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The Great Gatsby

F. scott fitzgerald.

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Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby . Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

The Great Gatsby: Introduction

The great gatsby: plot summary, the great gatsby: detailed summary & analysis, the great gatsby: themes, the great gatsby: quotes, the great gatsby: characters, the great gatsby: symbols, the great gatsby: literary devices, the great gatsby: quizzes, the great gatsby: theme wheel, brief biography of f. scott fitzgerald.

Historical Context of The Great Gatsby

Other books related to the great gatsby.

• Full Title: The Great Gatsby
• Where Written: Paris and the US, in 1924
• When Published: 1925
• Literary Period: Modernism
• Genre: Novel
• Setting: Long Island, Queens, and Manhattan, New York in the summer of 1922
• Climax: The showdown between Gatsby and Tom over Daisy
• Point of View: First person

Extra Credit for The Great Gatsby

Puttin' on the Fitz. Fitzgerald spent most of his adult life in debt, often relying on loans from his publisher, and even his editor, Maxwell Perkins, in order to pay the bills. The money he made from his novels could not support the high-flying cosmopolitan life his wife desired, so Fitzgerald turned to more lucrative short story writing for magazines like Esquire. Fitzgerald spent his final three years writing screenplays in Hollywood.

Another Failed Screenwriter. Fitzgerald was an alcoholic and his wife Zelda suffered from serious mental illness. In the final years of their marriage as their debts piled up, Zelda stayed in a series of mental institutions on the East coast while Fitzgerald tried, and largely failed, to make money writing movie scripts in Hollywood.

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Life in West Egg and East Egg

Resurfacing gatsby’s past, a deadly crash and a shooting, setting and historical context, publication history, legacy, and adaptations, the meaning of the great gatsby.

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The Great Gatsby

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• Table Of Contents

The Great Gatsby , novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald , published in 1925 by Charles Scribner’s Sons. Set in Jazz Age New York , it tells the story of Jay Gatsby , a self-made millionaire, and his pursuit of Daisy Buchanan, a wealthy young woman whom he loved in his youth .

Commercially unsuccessful when it was first published, The Great Gatsby —which was Fitzgerald’s third novel—is now considered a classic of American fiction and has often been called the Great American Novel.

• Who is Jay Gatsby, and what are the parties like at his house?
• How does Tom Buchanan react to the relationship that his wife, Daisy, has with Gatsby?
• What shocking event occurs when Daisy, seated beside Gatsby, is driving his car, and how does it affect everyone involved?
• How does The Great Gatsby capture the essence of the Jazz Age?
• How did The Great Gatsby ’s popularity change over time?
• What is the significance of West Egg vs. East Egg, and which wins in the end?

These AI-generated questions have been reviewed by Britannica’s editors.

Plot summary

The Great Gatsby is narrated by Nick Carraway , a Yale University graduate from the Midwest who moves to New York after World War I to pursue a career in bonds . He recounts the events of the summer he spent in the East two years later, reconstructing his story through a series of flashbacks not always told in chronological order.

In the spring of 1922, Nick takes a house in the fictional village of West Egg on Long Island , where he finds himself living among the colossal mansions of the newly rich. Across the water in the more refined village of East Egg live his cousin Daisy and her brutish, absurdly wealthy husband Tom Buchanan. Early in the summer Nick goes over to their house for dinner, where he also meets Jordan Baker, a friend of Daisy’s and a well-known golf champion, who tells him that Tom has a mistress in New York City . In a private conversation, Daisy confesses to Nick that she has been unhappy. Returning to his house in West Egg, he catches sight of his neighbor Jay Gatsby standing alone in the dark and stretching his arms out to a green light burning across the bay at the end of Tom and Daisy’s dock.

Early in July Tom introduces Nick to his mistress, Myrtle Wilson, who lives with her spiritless husband George Wilson in what Nick calls “a valley of ashes”: an industrial wasteland presided over by the bespectacled eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg, which stare down from an advertising billboard. Meeting her at the garage where George works as a repairman, the three of them go to Tom and Myrtle’s apartment in Manhattan. They are joined by Myrtle’s sister and some other friends who live nearby, and the evening ends in heavy drunkenness and Tom punching Myrtle in the nose when she brings up Daisy. Nick wakes up in a train station the morning afterward.

As the summer progresses, Nick grows accustomed to the noises and lights of dazzling parties held at his neighbor’s house, where the famous and newly rich turn up on Saturday nights to enjoy Gatsby’s well-stocked bar and full jazz orchestra. Nick attends one of these parties when personally invited by Gatsby and runs into Jordan, with whom he spends most of the evening. He is struck by the apparent absence of the host and the impression that all of his guests seem to have dark theories about Gatsby’s past. However, Nick meets him at last in a rather quiet encounter later in the evening when the man sitting beside him identifies himself as Gatsby. Gatsby disappears and later asks to speak to Jordan privately. Jordan returns amazed by what he has told her, but she is unable to tell Nick what it is.

Nick begins seeing Jordan Baker as the summer continues, and he also becomes better acquainted with Gatsby. One afternoon in late July when they are driving into Manhattan for lunch, Gatsby tries to dispel the rumors circulating around himself, and he tells Nick that he is the son of very wealthy people who are all dead and that he is an Oxford man and a war hero. Nick is skeptical about this. At lunch he meets Gatsby’s business partner Meyer Wolfsheim, the man who fixed the World Series in 1919 (based on a real person and a real event from Fitzgerald’s day). Later, at tea, Jordan Baker tells Nick the surprising thing that Gatsby had told her in confidence at his party: Gatsby had known Nick’s cousin Daisy almost five years earlier in Louisville and they had been in love, but then he went away to fight in the war and she married Tom Buchanan. Gatsby bought his house on West Egg so he could be across the water from her.

At Gatsby’s request, Nick agrees to invite Daisy to his house, where Gatsby can meet her. A few days later he has them both over for tea, and Daisy is astonished to see Gatsby after nearly five years. The meeting is at first uncomfortable, and Nick steps outside for half an hour to give the two of them privacy. When he returns, they seem fully reconciled , Gatsby glowing with happiness and Daisy in tears. Afterward they go next door to Gatsby’s enormous house, and Gatsby shows off its impressive rooms to Daisy.

