Plot Summary

Nick Carraway grew up in the Midwestern United States and went to school at Yale University. After this, he was stationed in France during World War I. Returning home after travelling a great deal, he is discontent and decides to move to the East at the beginning of the Summer of 1922, renting a ramshackle house in Long Island's West Egg section. He begins working in nearby New York City as a bondsman and it is here that his story begins.

Jay Gatsby is a wealthy neighbor living next door in a lavish mansion where he holds many extravagant weekend parties. His name is mentioned while Nick is visiting a relative, Daisy, living in the East Egg section on the other side of Long Island with her millionaire husband, Tom Buchanan. As it turns out, Jay Gatsby had met Daisy five years before while in the military and was rejected by her due to his lack of wealth and because he had been sent so far away in Europe for the war. Daisy was attracted by Tom's riches and his distinguished family background and married him. Meanwhile Gatsby spent all of his effort after the war to buy his mansion through shady business dealings in order to be nearer to Daisy in the hope that she would leave Tom for him. Nick is chosen to be the "matchmaker" and arranges a reunion for the two at his home. Daisy is impressed by Gatsby's wealth and the two begin spending much time together, raising the suspicions of Tom who had also upset Daisy by carrying on an affair with a gas station owner's wife, Myrtle Wilson. Jay no longer holds his weekend parties since Daisy hadn't liked them and he allows her desires to control his actions. Nick distances himself from this mess by becoming close to Jordan Baker, a long time friend of Daisy.
While in a New York City hotel room one evening late in the summer with Jordan, Nick, Daisy, Tom, and Gatsby, there is a massive confrontation during which Tom exposes Gatsby's corrupt business dealings. Jay and Daisy leave to drive back to Long Island together with her driving Gatsby's car "to calm her down" until she accidentally hits and kills Tom's mistress running out in front of the gas station after her own jealous husband had locked her inside. The car doesn't stop after the accident and speeds on towards Long Island. Gatsby's charm has faded with his exposed corruption while Tom refocuses on Daisy since his mistress has been killed, assuming Gatsby to have been the car's driver. Nick is disgusted by this entire mess of love affairs and even ignores Jordan, worried about Gatsby since he continues to yearn for Daisy even though it is clear that he has failed. While Nick goes off to work in New York City the next day, the dead woman's vengeful husband, assuming Gatsby to have been driving his car that night and told that it had been Gatsby's car by a vengeful Tom Buchanan, shoots Gatsby to death in his own swimming pool and then kills himself.
Gatsby's funeral has few in attendance aside from Carraway and Jay's father who has come all the way from the Midwest where Jay grew up. Disgusted that so few had come, including Tom and Daisy who had abruptly moved away, and the hundreds who had attended Gatsby's parties, Nick distances himself from Jordan for good. Finally, tired of this gross scene of wealth and pettiness , he moves back home to the Midwest. His fond memories of the East remain only of Gatsby, and it is for him that this story is told.

Themes, Motifs & Symbols

Themes

Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

The Decline of the American Dream in the 1920s

On the surface, The Great Gatsby is a story of the thwarted love between a man and a woman. The main theme of the novel, however, encompasses a much larger, less romantic scope. Though all of its action takes place over a mere few months during the summer of 1922 and is set in a circumscribed geographical area in the vicinity of Long Island, New York, The Great Gatsby is a highly symbolic meditation on 1920s America as a whole, in particular the disintegration of the American dream in an era of unprecedented prosperity and material excess.

Fitzgerald portrays the 1920s as an era of decayed social and moral values, evidenced in its overarching cynicism, greed, and empty pursuit of pleasure. The reckless jubilance that led to decadent parties and wild jazz music—epitomized in The Great Gatsby by the opulent parties that Gatsby throws every Saturday night—resulted ultimately in the corruption of the American dream, as the unrestrained desire for money and pleasure surpassed more noble goals. When World War I ended in 1918, the generation of young Americans who had fought the war became intensely disillusioned, as the brutal carnage that they had just faced made the Victorian social morality of early-twentieth-century America seem like stuffy, empty hypocrisy. The dizzying rise of the stock market in the aftermath of the war led to a sudden, sustained increase in the national wealth and a newfound materialism, as people began to spend and consume at unprecedented levels. A person from any social background could, potentially, make a fortune, but the American aristocracy—families with old wealth—scorned the newly rich industrialists and speculators. Additionally, the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1919, which banned the sale of alcohol, created a thriving underworld designed to satisfy the massive demand for bootleg liquor among rich and poor alike.

