Buchanan -  Nick’s cousin and a beautiful socialite, Daisy lives with Tom across from Gatsby in the fashionable East Egg district of Long Island. She seems like an airhead now, but behaves superficially to mask her pain at her husband’s infidelity.

Tom Buchanan -  Daisy’s immensely wealthy husband. Powerfully built and coming from a socially solid old family, Tom is an arrogant, hypocritical bully. His social attitudes are laced with racism and sexism, and he never even considers trying to live up to the moral standard he demands from those around him.

Jordan Baker -  Daisy’s friend, a woman with whom Nick becomes romantically involved. A competitive golfer, Jordan represents one of the “new women” of the 1920s—cynical, boyish, and self-centered. Jordan is beautiful, but also dishonest: she cheated in order to win her first golf tournament and continually bends the truth.

Myrtle Wilson -  Tom’s lover, whose lifeless husband George owns a run-down garage in the valley of ashes. Myrtle herself has a willful spirit and desperately looks for a way to improve her situation, including having an affair with the cruel Tom.

George Wilson -  Myrtle’s husband, the lifeless but kind owner of a run-down auto shop at the edge of the valley of ashes. George loves Myrtle, and is devastated by her affair with Tom.

SYMBOLS

(symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors that represent abstract ideas or concepts)

The Green Light

Situated at the end of Daisy’s East Egg dock and barely visible from Gatsby’s West Egg lawn, the green light represents Gatsby’s hopes and dreams for the future. Gatsby associates it with Daisy, and in Chapter 1 he reaches toward it in the darkness as a guiding light to lead him to his goal. Because Gatsby’s quest for Daisy is broadly associated with the American dream, the green light also symbolizes that more generalized ideal.

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 pursuit of wealth, as the rich indulge themselves with regard for nothing but their own pleasure in the Roaring 1920s. The valley of ashes also symbolizes the plight of the poor, like George Wilson, who live among the dirty ashes.

The Eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg

The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are a pair of fading, bespectacled eyes painted on an old advertising billboard over the valley of ashes. They may represent God staring down upon and judging American society as a moral wasteland, though the novel never makes this clear. Instead, throughout the novel, Fitzgerald suggests that symbols only have meaning because characters instill them with meaning. The connection between the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg and God exists only in George Wilson’s sad mind. This lack of concrete significance contributes to the unsettling nature of the image. Thus, the eyes also come to represent the unknown of the world and the way in which people invest objects with meaning.

East Egg and West Egg

Gatsby’s Mansion

The American Dream

The color gold (Gatsby’s tie, car, etc)

Chapter 1 ANSWERS TO ALL CHAPTER QUESTIONS GO ON SEPARATE PAPER

1. Describe the setting of the novel (time and place). Distinguish between East Egg and West Egg.2. Who is the narrator? What point of view is this?3. Discuss the background and family history of Nick Carraway, and tell why he has come to the East. What does he

mean when he says, “I’m inclined to reserve all judgments?”4. Identify Daisy and Tom Buchanan. How does Nick know them?5. Describe Jordan Baker.6. What are your initial impressions of the Buchanans and Miss Baker? Why?7. What is the significance of the phone call Tom receives? Which character explains the significance of the phone call

to Nick?8. What does Daisy mean when she says that she hopes her little girl will be a fool because “that’s the best thing a girl

can be in this world, a beautiful little fool?”9. When does Nick first see Gatsby? What does he observe Gatsby doing?10. Write down one quote from the chapter and explain its significance to this chapter?

Two of the novel’s major themes are introduced in this chapter. As you read, pay attention to which characters and situations illustrate the themes.

the carelessness, irresponsibility, and corruption of the very rich the futility of trying to recapture the past

Chapter 2

1. Describe the “valley of ashes” (the wasteland) between West Egg and New York City.2. Contrast the green light at the end of Chapter 1 and the gray images in the Valley of ashes in Chapter 2. How is

Fitzgerald using colors to build/support the themes of his novel?3. What are the “eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleberg?”4. Identify and describe Tom’s mistress. What does she look and act like?5. Describe George Wilson. What kind of man does he seem to be?6. How is Myrtle’s “dream world” apartment different from her real life? What is her life like with George?7. What further information does this chapter reveal about Gatsby?8. Identify and describe Catherine. What does Catherine tell Nick about Daisy’s relationship with Tom? Why does this

surprise Nick?9. Describe the fight that takes place between Tom and Myrtle near the end of the chapter. 10. Write down one quote from the chapter and explain its significance to this chapter.