As the days pass, Tom becomes aware of Daisy’s association with Gatsby. Disliking it, he shows up at one of Gatsby’s parties with his wife. It becomes clear that Daisy does not like the party and is appalled by the impropriety of the new-money crowd at West Egg. Tom suspects that Gatsby is a bootlegger, and he says so. Voicing his dismay to Nick after the party is over, Gatsby explains that he wants Daisy to tell Tom she never loved him and then marry him as though the years had never passed.

Gatsby’s wild parties cease thereafter, and Daisy goes over to Gatsby’s house in the afternoons. On a boiling hot day near the end of the summer, Nick arrives for lunch at the Buchanans’ house; Gatsby and Jordan have also been invited. In the dining room, Daisy pays Gatsby a compliment that makes clear her love for him, and, when Tom notices this, he insists they drive into town.

Daisy and Gatsby leave in Tom’s blue coupe, while Tom drives Jordan and Nick in Gatsby’s garish yellow car. On the way, Tom stops for gas at George Wilson’s garage in the valley of ashes, and Wilson tells Tom that he is planning to move west with Myrtle as soon as he can raise the money. This news shakes Tom considerably, and he speeds on toward Manhattan, catching up with Daisy and Gatsby.

The whole party ends up in a parlor at the Plaza Hotel, hot and in bad temper . As they are about to drink mint juleps to cool off, Tom confronts Gatsby directly on the subject of his relationship with Daisy. Daisy tries to calm them down, but Gatsby insists that Daisy and he have always been in love and that she has never loved Tom. As the fight escalates and Daisy threatens to leave her husband, Tom reveals what he learned from an investigation into Gatsby’s affairs—that he had earned his money by selling illegal alcohol at drugstores in Chicago with Wolfsheim after Prohibition laws went into effect. Gatsby tries to deny it, but Daisy has lost her resolve, and his cause seems hopeless. As they leave the Plaza, Nick realizes that it is his 30th birthday.

Gatsby and Daisy leave together in Gatsby’s car, with Daisy driving. On the road they hit and kill Myrtle, who, after having a vehement argument with her husband, had run into the street toward Gatsby’s passing car, thinking it was Tom. Terrified, Daisy continues driving, but the car is seen by witnesses. Coming behind them, Tom stops his car when he sees a commotion on the road. He is stunned and devastated when he finds the body of his mistress dead on a table in Wilson’s garage.

Wilson accusingly tells him it was a yellow car that hit her, but Tom insists it was not his and drives on to East Egg in tears. Back at the Buchanans’ house in East Egg, Nick finds Gatsby hiding in the garden and learns that it was Daisy who was driving, though Gatsby insists that he will say it was he if his car is found. He says he will wait outside Daisy’s house in case Tom abuses Daisy.

The next morning Nick goes over to Gatsby’s house, where he has returned, dejected . Nick advises him to go away, afraid that his car will be traced. He refuses, and that night he tells Nick the truth about his past: he had come from a poor farming family and had met Daisy in Louisville while serving in the army, but he was too poor to marry her at the time. He earned his incredible wealth only after the war (by bootlegging , as Tom discovered).

Reluctantly, Nick leaves for work, while Gatsby continues to wait for a call from Daisy. That afternoon, George Wilson arrives in East Egg, where Tom tells him that it was Gatsby who killed his wife. Wilson makes his way to Gatsby’s house, where he finds Gatsby in his pool. Wilson shoots Gatsby and then himself. Afterward the Buchanans leave Long Island. They give no forwarding address. Nick arranges Gatsby’s funeral, although only two people attend , one of whom is Gatsby’s father. Nick moves back to the Midwest, disgusted with life in the East.

Set in the Jazz Age (a term popularized by Fitzgerald), The Great Gatsby vividly captures its historical moment: the economic boom in America after World War I, the new jazz music, the free-flowing illegal liquor. As Fitzgerald later remarked in an essay about the Roaring Twenties , it was “a whole race going hedonistic, deciding on pleasure.”

According to F. Scott Fitzgerald, the 1920s witnessed “a whole race going hedonistic, deciding on pleasure.”

The brazenly lavish culture of West Egg is a reflection of the new prosperity that was possible during Prohibition , when illegal schemes involving the black-market selling of liquor abounded. Such criminal enterprises are the source of Gatsby’s income and finance his incredible parties, which are probably based on parties Fitzgerald himself attended when he lived on Long Island in the early 1920s.

The racial anxieties of the period are also evident in the novel; Tom’s diatribe on The Rise of the Colored Empires —a reference to a real book published in 1920 by the American political scientist Lothrop Stoddard—points to the burgeoning eugenics movement in the United States during the early 20th century.

Fitzgerald finished The Great Gatsby in early 1925 while he was living in France, and Scribner’s published it in April of the same year. Fitzgerald struggled considerably in choosing a title, toying with Trimalchio and Under the Red, White and Blue , among others; he was never satisfied with the title The Great Gatsby , under which it was ultimately published.

The illustration for the novel’s original dust jacket was commissioned by Fitzgerald’s editor Maxwell Perkins seven months before he was in possession of the finished manuscript. It was designed by Francis Cugat, a Spanish-born artist who did Hollywood movie posters, and depicts the eyes of a woman hanging over the carnival lights of Coney Island . The design was well-loved by Fitzgerald, and he claimed in a letter to Perkins that he had written it into the book, though whether this refers to the eyes of Doctor Eckleburg or something else is uncertain. Cugat’s painting is now one of the most well-known and celebrated examples of jacket art in American literature .

While Fitzgerald considered The Great Gatsby to be his greatest achievement at the time it was published, the book was neither a critical nor a commercial success upon publication. Reviews were mixed, and the 20,000 copies of its first printing sold slowly. It was printed one more time during Fitzgerald’s life, and there were still copies unsold from this second printing when he died in 1940.

The Great Gatsby was rediscovered a few years later and enjoyed an exponential growth in popularity in the 1950s, soon becoming a standard text of high-school curricula in the United States. It remains one of Scribner’s best sellers, and it is now considered a masterpiece of American fiction. In 2021 it entered the public domain in the United States.

There have been several film adaptations of the novel, most notably a production directed by Jack Clayton in 1974, starring Robert Redford as Gatsby, and one in 2013 directed by Baz Luhrmann , starring Leonardo DiCaprio .

Above all, The Great Gatsby has been read as a pessimistic examination of the American Dream . At its center is a remarkable rags-to-riches story, of a boy from a poor farming background who has built himself up to fabulous wealth. Jay Gatsby is someone who once had nothing but who now entertains rich and celebrated people in his enormous house on Long Island. However, even though Gatsby’s wealth may be commensurate with the likes of Tom Buchanan’s, he is ultimately unable to break into the “distinguished secret society” of those who were born wealthy. His attempt to win Daisy Buchanan, a woman from a well-established family of the American elite, ends in disaster and his death.