Fitzgerald positions the characters of The Great Gatsby as emblems of these social trends. Nick and Gatsby, both of whom fought in World War I, exhibit the newfound cosmopolitanism and cynicism that resulted from the war. The various social climbers and ambitious speculators who attend Gatsby’s parties evidence the greedy scramble for wealth. The clash between “old money” and “new money” manifests itself in the novel’s symbolic geography: East Egg represents the established aristocracy, West Egg the self-made rich. Meyer Wolfshiem and Gatsby’s fortune symbolize the rise of organized crime and bootlegging.

As Fitzgerald saw it (and as Nick explains in Chapter 9), the American dream was originally about discovery, individualism, and the pursuit of happiness. In the 1920s depicted in the novel, however, easy money and relaxed social values have corrupted this dream, especially on the East Coast. The main plotline of the novel reflects this assessment, as Gatsby’s dream of loving Daisy is ruined by the difference in their respective social statuses, his resorting to crime to make enough money to impress her, and the rampant materialism that characterizes her lifestyle. Additionally, places and objects in The Great Gatsby have meaning only because characters instill them with meaning: the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg best exemplify this idea. In Nick’s mind, the ability to create meaningful symbols constitutes a central component of the American dream, as early Americans invested their new nation with their own ideals and values.

Nick compares the green bulk of America rising from the ocean to the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. Just as Americans have given America meaning through their dreams for their own lives, Gatsby instills Daisy with a kind of idealized perfection that she neither deserves nor possesses. Gatsby’s dream is ruined by the unworthiness of its object, just as the American dream in the 1920s is ruined by the unworthiness of its object—money and pleasure. Like 1920s Americans in general, fruitlessly seeking a bygone era in which their dreams had value, Gatsby longs to re-create a vanished past—his time in Louisville with Daisy—but is incapable of doing so. When his dream crumbles, all that is left for Gatsby to do is die; all Nick can do is move back to Minnesota, where American values have not decayed.

The Hollowness of the Upper Class

One of the major topics explored in The Great Gatsby is the sociology of wealth, specifically, how the newly minted millionaires of the 1920s differ from and relate to the old aristocracy of the country’s richest families. In the novel, West Egg and its denizens represent the newly rich, while East Egg and its denizens, especially Daisy and Tom, represent the old aristocracy. Fitzgerald portrays the newly rich as being vulgar, gaudy, ostentatious, and lacking in social graces and taste. Gatsby, for example, lives in a monstrously ornate mansion, wears a pink suit, drives a Rolls-Royce, and does not pick up on subtle social signals, such as the insincerity of the Sloanes’ invitation to lunch. In contrast, the old aristocracy possesses grace, taste, subtlety, and elegance, epitomized by the Buchanans’ tasteful home and the flowing white dresses of Daisy and Jordan Baker.

What the old aristocracy possesses in taste, however, it seems to lack in heart, as the East Eggers prove themselves careless, inconsiderate bullies who are so used to money’s ability to ease their minds that they never worry about hurting others. The Buchanans exemplify this stereotype when, at the end of the novel, they simply move to a new house far away rather than condescend to attend Gatsby’s funeral. Gatsby, on the other hand, whose recent wealth derives from criminal activity, has a sincere and loyal heart, remaining outside Daisy’s window until four in the morning in Chapter 7 simply to make sure that Tom does not hurt her. Ironically, Gatsby’s good qualities (loyalty and love) lead to his death, as he takes the blame for killing Myrtle rather than letting Daisy be punished, and the Buchanans’ bad qualities (fickleness and selfishness) allow them to remove themselves from the tragedy not only physically but psychologically.

Motifs

Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.

Geography

Throughout the novel, places and settings epitomize the various aspects of the 1920s American society that Fitzgerald depicts. East Egg represents the old aristocracy, West Egg the newly rich, the valley of ashes the moral and social decay of America, and New York City the uninhibited, amoral quest for money and pleasure. Additionally, the East is connected to the moral decay and social cynicism of New York, while the West (including Midwestern and northern areas such as Minnesota) is connected to more traditional social values and ideals. Nick’s analysis in Chapter 9 of the story he has related reveals his sensitivity to this dichotomy: though it is set in the East, the story is really one of the West, as it tells how people originally from west of the Appalachians (as all of the main characters are) react to the pace and style of life on the East Coast.

