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| Fitzgerald, Francis Scott: The Great Gatsby
Fitzgerald, Francis Scott: The Great Gatsby
Robert Nürnberger 23rd of April
1999
Bookreport
The Great
Gatsby
Francis Scott
Fitzgerald
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Original document contains a graphic at this position!
The Author:
His Biography
- born September 24, 1896
in Saint Paul, Minnesota
- F. attended but never
graduated from Princeton University where he got in contact with rich peoples
from the eastern seaboard
- in 1917 he left
Princeton and went to the army
- in 1920 he married the
beautiful Zelda Sayre
- Together they enjoyed a
rich life of endless parties
- Within two years they
became the most notorious young couple in America, symbolizing what Fitzgerald
called the Jazz Age
- to maintain their
lifestyle F. wrote more books an lots of stories for the popular magazines of
the time
- in 1925 Scott, Zelda and
their daughter Scottie moved from New York City to Great Neck, Long Island (the
model for West Egg in Gatsby) - eventually on to Paris and the Riviera and
finally back to the United States
- great stock marked crash
in 1929 which ended America’s decade of prosperity
- F. could not finish
another novel, and he could not make Zelda happy. She became more and more
depressed, and finally in April 1930, Zelda had a complete breakdown and had to
be hospitalized
- He kept on writing but
during 1935 and 1936 he had his own breakdown
- in 1940 he died of a
heart attack in Hollywood
His works:
- in 1920 Scott
Fitzgerald’s first novel This Side of Paradise was published and
made him famous and rich
- The Beautiful and the
Damned , his next novel was published in 1922. It’s a mood piece
chronicling the anxieties and dissipations of a rich couple.
- In only five months he
completed The Great Gatsby (1925) which is generally regarded as his
masterpiece
- It was not until 1934
that his fourth novel appeared. Tender is the night which was a almost
confessional story of his life with Zelda
- The experience that he
became a screenwriter in Hollywood inspired his final and most mature novel,
The last Tycoon (1941) which remained
unfinished
The Story
Nick Carraway, the narrator, is a young Midwesterner
who, having graduated from Yale in 1915 and fought in World War I, has returned
home to begin a cereer. Like others in his generation, he is restless and has
decided to move East to New York and learn the bond business. The vovel opens
early in the summer of 1922 in West Egg, Long Island, where Nick has rented a
house. Next to his place is a huge mansion complete with Gothixc tower an marble
swimming pool, which belongs to a Mr. Gatsby, whom Nick has not met. Directly
across the bay from West Egg is the more fashionable community of East Egg,
where Tom and Daisy Buchanan live. Daisy is Nick´s cousin, and Tom had been
in the same senior society as Nick in New Haven. Like Nick they are
Midwesterners who have come East to be a part of the glamour and mistery of the
New York City area. They invite Nick to dinner at their mansion, and here he
meets a young women golfer named Jordan Baker. During dinner Mrs. Myrtle Wilson
rings. She lives in a strange place between West Egg and New York City that F.
calls the “valley of ashes.” One day Tom takes Nick to meet the
Wilsons but the party breaks up as Tom breaks Myrtles nose with a blow of his
open hand. Some weeks later Nick finally gets the opportunity to meet his
mysterious neighbour Mr. Gatsby. Gatsby gives huge parties and people come from
everywhere to attend these parties, but no one seems to know much about the
host. Nick becomes fascinated by Gatsby and he begins watching him and notices
that he does not drink or join in his own parties. One day Nick and Gatsby drive
to New York together. Gatsby tells Nick that he´s from a wealthy family in
the Midwest, that he was educated at Oxford, and that he won war medals from
many European countries. Nick isn´t sure what to believe. At tea that
afternoon Nick finds out from Jordan Baker why Gatsby has taken such an interest
in him: Gatsby is in love with Daisy Buchanan and wants Nick to arrange a
meeting between them. It seems that Gatsby, as a young officer in 1917, had
fallen in love with Daisy. He had been sent overseas, and she had eventually
given him up and married Tom. So Gatsby decided to win Daisy back. His first
step was to buy a house in West Egg. From here he could look across the bay to
the green light at the end of Daisy´s dock.
A few days later, in the rain, Gatsby and Daisy meet
for the first time in five years. Gatsby is at first terrified, then very
excited. He takes Daisy and Nick on a tour of his house and grounds and shows
them all his possessions, even his shirts. Then he insists Klipspringer to play
the piano for them. K. plays “Ain´t We Got Fun,” and Nick
leaves.