This tension between “new money” and “old money” is represented in the book by the contrast between West Egg and East Egg. West Egg is portrayed as a tawdry, brash society that “chafed under the old euphemisms,” full of people who have made their money in an age of unprecedented materialism. East Egg, in contrast, is a refined society populated by America’s “staid nobility,” those who have inherited their wealth and who frown on the rawness of West Egg. In the end, it is East Egg that might be said to triumph: while Gatsby is shot and his garish parties are dispersed, Tom and Daisy are unharmed by the terrible events of the summer.

The Great Gatsby is memorable for the rich symbolism that underpins its story. Throughout the novel, the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock is a recurrent image that beckons to Gatsby’s sense of ambition. It is a symbol of “the orgastic future” he believes in so intensely, toward which his arms are outstretched when Nick first sees him. It is this “extraordinary gift for hope” that Nick admires so much in Gatsby, his “heightened sensitivity to the promises of life.” Once Daisy is within Gatsby’s reach, however, the “colossal significance” of the green light disappears. In essence, the green light is an unattainable promise, one that Nick understands in universal terms at the end of the novel: a future we never grasp but for which we are always reaching. Nick compares it to the hope the early settlers had in the promise of the New World. Gatsby’s dream fails, then, when he fixates his hope on a real object, Daisy. His once indefinite ambition is thereafter limited to the real world and becomes prey to all of its corruption.

The valley of ashes—an industrial wasteland located between West Egg and Manhattan—serves as a counterpoint to the brilliant future promised by the green light. As a dumping ground for the refuse of nearby factories, it stands as the consequence of America’s postwar economic boom, the ugly truth behind the consumer culture that props up newly rich people like Gatsby. In this valley live men like George Wilson who are “already crumbling.” They are the underclasses that live without hope, all the while bolstering the greed of a thriving economy. Notably, Gatsby does not in the end escape the ash of this economy that built him: it is George Wilson who comes to kill him, described as an “ashen” figure the moment before he shoots Gatsby.

Over the valley of ashes hover the bespectacled eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg, which appear on the advertising billboard of an oculist. These eyes almost become a moral conscience in the morally vacuous world of The Great Gatsby ; to George Wilson they are the eyes of God. They are said to “brood” and “[keep] their vigil” over the valley, and they witness some of the most corrupt moments of the novel: Tom and Myrtle’s affair, Myrtle’s death, and the valley itself, full of America’s industrial waste and the toiling poor. However, in the end they are another product of the materialistic culture of the age, set up by Doctor Eckleburg to “fatten his practice.” Behind them is just one more person trying to get rich. Their function as a divine being who watches and judges is thus ultimately null , and the novel is left without a moral anchor.

A Summary and Analysis of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

The Great Gatsby is the quintessential Jazz Age novel, capturing a mood and a moment in American history in the 1920s, after the end of the First World War. Rather surprisingly, The Great Gatsby sold no more than 25,000 copies in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s lifetime. It has now sold over 25 million copies.

If Fitzgerald had stuck with one of the numerous working titles he considered for the novel, it might have been published as Trimalchio in West Egg (a nod to a comic novel from ancient Rome about a wealthy man who throws lavish parties), Under the Red, White and Blue , or even The High-Bouncing Lover (yes, really).

How did this novel come to be so widely acclaimed and studied, and what does it all mean? Before we proceed to an analysis of Fitzgerald’s novel, here’s a quick summary of the plot.

The Great Gatsby : plot summary

Nick Carraway, the narrator of the novel, is a young man who has come to New York to work on the stock exchange. He lives on the island of West Egg, where his neighbour is the wealthy Jay Gatsby, who owns a mansion.

One evening, Nick is dining with his neighbours from East Egg, Tom and Daisy Buchanan. Tom is having an affair, and goes to answer the phone at one point; Daisy follows him out of the room, and their fellow guest, a woman named Jordan Baker, explains to Nick about Tom’s mistress.

A short while after this, Nick is with Tom when Tom sets up a meeting with his mistress, Myrtle, the wife of a garage mechanic named Wilson. Nick attends a party with Tom and Myrtle; Tom hits his mistress when she mentions Daisy’s name.

In the summer, Gatsby throws a number of lavish parties at his mansion. He meets Jordan Baker again and the two are drawn to each other. Nobody seems to know the real Gatsby, or to be able to offer much reliable information about his identity. Who is he?

Gatsby befriends Nick and drives him to New York. Gatsby explains that he wants Nick to do him a favour: Jordan Baker tells him that Daisy was Gatsby’s first love and he is still in love with her: it’s the whole reason Gatsby moved to West Egg, so he could be near Daisy, even though she’s married to Tom. Gatsby wants Nick to invite both him and Daisy round for tea.

When they have tea together, Gatsby feels hopeful that he can recover his past life with Daisy before she was married. However, he knows that Daisy is unlikely to leave Tom for him. When she expresses a dislike for his noisy parties, he scales down his serving staff at his house and tones down the partying.

When they are all at lunch together, Tom realises that Daisy still loves Gatsby. Tom goads Gatsby as he realises he’s losing his mistress and, now, his wife. While staying together in a suite at the Plaza Hotel, Daisy tells Tom that she loves both men.

On their way back home, Gatsby’s car accidentally hits and kills Myrtle Wilson, Tom’s mistress, who has rushed out into the road after her husband found out about her affair. Tom finds her body and is distraught. Nick learns that Daisy, not Gatsby, was driving the car when Myrtle was killed.

Gatsby also tells Nick that he had built himself up from nothing: he was a poor man named James Gatz who made himself rich through the help of a corrupt millionaire named Dan Cody.

The next day, Nick finds Gatsby dead in his own swimming pool: Wilson, after his wife was killed by Gatsby’s car, turned up at Gatsby’s mansion to exact his revenge. Wilson’s body is nearby in the grass. The novel ends with Nick winding up Gatsby’s affairs and estate, before learning that Tom told Wilson where he could find Gatsby so he could take revenge.

The Great Gatsby : analysis

The Great Gatsby is the best-known novel of the Jazz Age, that period in American history that had its heyday in the 1920s. Parties, bootleg cocktails (it’s worth remembering that alcohol was illegal in the US at this time, under Prohibition between 1920 and 1933), and jazz music (of course) all characterised a time when Americans were gradually recovering from the First World War and the Spanish flu pandemic (1918-20).