Chapter 3

1. Describe some details of a typical party at Gatsby’s mansion.List some words in the opening scene of this chapter that suggest unreality or a dream world.

2. Identify and describe “Owl Eyes.” What is the significance of the conversation that Nick and Jordan have with him in the library?

3. What rumor has been in circulation about Gatsby?4. How does Nick finally meet Gatsby? How is Gatsby different from what Nick expected?5. What did Nick say took up most of his time that summer? How does he feel in New York City?6. What does Nick remember about Jordan Baker? What is his opinion / attitude toward her?7. Refer back to the themes provided in the chapter one questions. What evidence of Fitzgerald’s major themes do we

find in chapter three?8. Write down one quote from the chapter and explain its significance to this chapter.

Chapter 4 ANSWERS TO ALL CHAPTER QUESTIONS GO ON SEPARATE PAPER

In this chapter, we discover more about Gatsby from three different sources. First, we hear Gatsby himself telling of his past – coming from a wealthy, Midwestern family, going to Oxford, spending his youth in the capitals of Europe, and emerging from the war as an heroic officer. Do you believe this version of Gatsby’s background? Does Nick believe him?

1. Secondly, we meet Meyer Wolfsheim, a man who will give us another opinion of Gatsby. Who is this man? What is his opinion of Gatsby? Does his opinion clarify or confuse your own assessment of Gatsby? Explain.

2. Finally, we hear Jordan Baker’s story about Gatsby’s early romance. What is this story?3. What has Daisy’s life been like since her romance with Gatsby?4. Why does Gatsby throw parties? Why did he buy this particular house?5. What request does Gatsby make of Nick through Jordan?6. Now that you know more about Gatsby, how do you feel and what do you think about him? Why?7. Write down one quote from the chapter and explain its significance to this chapter.

The Great Gatsby Chapter 1-4 Review

On a separate sheet of paper, please choose one significant quotation from each chapter so far and write it on the left side of the page (with the page number). On the right side of the paper, write your reactions to the quote. Tell why it is significant – to the story, to you as a reader, etc. Consider themes, symbolism, tone, setting, characterization, and more as possible things to look for when picking and analyzing quotes. Each answer in the right side column should be at least three complete sentences.

Chapter 5

1. Describe the reunion of Gatsby and Daisy.

(This is the midpoint of the novel. The first four and one-half chapters introduce the characters, establish the setting, and reveal Gatsby’s “dream.” Observe carefully as the second half of the novel reveals the outcome of his dream.)

2. What clues are given in chapter five as to the source of Gatsby’s wealth?3. Describe the interior of Gatsby’s mansion.4. Why does Daisy cry when she sees Gatsby’s shirts? (Hint: She begins to realize something.)5. What do we find out about the green light to which Gatsby had been pointing when Nick first sees him in chapter

one?

Chapter 6 ANSWERS TO ALL CHAPTER QUESTIONS GO ON SEPARATE PAPER

1. Nick tells the reader some things about Gatsby’s past. Identify the following and explain how each fits into Gatsby’s past:

James Gatz Dan Cody a clam digger and a salmon fisher St. Olaf’s College a legacy of $25,000 Ella Kaye

2. Describe the behavior of Daisy and Tom at Gatsby’s party.3. Why is Daisy attracted to Gatsby?4. At the end of this chapter, Nick and Gatsby have a conversation about the past. What does this conversation reveal

about Gatsby?5. Write down one quote from the chapter and explain its significance to this chapter.