Weather

As in much of Shakespeare’s work, the weather in The Great Gatsby unfailingly matches the emotional and narrative tone of the story. Gatsby and Daisy’s reunion begins amid a pouring rain, proving awkward and melancholy; their love reawakens just as the sun begins to come out. Gatsby’s climactic confrontation with Tom occurs on the hottest day of the summer, under the scorching sun (like the fatal encounter between Mercutio and Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet). Wilson kills Gatsby on the first day of autumn, as Gatsby floats in his pool despite a palpable chill in the air—a symbolic attempt to stop time and restore his relationship with Daisy to the way it was five years before, in 1917.

Symbols

Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to 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. In Chapter 9, Nick compares the green light to how America, rising out of the ocean, must have looked to early settlers of the new nation.

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 uninhibited pursuit of wealth, as the rich indulge themselves with regard for nothing but their own pleasure. The valley of ashes also symbolizes the plight of the poor, like George Wilson, who live among the dirty ashes and lose their vitality as a result.

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 point explicitly. 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 grief-stricken mind. This lack of concrete significance contributes to the unsettling nature of the image. Thus, the eyes also come to represent the essential meaninglessness of the world and the arbitrariness of the mental process by which people invest objects with meaning. Nick explores these ideas in Chapter 8, when he imagines Gatsby’s final thoughts as a depressed consideration of the emptiness of symbols and dreams

Biography
Association with man from higher social backgrounds = observe structure of American society
Fitzgerald left Priceton University without a degree and joined the Army but he never served overseas. At Camp Sheridan he fell in love with Zelda Sayre that didn’t want to marry him because of his poor background. When he had success because of his book This Side of Paradise, he became popular and married Zelda. During the 1920’s they had a glamorous lifestyle spending a lot of money and they lived in NY, Washington, Hollywood and travelled abroad. They had an only child, Frances Scott. But they were always in debt. Fitzgerald then published The Beautiful and the Damned, where he wanted to express a moral vision. In 1954 they went to Europe where, in 1925 The Great Gatsby was published. The popularity of Fitzgerald declined. In Paris they met Hemingway and other members of the American expatriate community. Zelda became very frustrated by the lack of accomplishments in her life and decided to achieve some independent self-expression. Fitzgerald began to drink more and write less. In 1930 Zelda was recovered in Switzerland because she had schizophrenia. In 1931 they returned to the United States to recover Zelda. In 1947 Zelda died. Fitzgerald published Tender is the Night. In 1935 he had a physical and spiritual crisis. Then he signed a contract as a scriptwriter for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and moved to Hollywood where he began a sentimental relationship with Sheilah Graham and he started The Last Tycoon. He died of a heart attack at the age of 44.

The Jazz Age
Between the end of the first world war in 1918 and the great crash on wall street in 1929. Period characterized by the changes in the way people thought, felt and behaved. The young were in revolt against the “Puritanism” a repression and an adherence to gender roles. They experienced a new freedom, which gave rise to a type know as “the flapper” a typical young girl who cut her hair short, abandoned corsets, wore short dresses and did the Charleston. The automobile changed the world in assembly line method, alteration of the landscape because of the building of roads and greater mobility. The rise of mass media brought the radio in nearly every family, brought movie stars on the cultural scene, encouraged the development of magazines. The government encouraged economic expansion and the natural income rose by 50%. However, if business people were advantaged, people from mining towns and farmers were disadvantaged. Racist movements born in this period, like the “Red Scare” in Russia or the Ku Klux Klan in America. Prohibition of liquor was introduced, and as a consequence it begun a new life style of illegal drinking with criminal organizations.
In literature, a lot of American writers moved to Europe because they felt alienated from American society, and most chose to live in Paris. Fitzgerald had a dual vision of the romantic and the moralist and chronicle the malaise and the exuberance of the decade.