One reason The Great Gatsby continues to invite close analysis is the clever way Fitzgerald casts his novel as neither out-and-out criticism of Jazz Age ‘values’ nor as an unequivocal endorsement of them. Gatsby’s parties may be a mere front, a way of coping with Daisy’s previous rejection of him and of trying to win her back, but Fitzgerald – and his sympathetic narrator, Nick Carraway – do not ridicule Gatsby’s behaviour as wholly shallow or vacuous.

Fitzgerald’s choice to have a first-person narrator, rather than a more detached and impersonal ‘omniscient’ third-person narrator, is also significant. Nick Carraway is closer to Gatsby than an impersonal narrator would be, yet the fact that Nick narrates Gatsby’s story, rather than Gatsby telling his own story, nevertheless provides Nick with some detachment, as well as a degree of innocence and ignorance over Gatsby’s identity and past.

Nick Carraway is both part of Gatsby’s world and yet also, at the same time, an observer from the side-lines, someone who is not rich and extravagant as many in Gatsby’s circle are, yet someone who is ushered into that world by an enthusiastic Jay Gatsby, who sees in Carraway a man in whom he can confide.

Nevertheless, Fitzgerald deftly sets the world of West Egg, with Gatsby’s mock-chateau and swimming pool, against the rather grittier and grimier reality for most Americans at the time. If Gatsby himself symbolises the American dream – he has made himself a success, absurdly wealthy with a huge house and a whole retinue of servants, having started out in poverty – then there are plenty of reminders in The Great Gatsby that ‘the American dream’ remains just that, a dream, for the majority of Americans:

About half way between West Egg and New York the motor-road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from a certain desolate area of land. This is a valley of ashes – a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air.

This is the grey, bleak, industrial reality for millions of Americans: not for them is the world of parties, quasi-enchanted gardens full of cocktails and exotic foods, hydroplanes, and expensive motorcars.

Yet the two worlds are destined to meet on a personal level: the Valley of Ashes (believed to be modelled on Corona dump in Queens, New York, and inspired by T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land ) is where Wilson’s garage is located. The dual tragedy of Gatsby’s and Wilson’s deaths at the end of the novel symbolises the meeting of these two worlds.

The fact that Gatsby is innocent of the two crimes or sins which motivate Wilson – his wife’s adultery with Tom and Daisy’s killing of Myrtle with Gatsby’s car – hardly matters: it shows the subtle interconnectedness of these people’s lives, despite their socioeconomic differences.

What’s more, as Ian Ousby notes in his Introduction to Fifty American Novels (Reader’s Guides) , there is more than a touch of vulgarity about Gatsby’s lifestyle: his house is a poor imitation of a genuine French chateau, but he is no aristocrat; his car is ‘ridiculous’; and his very nickname, ‘the Great Gatsby’, makes him sound like a circus entertainer (perhaps a magician above all else, which is apt given the magical and enchanted way Carraway describes the atmosphere and detail at Gatsby’s parties).

And ultimately, Gatsby’s lavish lifestyle fails to deliver happiness to him, too: he doesn’t manage to win Daisy back to him, so at the same time Fitzgerald is not holding up Gatsby’s ‘success’ uncritically to us.

Is Gatsby black? Although he is known for having been played in film adaptations by Robert Redford and Leonardo DiCaprio, and the novel does not state that Gatsby is an African American, the scholar Carlyle V. Thompson has suggested that certain clues or codes in the novel strongly hint at Gatsby being a black American who has had to make his own way in the world, rising from a poor socio-economic background, and not fully accepted by other people in his social circle because of racial discrimination.

Whether we accept or reject this theory, it is an intriguing idea that, although Fitzgerald does not support this theory in the novel, that may have been deliberate: to conceal Gatsby’s blackness but, as it were, hide it in plain sight.

In the last analysis, The Great Gatsby sums up the Jazz Age, but through offering a tragedy, Fitzgerald shows that the American dream is founded on ashes – both the industrial dirt and toil of millions of Americans for whom the dream will never materialise, and the ashes of dead love affairs which Gatsby, for all of his quasi-magical properties, will never bring fully back to life.

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10 thoughts on “A Summary and Analysis of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby”

I regret the several hours wasted in slogging through this low-prole distraction.

You might want to start with something like Dick and Jane.

One of my favorite novels. I have always loved this book. No matter how may times I read it, more is revealed.

The Great Gatsby is one of my favorite novels. Thank you for the detailed analysis! I can also add that Fitzgerald includes lots of symbols in the novel. To my mind, one of the most vivid symbols is a giant billboard with the face of Doctor TJ Eckleburg which is towering over the Valley of Ashes. These eyes are watching the dismal grey scene of poverty and decay. I guess the billboard symbolizes the eyes of God staring at the Americans and judging them. In case seomeone is interested in symbols in The Great Gatsby, there is a nice article about it. Here: https://custom-writing.org/blog/symbols-in-the-great-gatsby

While I could imagine and accept a modern film version of Gatsby as black, I really can’t espouse the notion that Fitzgerald had that in mind. If you know anything about American society in the 1920s, you’d know that you didn’t have to be black or of some other minority to be outside the winner’s circle. US society may still have tons of problems accepting that all people are created equal, but back then, they weren’t even thinking about blacks et al very much. They were quite happy to ostracize Italians, Irish, Catholics, etc, without batting an eye.

This is such a widely misunderstood book, by scholars as well as regulars.

Daisy was the victim of love. She would’ve married Jay while he was in the army. Also, Jay’s so-called symbolic “reaching” is nothing more than him trying to understand self love, to attain it, to unravel the “mystery! ” of it. But he never realizes he’s totally in love with himself, which is his biggest issue other than preying on Daisy’s real love.

And Nick ” Carraway” …. Care-a-way, care-a-way… What self-appointed moral man witnesses nakedly two married plotters sceam against a neighbor they like, or any person in serious need of legal, emotion aid, AND DOES NOTHING. Yeah, care a way, Nick, just not your way! And Come On!! who the hell doesn’t judge others….that’s the ENTIRE POINT OF EVERY BOOK AND LIFE.