Chapter 7

1. Why does Gatsby no longer have parties?2. What is the weather like throughout chapter 7? Why/how does this affect the moods/actions of the characters?3. How does Gatsby react when he meets Daisy and Tom’s daughter?4. Do you think Daisy is a good mother? Why or why not?5. Does Tom realize that something is going on between Daisy and Gatsby?6. Compare the reactions of Tom Buchanan and George Wilson to the knowledge that their wives are having affairs.7. What does Daisy mean when she says to Gatsby, “Oh, you want too much?” Why?8. Identify Walter Chase. What does Gatsby’s association with Chase reveal about his character?9. Who kills Myrtle Wilson? Explain the events surrounding her death.10. Why is Gatsby waiting outside Daisy and Tom’s house? Why is this pathetic?11. Re-read the passage which describes Nick looking into the Buchanan’s kitchen window. How does Nick interpret this

scene? What do you think is going on?12. Who rides in which cars on their way into the city and on the way out of the city? 13. Write down one quote from the chapter and explain its significance to this chapter.

Chapter 8

1. How is the atmosphere of Gatsby’s house different at this point in the story? Why?2. What further details of the romance between Daisy and Gatsby are revealed in this chapter? (Why was Gatsby so

taken with Daisy? How did he deceive her? Why did Daisy marry Tom? What else do you find out?)3. What compliment does Nick pay Gatsby? Do you agree? Explain.4. How is the Eckleberg billboard again seen as a parody of God in this chapter?5. Write down one quote from the chapter and explain its significance to this chapter.

Chapter 9

1. Why, after Gatsby’s death, does Nick decide to “come back home” to the Middle West?2. Why do Gatsby’s “friends” not attend his funeral?3. Describe Gatsby’s father. What is the significance of the book, Hopalong Cassidy, that he shows to Nick?4. What is Nick’s assessment of Tom and Daisy? (What does he think of them now?)5. How did George find out that Gatsby owned the “death car?” What does George do?6. Explain the ending of the novel: “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

(What comments is Nick making about us all?)7. How is it appropriate that the novel opens in spring and ends in fall?

8. Are there any admirable characters in this novel? Who are they?9. Summarize the meaning of the novel in two to three sentences. (Explain what Fitzgerald is trying to say to his

readers.)10. Explain the meaning of the last sentence 11. What symbols are present in this novel? What does each of them represent?

SETTING MAP

Setting/Symbol Page Number What happens here / WHY it’s important

Buchanan’s House 9 “A manor ... with a room that bloomed crimson”

East Egg

Gatsby’s House

Hotel in New York

Jordan’s Aunt’s Apartment

Long Island Sound

Nick’s House

Railroad Tracks

T.J. Eckleburg Billboard

Tom & Myrtle’s apartment

Valley of Ashes

West Egg

Wilson’s Garage

Motifs and Symbols in The Great Gatsby

Motif: a recurring device in literature and drama that visualizes and dramatizes the themes of the work. These motifs can take any form, such as contrasting imagery, recurring structures and other literary devices.

Symbol: A symbol is a sign which has further layers of meaning. In other words, a symbol means more than it literally says. A symbol can have more than one layer of further meaning. The more profound the symbol, the greater the complexity of the layers of meaning (although the symbol itself may be quite simple).

Motifs1. cars: Tom and Gatsby’s cars, the car accident

after Gatsby’s party, Gatsby and Nick’s drive into

the city, Myrtle’s death and Wilson’s revenge

2.parties: Daisy and Tom’s dinner party, Gatsby’s

parties in Ch. 3, 4 and 6, Myrtle’s party in Ch. 2)

3.colors (yellow, the green light, colors of the city

vs. the Eggs, colors of Gatsby’s parties and house vs.

Myrtle and Wilson’s abodes, white (purity), colors

Symbols 1. the green light

2.the eyes of T.J. Eckleburg

3.West Egg / East Egg

4.Valley of Ashes

5.Gatsby’s Mansion

6.The color yellow

7. Light versus Dark

of the various cars, descriptions of light vs. dark,

grey valley of ashes, colors of Gatsby’s clothing, etc.

4.weather: Ch. 5 at the tea with Daisy and Gatsby,

in ch. 7 when the main characters go to the city, Ch.

8’s switch to Autumn-like weather.

5.geography: East vs West, NY vs. the Eggs, Valley of

Ashes, where are the characters from and where

does the story take place? What do these places

symbolize?

6.names: Daisy, Carraway, Great Gatsby, James

Gatz, changing names, names and status

7. sports: Polo and Tom, Golf and Jordan (and

cheating?), Wolfsheim’s involvement in the World

Series, sports and leisure time

8. cheating: relationships, corruption, laws

8. The American Dream

9. other: ______________

1. Select one motif and one symbol. Circle above.2. For each, find four (4) quotes and/or passages that demonstrate Fitzgerald’s use of that symbol. Then, analyze

its significance and connection to a theme of the novel. How does the motif or symbol dramatize the theme? What is the relationship of the theme to Fitzgerald’s use of this literary device?