The American Dream
Is the belief in the possibility of starting over again, of escaping from the past and inventing a better future. On socio-political level is the opportunity for all (Jefferson, agrarian civilization). Economically exalts the self-made man, like Benjamin Franklin. In spiritual terms, is the expression of the basic human desire to transcend the limitations of one’s life and achieve happiness and fulfillment. In 1920 the American dream is only the pursuit of material success. People live in a world of materialism where objects are more important than morality and have no culture or religion by which order their lives. Ex. the parties at Gatsby’s mansion.

The Design of The Great Gatsby
Aesthetic principles: economy of expression and clarity of design. His success is determined by the use of a modernist point of view, more subjective and limited. There are two Nick Carraway in the novel: the storyteller that is retrospective, and the protagonist. He also rejects a strictly chronological ordering of time. The book is structured as a series of scenes. He created a unique style, paying attention to shape and sound of his sentences: the result is a blend of three kinds of language, quoted speech and dialogue, a polished vernacular, and Nick’s literary personal style.

Differences between movie and book
In the movie Nick is not the narrator nor does it say that he is. In Gatsby's phone call the first one Detroit wasn't mentioned as the small town that Philadelphia mentioned. When Nick was offered a job be Gatsby he didn't say anything about it ruining his life that it would be the crisis of his life. In the movie Gatsby comes through the back door not the front. Its says that's Gatsby and Daisy haven't seen each other in 8 years next November and in the book it is 5 years next December. The eight year difference also changed the age of the characters, making them older than they are in the book.
The plot and the setting of book and movie are very similar.   There was a lot of thins borrowed from the book, but there was a lot changed as well.   The movie followed the plot of book very closely and portrayed the setting of the book very well. A lot of the dialogue was borrowed and spoken directly as it was in the book.    The party scene of where Nick met Gatsby for the first time was drastically different in the movie than it was in the book.   In the book, Nick and Gatsby were talking about the war and Nick did not know that he was talking to Gatsby. In the movie, Gatsby summoned Nick up to his study and they had a very awkward conversation.  

Jordan Baker -  She is Daisy Buchanan's long-time friend, a professional golfer with a slightly shady reputation. She’s a woman with whom Nick becomes romantically involved during the course of the novel. 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. She has been born with money and has lived in a culture full of money and has been spoiled by it. She is surrounded by people like the Buchanans who perpetuate her indulgent behavior. This can be observed in the scene where she and Nick are driving in the city and calls her a careless driver. She says she doesn't worry because the other people on the road aren't as careless as her and that she makes sure she surrounds herself with people who won't "crash" into her. It can be seen that Jordan has no concept of accountability and that has been furthered by the people who allow her to go unaccountable.

IL SENSO DEL TEMPO (1,4)

Si allontana l'aspro inverno al gradito ritorno della primavera e dello Zefiro, argani issano asciutte carene, e non gode più il gregge delle stalle o il contadino del fuoco, né i prati risplendono per le bianche brine. Già Venere citerea dirige i cori sotto la luna e le amabili Grazie insieme alle Ninfe battono a ritmo alterno il piede a terra,mentre l'ardente Vulcano fa visita alle pesanti officine dei Ciclopi. Ora è bello cingere il capo lucido o di mirto verde o di fiori che le terre disgelate regalano; ora è bello fare sacrifici a Fauno negli ombrosi boschi, se chieda un'agnella o preferisca un capretto. La pallida Morte batte con piede imparziale le capanne dei poveri e le torri dei re. O beato Sestio, il breve ciclo della vita ci impedisce di avere una speranza a lungo termine; presto la notte ti graverà e gli dei Mani della leggenda e la casa effimera di Plutone,dove una volta entrato né verrai estratto con i dadi re del banchetto né contemplerai il tenero Licida,per il quale ora fervono tutti i giovani, e presto (anche)le vergini arderanno d'amore.