WHAT preyed on Gatsby preys upon every person everywhere. Influences of life and choices we make because if them. Gatsby’s such an interesting, centralized , beloved character because he represents everyone’s apparent embracement of the childhood notion, ” we can have it all and make our own consequences, and if not, let’s see if I can manipulate time successfully. Gatsby’s us the full human demonstration of self love at all costs and quite deliberately finding a way disguise and masquerade and mutate and thus deny this very fact while simultaneously trying to make it MAGICAL AND MYSTICAL.

ARTISTS, from geniuses to so-called laypeople, are all simple people with very basic emotions. That’s where ALL starts. They are not Gods, nor do they desire misunderstanding. Frankly, they just wanna see if you have any common sense. Once you get passed that, all literature resembles EVERY aspect of life.

A terrific novel and not bad adaptation as a movie by DiCaprio, I thought! While some of the comments on here are a little excessive, there is much to be said for the symbolism in the book. I rather like the fact that ‘West Egg’ and ‘East Egg’ surely hints at questioning who is the ‘good egg’ and who is ‘the bad egg’. The place names are so unusual that this must be deliberate (‘bad egg’ has been around since at least 1855) and we’re left to wonder just what is good and bad here. No character comes out smelling of roses in this story, which – for me – makes the novel utterly compelling.

Well said, Ken. It’s the subtlety of the characterisation which makes it for me – I know a lot of critics and readers praise the prose style, but I think it’s the way Fitzgerald uses Carraway’s narration to reveal the multifaceted (and complex) nature of Gatsby, Daisy, Tom, and even himself that is so masterly. I’ve just finished analysing the opening paragraphs of the novel and will post that up soon!

• Pingback: A Short Analysis of the Opening Lines of The Great Gatsby – Interesting Literature
• Pingback: A Summary and Analysis of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘The Bowl’ – Interesting Literature

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The Great Gatsby

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Most Important Themes in Great Gatsby, Analyzed

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Need to write about a theme for a Great Gatsby assignment or just curious about what exactly a theme is? Not sure where to start? Learn here what a theme is, what the main themes in The Great Gatsby are, and what the best tips for writing about themes for your English/Language Arts class essays are.

We will also link to our specific articles on each theme so you can learn even more in-depth about themes central to Gatsby .

What Is a Theme? Why Should You Care?

First things first: what exactly is a theme? In literature, a theme is a central topic a book deals with. This central topic is revealed through plot events, the actions and dialogue of the characters, and even the narrator's tone. Themes can be very broad, like love, money, or death, or more specific, like people versus technology, racial discrimination, or the American Dream.

In short, a book's theme can usually answer the question, "what's the point of this book?". They're the "so what?" of literary analysis. Also, note that books can definitely have more than one major theme —in Gatsby we identify seven!

Knowing a book's major theme(s) is crucial to writing essays, since many assignments want you to connect your argument to a book's theme. For example, you might be asked to write an essay about a prompt like this: "How does the life of Jay Gatsby exemplify (or deconstruct) the idea of the American Dream?" This prompt has you connect specific details in Jay Gatsby's life to the larger theme of the American Dream. This is why many teachers love theme essays: because they encourage you to connect small details to big ideas!

Furthermore, the AP English Literature test always has an essay question that has you analyze some aspect of a book and then "compare it to the theme of the work as a whole." (If you want specific examples you can access the last 15 years of AP English Literature free response questions here , using your College Board account.) So this skill won't just help you in your English classes, it will also help you pass the AP English Literature test if you're taking it!

So keep reading to learn about the major themes in Gatsby and how they are revealed in the book, and also to get links to our in-depth articles about each theme.

Overview of Key Themes in The Great Gatsby

Before we introduce our seven main themes, we'll briefly describe how the story and characters suggest the major Great Gatsby themes. Remember that the story is set in the 1920s, a period when America's economy was booming, and takes place in New York: specifically the wealthy Long Island towns of West Egg and East Egg, as well as Manhattan and Queens.

As you should know from the book ( check out our summary if you're still hazy on the details!), The Great Gatsby tells the story of James Gatz , a poor farm boy who manages to reinvent himself as the fabulously rich Jay Gatsby, only to be killed after an attempt to win over his old love Daisy Buchanan . Daisy is married to Tom Buchanan , and they're both from old money, causing them to look down Gatsby's newly rich crowd (and for Tom to look down at Gatsby himself).

Meanwhile, Tom is having an affair with Myrtle Wilson , the wife of mechanic George Wilson . Through the Wilsons, we see the struggles of the working class in dismal Queens , NY. As if they didn't already have it hard enough, Myrtle is killed in a hit-and-run accident (caused by Daisy Buchanan), and George, who's manipulated by Tom to believe that Jay Gatsby was both his wife's lover and her murderer, ends up shooting Gatsby and then himself.

The whole story is told by Nick Carraway , a second cousin of Daisy's and classmate of Tom's who moves in next to Gatsby's mansion and eventually befriends Jay -- and then comes to deeply admire him, despite or perhaps because of Jay's fervent desire to repeat his past with Daisy. The tragic chain of events at the novel's climax, along with the fact that both the Buchanans can easily retreat from the damage they caused, causes Nick to become disillusioned with life in New York and retreat back to his hometown in the Midwest.

Aside from having a very unhappy ending, the novel might just ruin swimming pools for you as well.

The fact that the major characters come from three distinct class backgrounds (working class, newly rich, and old money) suggests that class is a major theme. But the rampant materialism and the sheer amount of money spent by Gatsby himself is a huge issue and its own theme. Related to money and class, the fact that both Gatsby and the Wilsons strive to improve their positions in American society, only to end up dead, also suggests that the American Dream -- and specifically its hollowness -- is a key theme in the book as well.

But there are other themes at play here, too. Every major character is involved in at least one romantic relationship , revealing that they are all driven by love, sex, and desire -- a major theme. Also, the rampant bad behavior (crime, cheating, and finally murder) and lack of real justice makes ethics and morality a key theme. Death also looms large over the novel's plot, alongside the threat of failure.

And finally, a strong undercurrent to all of these themes is identity itself: can James Gatz really become Jay Gatsby, or was he doomed from the start? Can someone who is not from old money ever blend in with that crowd? Could Gatsby really aspire to repeat his past with Daisy, or is that past self gone forever?

In short, just by looking at the novel's plot, characters, and ending, we can already get a strong sense of Gatsby's major themes. Let's now look at each of those themes one by one (and be sure to check out the links to our full theme breakdowns!).