Then Nick gives us some information about who Gatsby
really is. He was originally James Gatz, the son of farm people from North
Dakota. After beeing dropped out of his college, Gatsby ended up on the south
shore of Lake Superior earning money by digging clams and fishing for salmon.
One day he saw the beautiful yacht of the millionaire Dan Cody and borrowed a
rowboat to war Cody of an impending storm. Cody took the seventeen year old boy
on as steward, mate, and secretary. When Cody died, he left the boy, now Jay
Gatsby, a legacy of $25000, which the boy never got because of the jealousy of
Cody´s mistress.
Then Nick goes on to tell us more about the
happenings in the summer of 1922. Daisy and Tom come to one of Gatsby´s
parties but both don´t have a good time. Though Gatsby has been seeing
Daisy, he´s increasingly frutrated by his inability to recreate the magic
of their time together in Louisville five years before. The affair between Daisy
and Gatsby now comes out into the open. Tom, Daisy, Gatsby, Nick and Jordan all
meet for lunch at the Buchanans and then decide to drive to New York. Tom, Nick
and Jordan drive in Gatsby´s yellow Rolls Royce. The five arrive in the
city where they rent a suite at the Placa Hotel. Tom, drunk by now starts
attacking Gatsby about his past and for his habbit calling people “old
sport”. Gatsby reacts by telling Tom that Daisy is going to leave him.
They fight with words until Tom wins. Daisy will not go away with Gatsby. Tom
sends Daisy and Gatsby home together in the RR, knowing that he has nothing more
to fear. A couple of hours later Tom follows with Nick and Jordan. When they
reach the valley of ashes, they see crowds of people and police cars. Myrtle
Wilson was struck by a car coming from NY and the car had to be Gatsby´s
yellow RR. When Nick gets back to East Egg, he finds Gatsby hiding outside the
Buchanans house because he is in fear that Tom could hurt Daisy. Gatsby tells
Nick that Daisy was driving, but that - of course - he will take the blame. Nick
goes to work the next morning, but is too worried about Gatsby to stay in NY.
But when he arrives at Gatsby´s house he sees the body of his friend lying
in the swimming pool and George Wilson´s body, revolver in hand, lies
nearby on the grass. The crazed husband did spent the entire morning finding out
the driver of the yellow RR. He found out before Nick did. Nick tries to phone
Daisy and Tom, but is told that they´ve left without leaving an address.
When he calls to Meyer Wolfheim he has similar results. Nick it, it seems, is
Gatsby´s only friend. The news of Gatsby´s murder are printed in all
newspapers all over America and so Mr. Gatz arrives for the funeral, which is
only attended by Nick and three other persons. Mr. Gatz, who loves his son very
much shows Nick a book which Jimmy owned as a boy. In this Gatsby has written a
schedule for self improvement: exercise, study, sport and work.
Disgusted and disillusioned by what he has
experienced, Nick decides to leave NY and return to the Midwest. He ends his
relationship with Jordan Baker and Tom Buchanan tells him, that it was he, Tom,
who told Wilson where Gatsby lived. Before Nick leaves the East, he stands one
more time on the beach near Gatsby´s house looking out at the green light
that his friend had worshipped. Here he pays his final tribute to Gatsby and to
the dream for which he lived - and died!
Characters
Nick Carraway
- narrator of the Great Gatsby and is also a
character in the novel
- he is Fitzgerald´s custom to make the story
more realistic - he is telling us about the events in his own
words
- he is a pretty solid young man who has graduated
from Yale University
- comes from a solid Midwestern family (like the
author)
- honest, tolerant and understanding
- he´s in a perfect position to tell the story.
He is a cousin of Daisy Buchanan and was in the same senior society as Tom at
Yale and he has rented a house right next to Gatsby
- He both admires Gatsby and disapproves of him and
he is the only person that understands Gatsby. At the end he is also the only
friend of him
- represents the author
Jay Gatsby
- neither great nor Gatsby
- has committed crimes in order to buy the house he
feels he needs to win the woman he loves
- his dream is not really what is known as the
American Dream of Success - the belief that every man can have success no
matter what his beginnings - it´s a kind of romantic
idealism
- Gatsby is not interested in power for it´s own
sake or money or prestige. He just want´s his dream
⇒
Daisy
- Gatsby is a mistery. Who is he?
