F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925) Recently ranked #2 on the list of top 20th century novels by the Library of America (Ulysses took #1) and perhaps the most widely read and taught of all American texts, Fitzgerald's Gatsby brings to life the social and cultural ferment of the early 1920s.  As most of you probably know, Fitzgerald attended but did not actually graduate from Princeton in the late 1910s.  Fitzgerald's other work includes:  • This Side of Paradise (1920; set at Princeton)  • The Beautiful and the Damned (1922)  • Tender is the Night (1934)  • The Love of the Last Tycoon (unfinished at his death in 1940)

 

Pre-reading questions:

• Who is Nick Carraway, and why is he the right narrator for this story?  (Or is he?)  Another version of this question: Why tell this story from Nick's point of view?  What does that enhance -- or obscure -- in the telling?
• Last week we speculated that My Antonia was perhaps as much a novel about Jim as it was a novel about Antonia.  Is the same true of this text?  Is this as much a story about Nick as it is about Gatsby?
• An accounting of all the words in the novel shows that "time" is the most frequently repeated noun (87 appearances).  What is the role of "time" in this text?  Where does it show up, either literally or figuratively?  Why?
• As you read, stop to think about more than just plot -- think also about style.  How does Fitzgerald communicate Gatsby's story?  Through what kind of language, or imagery, or even syntax?  Is it spare writing?  Lush writing?  Heavy on adjectives and adverbs?  On reported speech?  Where do the pressure points lie in each sentence or paragraph?  What kinds of words linger after you read them?
• Then ask: How does style help to shape or illuminate theme in this book?
• We've just left My Ántonia; to what extent is this also a 'novel of the West,' despite its prominent Eastern setting?  What is the role of the frontier in this otherwise urban novel?
• More generally, what is the significance of geography in this story?  Of the differences between East and West Egg?  Of the location of the smouldering valley of ashes?  Of Myrtle's apartment?  Of Gatsby's own origins and youthful background?
• Who is Dan Cody?
• Why does Gatsby desire Daisy?  (Corollary question: What does Daisy want?)
• Where, if anywhere, do race and ethnicity appear in this text?  Why?
• Is this novel a trenchant critique of the American Dream (of America as a 'promised land'), or a cautious reaffirmation of it?  Something else?
• Compare the very end of the book with the very end of My Ántonia.  To what extent are Cather's "precious, incommunicable past" and Fitzgerald's "borne back ceaselessly into the past" similar sentiments?  How might they differ?

Web links:

•  F. Scott Fitzgerald Centenary Page at University of South Carolina
•  Fitzgerald: Voice & Film Clips (from USC)
•  The Great Gatsby: the Opera (at Lincoln Center)
•  A Brief Life of Fitzgerald
•  Great Gatsby Trivia Challenge