The 7 Major Great Gatsby Themes

Money and Materialism : Everyone in the novel is money-obsessed, whether they were born with money (Tom, Daisy, Jordan, and Nick to a lesser extent), whether they made a fortune (Gatsby), or whether they're eager for more (Myrtle and George). So why are the characters so materialistic? How does their materialism affect their choices? Get a guide to each of the characters' material motivations and how they shape the novel.

Society and Class: Building on the money and materialism theme, the novel draws clear distinctions between the kind of money you have: old money (inherited) or new money (earned). And there is also a clear difference between the lifestyles of the wealthy, who live on Long Island and commute freely to Manhattan, and the working class people stuck in between, mired in Queens. By the end of the novel, our main characters who are not old money (Gatsby, Myrtle, and George) are all dead, while the inherited-money club is still alive. What does this say about class in Gatsby? Why is their society so rigidly classist? Learn more about the various social classes in Gatsby and how they affect the novel's outcome.

The American Dream : The American Dream is the idea anyone can make it in America (e.g. gain fame, fortune, and success) through enough hard work and determination. So is Jay Gatsby an example of the dream? Or does his involvement in crime suggest the Dream isn't actually real? And where does this leave the Wilsons, who are also eager to improve their lot in life but don't make it out of the novel alive? Finally, do the closing pages of the novel endorse the American Dream or write it off as a fantasy? Learn what the American Dream is and how the novel sometimes believes in it, and sometimes sees it as a reckless fantasy.

Love, Desire, and Relationships : All of the major characters are driven by love, desire, or both, but only Tom and Daisy's marriage lasts out of the novel's five major relationships and affairs. So is love an inherently unstable force? Or do the characters just experience it in the wrong way? Get an in-depth guide to each of Gatsby's major relationships.

Death and Failure: Nick narrates Gatsby two years after the events in question, and since he's obviously aware of the tragedy awaiting not only Gatsby but Myrtle and George as well, the novel has a sad, reflective, even mournful tone. Is the novel saying that ambition is inherently dangerous (especially in a classist society like 1920s America), or is it more concerned with the danger of Gatsby's intense desire to reclaim the past? Explore those questions here.

Morality and Ethics: The novel is full of bad behavior: lying, cheating, physical abuse, crime, and finally murder. Yet none of the characters ever answer to the law, and God is only mentioned as an exclamation, or briefly projected onto an advertisement . Does the novel push for the need to fix this lack of morality, or does it accept it as the normal state of affairs in the "wild, wild East"?

The Mutability of Identity: Mutability just means "subject to change," so this theme is about how changeable (or not!) personal identity is. Do people really change? Or are our past selves always with us? And how would this shape our desire to reclaim parts of our past? Gatsby wants to have it both ways: to change himself from James Gatz into the sophisticated, wealthy Jay Gatsby, but also to preserve his past with Daisy. Does he fail because it's impossible to change? Because it's impossible to repeat the past? Or both?

How to Write About The Great Gatsby Themes

So now that you know about the major themes of The Great Gatsby , how can you go about writing about them? First up: look closely at your prompt.

Sometimes an essay prompt will come right out and ask you to write about a theme , for example "is The American Dream in Gatsby alive or dead?" or "Write about the relationships in Gatsby. What is the novel saying about the nature of love and desire?" For those essays, you will obviously be writing about one of the novel's major themes. But even though those prompts have big-picture questions, make sure to find small supporting details to help make your argument.

For example, if you're discussing the American Dream and arguing it's dead in the novel, don't just make that claim and be done with it. Instead, you can explore Gatsby's past as James Gatz, George Wilson's exhausted complacency, and Myrtle's treatment at the hands of Tom as examples of how the American Dream is treated in the novel. Obviously those examples are far from exhaustive, but hopefully you get the idea: find smaller details to support the larger argument.

On the other hand, many essay prompts about Gatsby will look like a question about something specific, like a character or symbol:

• Explore Tom and Daisy as people who 'retreat into their money.'
• What does the green light at the end of Daisy's dock represent? How does its meaning change throughout the novel?
• Show how Fitzgerald uses clothing (and the changing of costumes) to tell the reader more about the characters and/or express theme(s).

These prompts are actually a chance for you to take that detailed analysis and connect it to one of the larger themes—in other words, even though the prompt doesn't state it explicitly, you should still be connecting those more focused topics to one of the big-picture themes.

For example, if you talk about Tom and Daisy Buchanan, you will definitely end up talking about society and class. If you talk about the green light, you will end up talking about dreams and goals, specifically the American Dream. And if you discuss clothing to talk about the characters, you will definitely touch on money and materialism, as well as society and class (like how Gatsby's pink suit makes him stand out as new money to Tom Buchanan, or how Myrtle adopts a different dress to play at being wealthy and sophisticated).

In short, for these more specific prompts, you start from the ground (small details and observations) and build up to discussing the larger themes, even if the prompt doesn't say to do so explicitly!

What's Next?

Now you're an expert on themes, but what about symbols? If you need to write about the important symbols in The Great Gatsby, check out our symbols overview for a complete guide.

Want a full analysis of Jay Gatsby and his backstory? Not sure how his story connects with the American Dream? Get the details here .

Want to go back to square one? Get started with Chapter 1 of our Great Gatsby plot summary.

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185 The Great Gatsby : Best Topics and Examples

Looking for some creative titles for The Great Gatsby essay? There are many themes to explore about this novel. We offer you The Great Gatsby essay examples about symbolism, character analysis, the style of the novel, and many other topics.

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The Great Gatsby, the masterpiece written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, will help you dive into the Roaring Twenties’ wealth atmosphere. This is a story of a millionaire Jay Gatsby and his passion for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan

Your professor may ask you to analyze topics such as decadence, money, American Dream, or symbolism in your The Great Gatsby Essay. But what if you have no idea what to write? Well, below, you can find some tips and essay samples that you may use to compose your papers

Tip #1. Analyze symbolism in The Great Gatsby

First, let’s define what symbolism is. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, symbolism is “practice of using symbols, especially by investing things with a symbolic meaning or by expressing the invisible or intangible using visible or sensuous representations.” The Great Gatsby story is full of symbols. And here are just two examples of them:

• The eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg painted on a billboard in the Valley of Ashes. You can find a lot of The Great Gatsby essay samples that draw the conclusion that Eckleburg represents God. However, let’s ask a few more questions. Why do these eyes have no mouth or arms, or legs? Does this mean that Eckleburg can only watch people transgressions without any ability to punish them as a God-like entity? Does this billboard mean anything?
• Use of color in Fitzgerald’s story. If you carefully read the novel, you might notice the use of a few colors throughout the book. They are green, gray, gold, and yellow. Think, what do these colors can symbolize and represent these ideas in your paper.