3.

Motif:

Quote/passage and page number:

What is going on? Context Significance to theme and motif

Write a brief analysis of these examples in terms of theme. How does Fitzgerald use this motif to develop his theme? What does the use of this motif add to the story and theme?

Symbol:

Quote/passage and page number:

What is going on? Context Significance to theme and motif

Write a brief analysis of these examples in terms of theme. How does Fitzgerald use this symbol to develop his theme? What does the use of this symbol add to the story and theme?

NAME: PERIOD: THE GREAT GATSBY CHAPTER#:

SUMMARY (SUMMARIZE THE CHAPTER – 5 SENTENCES) THEME DISCUSSION PRODIVE EXAMPLES OF AT LEAST ONE OF THE THEMES LISTED ON THE BACK OF THIS PAGE. SEVERAL SENTENCES WILL SUFFICE / LESSER EFFORTS WILL NOT.

WHAT DO WE LEARN ABOUT CHARACTER_____________ YOUR CHOICE:

SYMBOL DISCUSSIONPRODIVE EXAMPLES OF AT LEAST ONE OF THE SYMBOS LISTED ON THE BACK OF THIS PAGE. SEVERAL SENTENCES WILL SUFFICE / LESSER EFFORTS WILL NOT.

- Sketch to stretch - Reaction - Connection- Best Quote / justify why you like it - Symbol / Crest- 5 short answer questions / answers

NAME: NOTE-MAKING GLOSSARYCPT FETTERMAN

THE GREAT GATSBY THEMES:• Jazz Age / Roaring Twenties• The American Dream & the onset of the disillusionment of the American Dream (Gatsby’s dream

vs. reality)• Conflict bet. Illusion & reality (Gatsby’s dream vs reality)• Innocence vs. Experience (in Carraway the narrator)• Position of women - Honesty vs lies• Prohibition & organized crime - The Automobile• Hope & sense of purpose - Success & failure• Class conflict - Role of time

• East Egg vs. West Egg• Wilsons vs. Buchanans• Underworld lowbrows vs. Gatsby

THE GREAT GATSBY SYMBOLS: The American Dream The Green Light (at the end of Daisy’s dock) The Valley of Ashes Thy Eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg (on the billboard) East Egg / Wes Egg Gatsby’s Mansion

THEMES - List any and all themes from the chapter. After each, explain the example form the chapter where this theme is illustrated / seen.

SUMMARY - Summarize the chapter. 5 sentences will suffice; lesser efforts will not!!!

QUESTIONS – Write down 5 questions about the chapter. They may not be yes / no questions. They should be open-ended, thought-provoking questions that we will use for class discussion.

TITLE – Create a title you would use for the chapter. Justify your selection by explaining why you would choose that title.

CHARACTERIZATION – Record what new information you learn about the characters from their words, their actions or what other characters say about them.

REACTION – React to the chapter you are reading. Give specific, textual examples as to why you reacted the way you did. How does the chapter make you feel? What does it remind you of? 5 sentence minimum.

BEST QUOTE – Select a quote from the chapter you think is most important or crucial to understanding what the chapter was all about. Does the quote present a theme, conflict (internal / external), does it relate to the author’s message, is it symbolic of something else? Etc. THEN, answer the above questions , explain the SIGNIFICANCE of the quote, etc.

SYMBOL / CREST - Create a symbol / crest / mural that represents the chapter. Beneath the picture, explain what the shapes, colors, objects represent from the chapter. Think symbolically.

CONNECTION - Connect what you see in the chapter to history, modern culture, film, your life, etc.

SKETCH TO STRETCH - In the box provided, sketch a scene of your choice. It should be one that sticks out for some reason – it should not just merely re-create a scene from the chapter. It should explain how somebody is feeling, a theme presented, etc. Label parts of the drawing if you wish. At the bottom of the illustration, explain which scene it is and why you chose it.

If ALL components of the homework are not met, including the minimum number of sentences for each component, you will not receive any credit.