The Great GatsbyThe Great Gatsby

Interpretation and Interpretation and SignificanceSignificance

The Great Gatsby can be viewed in one of three ways:

An autobiographical account of Fitzgerald’s life

A criticism of the American Dream

An allegory teaching the sinfulness of greed

I. Autobiographical I. Autobiographical NovelNovel

Dedication:“Once Again to Zelda.”

Epigram:“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

I. Autobiographical I. Autobiographical NovelNovel

A. Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, 1896-1940B. Born in Minnesota, grew up in New JerseyC. Princeton dropout with immense literary talentD. Served in WWI military, but war ended before he

could be deployed

I. Autobiographical I. Autobiographical (cont.) (cont.)

E. Met Zelda Sayre while serving in military1. Zelda is a rich, upper class southerner2. Zelda breaks off initial engagement when Fitzgerald can’t bring in

enough money

F. Publishes This Side of Paradise1. Immediate literary success.2. Zelda takes him back; they are wed

I. Autobiographical I. Autobiographical (cont.)(cont.)

G. Socialite Ex-Patriots, they lived a lavish lifestyle and Fitzgerald was frequently broke.H. Tensions between Fitzgerald and Zelda increased

1. She is schizophrenic, hospitalized at Hopkins2. He is an alcoholic, moves to Hollywood 3. She dies when her mental hospital catches on fire and she is locked in

a room awaiting electroshock therapy4. He drinks himself to death; dies of a heart attack after eating a candy

bar

Fitzgerald As Gatsby?Fitzgerald As Gatsby?

Both men are haunted by Both men are haunted by

women they could never women they could never

make happy, women whose make happy, women whose

greed destroyed them. greed destroyed them.

II. Criticism of American II. Criticism of American DreamDream

“Gatsby had committed

himself to the following of a

grail.”

II. American DreamII. American DreamA. Grail is an unattainable, elusive

mythical/magical object in medieval romances.

B. Desire for the grail has driven countless men to ruin and death.

C. Fitzgerald uses the search for the grail as a metaphor for the pursuit of the American dream. It is full of the promise of the enchanted, but it is ultimately unattainable.

III. Moral AllegoryIII. Moral AllegoryA. Allegory: a story full of symbolic people, places, or

things designed to convey a moral lessonB. The reader is meant to share in Nick’s “unaffected

scorn” for the world he sees and in his desire to see that world “in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever.”

C. The reader is meant to agree that he, like his narrator, wants “no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart.”

D. The reader is meant to understand why God is an observer, not a participant, in human affairs; why he judges but does not intervene.

T. J. Eckleberg’s disapproving eyes, T. J. Eckleberg’s disapproving eyes, symbolic of God‘s disapproval. What is symbolic of God‘s disapproval. What is Eckleberg’s role? What is God’s? What Eckleberg’s role? What is God’s? What

is Nick’s?is Nick’s?

IV. SymbolismIV. Symbolism• Great Gatsby is most commonly discussed in

terms of its inventive use of symbolism.

Key Symbols in the TextKey Symbols in the TextA. Eyes of T. J. Eckleburg

1. God’s judging but no less detached perspective on human affairs.

B. The Green Light1. People’s longing for those things that are most elusive.

C. The Valley of Ashes1. Empty, lifeless valley becomes a symbol for the empty, soulless people who traverse it.

D. Gatsby’s Rolls Royce1. The vehicle for displaying Gatsby’s wealth becomes an instrument of death. The search for money kills.

E. Pearl Necklace/Dog Collar1. Tom gives to Daisy a pearl necklace, but to Myrtle a dog collar. Myrtle is nothing but a pet to him—a plaything that he can buy and sell (or woo and discard). The dog collar emphasizes his greed; most people are like possessions to him.

Key QuotationsKey Quotations• NICK on NICK• [Nick to reader] “I was conscious of wanting to look squarely at everyone, and yet to

avoid all eyes.”• [Nick to reader] “I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by

the inexhaustible variety of life.”• [Nick to reader] “I am one of the few honest people I have ever met.”

• NICK on GATSBY HIMSELF• [Nick to reader] “Only Gastby, the man who gives his name to this books, was

exempt from my reaction.”• [Nick to reader] (Nick says to Gatsby) ‘They’re a rotten crowd…you’re worth the

whole damn bunch put together.’: “I’ve always been glad I said that. It was the only compliment I ever gave him, because I disapproved of him from beginning to end”

• [Nick to reader] (At Gasby’s funeral) “I began to have a feeling of defiance, of scornful solidarity between Gastby and me against them all”

Key Quotations Cont.Key Quotations Cont.• NICK on GATSBY’s DREAM• [Nick to reader] “[He] sprang from a Platonic conception of himself”• [Nick to reader] He had “an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I

have never found and which it is not likely I shall find again”• [Nick to reader] Gatsby “had committed himself to the following of a grail.”• [Nick to reader] Gatsby was prey to the “colossal vitality of his illusion.”• [Gasby to Nick] “Can’t repeat the past? Why, of course you can!” • [Nick to reader] “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the

past.”

• DAISY (and TOM)• [Gatsby to Nick on Daisy] “[her voice] is full of money.” • [Nick to reader] “Gatsby was overwhelmingly aware of the youth and mystery that wealth

imprisons and preserves, of the freshness of many clothes, and of Daisy, gleaming like silver, safe and proud above the hot struggles of the poor”

• [Nick to reader] “[It was] as if she had asserted her membership in a rather distinguished secret society to which she and Tom belonged”

• [Nick to reader] “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made”

GatsbyGatsby and its and its Relationship To Major Relationship To Major

Literary PeriodsLiterary Periods• Age of Reason

o Gatsby, like Ben Franklin, believes in careful and consistent self-improvement. However, Gatsby improves not upon not himself (James Gatz) but upon a completely made-up version of himself (Jay Gatsby).

• Romanticismo Gatsby is compelled by the power of the Romantic Dream, which

makes promises of seemingly infinite potential. Gatsby wishes to be something greater—and other—than he is, and he is willing to pay. First, he pays with all his earthly fortune; later, he pays with his life.

• Realismo Nick (and really Fitzgerald) reveal the destructiveness of an unyielding

devotion to the Romantic Dream. All the characters’ “dreams” are crushed, and they are left sad, alone, or dead.