Tip #2. Think about point of view in The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby is written in the first-person point of view. Nick Carraway, one of the main characters, tells us about the life and thoughts of Gatsby. In your writing, you can imagine how different the novel would be if it were told in the third-person point of view.

You also can provide some examples if the story was told from Gatsby’s perspective.

Tip #3. Assess how the book relates to the American Dream

If you look through the vast majority The Great Gatsby essay titles, you can find out plenty of samples that address the validity of high society or the social class divide. Gatsby had achieved the American Dream by building his wealth. However, he’s still not satisfied with the shallowness of the upper class and wants something more.

In your paper, you can argue why does one can never attain the American Dream, and why dreamers always want more.

Tip #4. Analyze the characters and their relations

Fitzgerald put each character into the novel for a particular reason. And your job is to analyze what they represent and why they are in the story. For example, Tom represents evil, while Daisy represents innocence. Another aspect you should examine is relationships between Daisy and Gatsby, Tom and Daisy, Nick and Gatsby.

Tip #5. Examine the tone of the novel

When we talk about the tone of the story, we mean how the author describes the events and characters. In your paper, decide what the tone of the novel is and analyze how it affects the readers’ attitude to characters and events.

Now, check The Great Gatsby essay examples below and use the acquired ideas to write your own paper!

• The Great Gatsby Reflection Paper Throughout the novel the major character Nick who was the narrator managed to bring out the main themes of the novel as well as developing other characters.
• Analysis of the Shirt Scene in “The Great Gatsby” Film Although the shirts mean nothing to Gatsby without Daisy, the audience watches Gatsby’s facial expression display a great deal of empathy and love whenever Daisy seems distressed, especially in this scene when she begins to […]
• Daisy Buchanan: “I Did Love Him Once, but I Loved You, Too” Another scene shows Daisy’s immoral behavior when she is in the room with Gatsby, Jordan, and Nick. This view shows Daisy’s lustful side in that she pushes Jordan to do the same and is out […]
• The Clock as a Symbol in “The Great Gatsby” By incorporating metaphorical elements that allude to the fleeting nature of time, “the Great Gatsby” emphasizes the idea of the futility of life and the inescapability of the past and its mistakes.
• Tom and Gatsby: Compare and Contrast Essay In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald pays attention to the relationships between both Jay Gatsby and Tom Buchanan and Daisy Buchanan. Scott Fitzgerald’s book is mainly focused on the relationship of Daisy with Gatsby and Tom, […]
• Nick as the Narrator in The Great Gatsby Therefore, his connection with the Gatsby’s story is that he is depended upon to serve as the mouthpiece of the older generation as he metaphorically transcends through time to retell the Great Gatsby tale accurately […]
• The Great Gatsby: Analysis and Feminist Critique The feminist critique is an aspect that seeks to explore the topic of men domination in the social, economic, and political sectors.
• American Culture in the Novel “The Great Gatsby” In The Great Gatsby, Scott Fitzgerald documents these changes through an in-depth exploration of cultural changes such as the rise in consumerism, materialism, greed for wealth, and the culture of loosening morals in the 1920s […]
• Silver & Gold: Color Symbolism in The Great Gatsby Although the color palette presented in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is rich, the problem of differing social status is most vividly described in the novel through the use of golden and silver colors that stand […]
• Daisy’s Character Study in “The Great Gatsby” The argument is that the author attempts to describe her as a pure and innocent female to ensure that the reader understands the perspective of Jay, but particular aspects of her true identity are revealed […]
• Female Characters in A Streetcar Named Desire & The Great Gatsby: Comparative It can be seen in the case of Stella and Daisy wherein in their pursuit of what they think is their “ideal” love, they are, in fact, pursuing nothing more than a false ideal that […]
• Autobiographical Elements in “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The story is set during the roaring twenties, a period of significant social and cultural change, and it incorporates many of the author’s personal experiences, feelings, and perceptions of the time.
• Fairy Tale Traits in The Great Gatsby Basing on the several evident parameters, for instance, the character traits, the behavior of prince and princess, and gender distinctions amongst others, Fitzgerald’s masterwork stands out as a variation and sophisticated version of the fairy […]
• Why is Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby a Satire? Another aspect of satire in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is the wealth associated with Gatsby, as the reader observes in chapter two.
• The Great Gatsby and Winter Dreams by Scott Fitzgerald In this analysis, the researcher will try to confirm the argument that the Great Gatsby was a continuation of the Winter Dreams.
• “The Great Gatsby” Film by Baz Luhrmann The Great Gatsby is a film that stars Jay Gatsby, Nick Carraway, Tom Buchanan, and the Southern Belle Daisy. The influence of the past comes out throughout the course of the film.
• The Great Gatsby All these characteristics of America during 1920 are evident and inherent in the main character, Jay Gatsby, in the novel The Great Gatsby. This is one of the themes in the novel The Great Gatsby.
• Novel Analysis: The Great Gatsby and Siddhartha Hesse’s Siddhartha seems complementary to The Great Gatsby as Brahman, the main role in Siddhartha, finds contentment in self-realization and not in money, sensuality, and love.
• Gatsby & Nick in The Great Gatsby The Great Gatsby is a novel of vibrant characters, and paradox is one of the main themes of the book. Even though Daisy and Tom are married, Nick agrees to help Gatsby be with the […]
• ‘The Great Gatsby’: Tom and Blanche Like Tom, Blanche in the book of Street Car Named Desire, is loyal to her sister who is the only member of her family that we come across.
• Time as a Theme in The Great Gatsby The embodiment of these negative aspects comes in the form of Gatsby and his life, which in the end is seen as hollow and empty, just as the morals and values of the characters seen […]
• Architecture in “The Great Gatsby” by Fitzgerald From this perspective, the case of Gatsby’s mansion is a symbolic call for leaving behind the anachronistic ideas of aristocracy and embracing American ideals.
• “The Great Gatsby” by Baz Luhrmann The filmmakers never stop depicting Gatsby’s wealth and his otherness. He throws money around and he is a topic of heated debates in the society.
• ‘The Great Gatsby’ and ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ Literature Comparison Stella is a devoted wife struggling to make her marriage work, even though her husband Stanley, subjects her to a lot of pain and suffering.
• The American Dream in The Great Gatsby After spending some time in this neighborhood, Nick finally attends Gatsby’s exuberant parties only to realize that Gatsby organizes these parties to impress Daisy, Nick’s cousin, and wife to Tom.