Ritratto di Scipione

(3)Fu in verità Scipione degno di ammirazione nn sl x le sue effettive virtù ma incline alla loro ostentazione an che x una certa abilità sin da quando era giovane (4) compiva la maggior parte delle sue azioni davanti al pubblico dicendo che gli era stato consigliato o da visioni notturne o da un’ispirazione divina, sia che egli stesso fosse di animo dominato da una certa religiosità sia xk la gente eseguiva gli ordini e le decisioni senza indugio come se fossero giunti dal responso di un oracolo (5) a questa credenza preparando gli animi dei romani fin dall’inizio,dal momento in cui indossò la toga virile in nessun giorno trattò qualche affare né pubblico né privato prima che si fosse recato in campidoglio ed entrato nel tempio si fosse seduto e x lo + solo,in raccoglimento,trascorresse il tempo in quel luogo (6) qsta abitudine che conservò x tt la vita,sia di proposito sia x puro caso suscitò fiducia presso qualcuno alla diffusione opinione che egli fosse un uomo di stripe divina (7) e richiamò in vita la diceria favoleggiata prima sul conto di ale magno, pari e x vanità e x carattere fiabesco,ke fosse nato dall’accoppiamento di uno smisurato serpente e che nella stanza di sua madre era stato vista molto di frequente l’apparizione di quel prodigio ma che con la venuta di + xsn all’improvviso si snodava e scompariva agli sguardi (8) l’attendibiltà di qsti prodigi da lui nn fu mai esclusa anzi piuttosto con una sorte di arte l’accrebbe, nn negando che così fosse all’incirca, e nn affermandolo.apertamente (9) molti altri fatti dello sts genere,alcuni veri,altri simulati avevano oltrepassato a riguardo di quel giovane i limiti dell’ammirazione x un uomo;riponendo fiducia in qste cose la cittadinanza accordò a un giovane di età x niente matura un’impresa così responsabile e un così imp comando.

Ode a Taliarco

Vedi come si innalza, candido per l'alta neve il Soratte, né ormai sostengono il peso le selve affaticate e per il gelo acuto, i fiumi sono ghiacciati.(5) Dissolvi il freddo buttando legna sul fuoco largamente e più abbondantemente cava o Taliarco,il vino vecchio di quattro anni dall'alnfoa sabina. Lascia il resto agli dei, che appena hanno quietato(10) i furiosi venti sul mare fervido né i cipressi né i vecchi frassini sono agitati. cosa verrà domani, evita di chiedere, e qualunque giorno ti darà il destino, (15)segnalo come guadagno non disprezzare i dolci amori o fanciullo,né le danze, finchè sei nel fiore degli anni lontano dalla canizia scontrosa. Ora il campo e le piazze e lievi sussurri sul far della notte sono ripetuti all'ora convenuta.(20) Ora il riso gradito traditore della fanciulla che si nasconde nel nascosto angolo e il pegno d'onore strappato alle braccia o al dito che male resiste.
(Ode tratta da ALCEO)
Zeus scatena la pioggia e dal cielo si scatena grande tempesta. Le correnti dei corsi d'acqua si sono fermate. [...] Disperdi il freddo aumentando la fiamma e versando vino dal sapor del miele senza risparmio,e poi avendo fasciato il capo con soffice lana..

Morte di una regina

Ora si deve bere, e con il piede battere la terra in libertà, ora, era già tempo, amici, di ornare il convito sacro degli dei con vivande dei sacerdoti Salii .(5) Era sacrilegio, prima d'ora, trarre dalle celle degli avi il Cecubo riposto, mentre al Campidoglio preparava la regina folli rovine e morte all'impero, lei, col suo greggio immondo di uomini turpi, (10) sfrenata nelle sue speranze, ubriacata dalla dolce sua fortuna. Ma fu follia placata da quella sola nave scampata al fuoco, e la sua mente allucinata (15) dal vino di Mareia Cesare ricondusse alla realtà paurosa, incalzando con la forza dei remi lei che veloce fuggiva dall'Italia, come sparviero incalza le tenere colombe, come il cacciatore le lepre che corre nelle pianure della nevosa Emonia,(20) per consegnare alle catene quel segno funesto del destino. Ma nobilmente lei cercò la morte; non ebbe femminile timore della spada né ripegò con la flotta veloce verso coste remote: (25) e osò guardare la sua reggia umiliata con sereno sguardo, coraggiosa a toccare terribili serpenti per assorbire nel suo corpo il nero veleno, (30)resa più fiera dalla morte così deliberata, per sottrarsi ai vascelli nemici, per impedire d'essere condotta, come donna comune, lei, donna regale, al superbo trionfo.
(Ode tratta da ALCEO)

Ora bisogna ubriacarsi e che uno beva a forza perchè è morto Mirsilo.