Tom Buchanan
- famous football player
- also very wealthy and strong
- he believes in his own superiority by telling Nick
about a book he believes in. The book warns that if white people are not
careful, the black races will rise up and overwhelm them
- He is having an affair with Myrtle Wilson the wife
of George Wilson. This woman seems to have a dark sexual vitality that attracts
Tom. He bought an apartment for her in NY.
- There he shows how little he thinks of anyone
beside himself when he breaks Myrtle´s nose with the back of his hand,
because she is shouting “Daisy, Daisy!” in a vulgar
way
- he also tells George Wilson that Gatsby was the
killer of Myrtle
Daisy Fay Buchanan
- described in almost fairytale languag. (Fay =
fairy)
- “she is the princess in the tower, the golden
girl that every man dreams of possessing” She is also beautiful and rich
and innocent and pure (at lest on the surface)
- but has also the bad manners that money
cause
- She is the sort of person who is better to dream
about than to possess
- represents Zelda
- uses her money to protect her from
reality
Jordan Baker
- a tough and aggressive woman who is willing to do
anything to win (ball moved)
- she symbolizes a new type of woman that was
emerging in the Twenties: hard and self-sufficient
- wears the kind of clothes that suit her; she
smokes, she drinks, and has sex because she enjoys it
- masculine name, hard, athletic and small breasted
body, cynical and bored style
- can supply Nick with information - also moving
between East Egg and West Egg
Interpretation and Comments
Style
- Dialogues represent what is
happening
- cinematic technique
- lot´s of images
- reflective style - Nick stops his narration of any
event and reflects on the meaning of the actionSetting
- is very important in The Great Gatsby because in
Fitzgerald´s world setting reveals character
- F. devides the world of the novel into four major
settings: 1. East Egg; 2. West Egg;...3. The valley of ashes;... 4. New York
City
- Each of these settings stands also for the values
of the people who live or work there
The Jazz Age
The Jazz Age began in May 1918. It ended with the
stock marked crash of 1929. The Jazz Age brought about one of the most rapid and
pervasive changes in manners and morals the world has ever seen, changes that we
are still wrestling with today. It was a period when the younger generation -
men and women alike - were rebelling against the values and customs of their
parents and grandparents. After all, the older generation had led thousands of
young men into the most brutal and senseless war in human history. People of
Fitzgerald´s age had seen death, and when they came back, they were
determined to have a good time. “How you gonna keep’em down on the
farm, now that they’ve seen Paree” was one of the most pupular songs
of the day.
And have a good time they did. The saxophone replaced
the violin; skirt hemlines went up; corsets came off; women started smoking; and
Prohibition, which was supposed to stop drinking, only reshaped it into secret
fun. The public saloon, now illegal, was replaced by the private cocktail party,
and men and women began drinking together. Parties like the ones given by Gatsby
began to thrive, and hoodlums became millionaires in a few months by controlling
the bootleg liquour business.
Scott and Zelda not only chronicled the age, they
lived it. They rode down Fifth Avenue on the tops of taxis; they drove into the
fountain in front of New Yorks famous Plaza Hotel: Scott fought with waiters,
and Zelda danced on tabletops. They drank too much and passed out in corners;
they drove recklessly and gave weekend parties, which were not too different
from the ones Gatsby gives in the novel and which lasted until the small hours
of Monday morning.
In the midst of all this, Fitzgerald tried to write.
Part of him believed in work and tried repeatedly to discipline himself, to go
“on the wagon,” to give up parties.
Short Interpretation
In principle, Gatsby is a symbol for the whole
American experience. Two classes are portrayed in the novel The Great
Gatsby. The rich people are represented by Jay Gatsby, Tom and Daisy
Buchanan. The human relationships in this society are superficial, they do not
feel anything for each other. They feel superior to the working-class, men feel
superior to women. Real friendships are very rare. Nick and Gatsby are the
exception of the rule. But Jay Gatsby is an impostor, because of his criminal
past he becomes guilty. His parties have only one reason, to arrange a meeting
with Daisy. His dream is a life with Daisy and his love for her. On the one hand
Gatsby is heroic, but on the other he is trivial and common. The best example
for this superficiality is Tom. Daisy’s husband represents the brutality
and moral carelessness of the established rich. He has no
scruples.
The life of the working-class is shown by the
Wilsons, Myrtle and George. In the novel the two classes get in contact because
of the relationship between Myrtle and Tom. They are speaking a different kind
of English. Their brutality is physical (George kills Gatsby), while the upper
class uses psychological brutality (Tom hates Gatsby too, but he uses George to
kill him).
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