• Babylon Revisited & The Great Gatsby: Motifs & Themes When he pleads his case to the guardians of Honoria, his sister-in-law Marion, and her husband, he continually evades his escapades of the past and recounts his hard work and sincerity of the present.
• Fitzgerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby’, Steinbeck’s ‘Of Mice and Men’ and the American Dream “The America Dream’ is a longstanding common belief of the American population that in the United States, people are free to realize the full potential of their labor and their talents and every person in […]
• The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald Review Gatsby’s dream to become wealthy to gain Daisy’s attention “is simply believable and is still a common dream of the current time”. However, Gatsby is the story’s main character and is a “personification” of the […]
• Fertile Questions: “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald The two fertile questions arising from the novel are: what are political and economic impacts of the World War I? and what are the challenges faced by American students born from poor families post-World War […]
• Tom and George in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby At the same time, the motives of Tom and George’s behavior differ due to their backgrounds, origins, and belonging to different social classes.
• “The Great Gatsby”: The American Dream in the Jazz Age The Jazz Age is a period in the history of the United States of America from the end of World War I to the beginning of the Great Depression due to the remarkable popularity of […]
• Women’s Role in “The Great Gatsby” by Fitzgerald Though the women in the novel are depicted as careless, treacherous, and selfish, the author uses them to underscore the power of the will to rebel against societal norms in pursuit of happiness.
• “The Great Gatsby Directed” by Baz Luhrmann This is due to the fact that the film is an indirect adaptation of Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald’s book “The Great Gatsby”.
• The Corrupted American Dream and Its Significance in “The Great Gatsby” The development of the American dream and its impact on the society of the United States is a pertinent topic of discussion for various authors.
• Jay Gatsby: The Great Fool or the Unfortunate Genius The main idea of the work is to show the unfairness of the fate of a poor young man who cannot marry the girl he loves.
• “The Great Gatsby” by Scott Fitzgerald Who will take care of the dead creatures seems not to be in Tom’s order of what to bother him and together with the wife is comfortable enjoying their wealth while the creatures are rotting […]
• Characters in Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” and Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” The author presents challenges faced in the society as a result of the mixture racial and gender discrimination that a young black girl goes through in search of her dream and personal identity.
• Greene’s “Our Man in Havana” and “The Great Gatsby” by Fitzgerald It is imperative to realize that the purpose of the paper is not to carry out a critical analysis of the plays but to carry out a comparison of the attributes in which they relate […]
• What Money Cannot Buy: ‘The Great Gatsby’ Book by F. S. Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby is a book that unveils the instrumental role of the social aspect of life among people; which not only concentrates on the economic part of it.
• First-Person Narrative in Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby,” Joyce’s “The Boarding House,” Bowen’s “The Demon Lover” In Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Joyce’s short story “The Boarding House,” and the Scottish poem The Demon Lover, the first-person narrative is used differently to achieve the authors’ objectives and create a comprehensive picture of […]
• First-Person Narrative in Bowen’s ”The Demon Lover,” Updike’s ”A&P,” Fitzgerald’s ”The Great Gatsby” In this work, the unworked, repressed experience of the First World War is personified and embodied in the image of the ghost of a person who died in this war.
• “The Great Gatsby” by Fitzgerald: Betrayal, Romance, Social Politics and Feminism This work seeks to outline the role of women in the development of the plot of the book and in relation to the social issues affecting women in contemporary society.
• Jay Gatsby, Jean Valjean and Henry Fleming: The Compare and Contrast Analyses of the Characters The way the characters of the main protagonists are revealed in the novel is one of the most important things in every piece of literature.
• “The Great Gatsby” Novel by Francis Scott Fitzgerald However, what the reader should acknowledge is that the author manages to present a wholesome and clear image of the issues and occurrences that defined the United States throughout the 1920s.
• The Great Gatsby’ by Scott Fitzgerald Literature Analysis This is one of the details that can be identified. This is one of the issues that can be singled out.
• Political Satire in American Literature Scott Fitzgerald was one of the more famous satirists of the time, particularly in his production of the work The Great Gatsby.
• The Dilemmas of the American Dream in The Great Gatsby The Great Gatsby is a story of a young man in the early twentieth century who seems to know what he wants in the way of that dream and what to do to achieve it.
• The Great Gatsby – Love, Wealth, and Illusion In the novel, the fictional village of West Egg is perhaps one of the key items that symbolize the life of the new millionaires in the city.
• Gatsby & Jean Valjean He is a mysterious person, and no one exactly knows his origins and the ways he used to acquire his fortune.
• The Ethicality of an Action Jay Gatsby As well, an action is “wrong” if it results in the opposite of happiness to the people. Mill’s utilitarian theory can be used to assess the ethically of Jay Gatsby’s action, as presented in the […]
• Francis Scott Fitzgerald & His American Dream In the novel “Tender is the Night,” Fitzgerald describes the society in Riviera where he and his family had moved to live after his misfortune of late inheritance.
• Jay Gatsby & Eponine From Les Miserables: Compare & Contrast Gatsby is the main character in the book “The Great Gatsby,” while Eponine is one of the characters in the book “Les Miserables”.
• Jay Gatsby & Gean Valjean: Characters Comparison This essay compares and contrasts the characters of Gatsby and Jean Valjean in the Les Miserable novels and films. Gatsby strikes the readers as a na ve and lovesick individual though his character is negative.
• Jay Gatsby and Valjean in ‘Les Miserables’: Comparative Valjean’s life contains a series of misfortunes in the sense that he has to hide his true identity. Most of the people in his life were there just for convenience and for the fact that […]
• The Idea of Love in The Great Gatsby and the Parallels or Contrasts That Can Be Drawn With the Presentation of Love in The Catcher in the Rye Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Jerome Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, it is possible to state that the notion of love is presented there similarly even though the texts are absolutely different and […]
• Fitzgerald’s American Dream in The Great Gatsby & Winter Dreams To my mind, Winter Dream is a perfect example of the American Dream, since the main hero, Dexter, implemented each point of it, he was persistent and very hard-working, he was a very sensible and […]
• What Are the Literary Devices Used to Create the Image of Jay Gatsby?
• Analyze How Fitzgerald Uses Imagery in the Great Gatsby
• What Do Colors Symbolize in the Great Gatsby?
• How Does Fitzgerald Use Geographical Setting to Show the Contrast Between Social Classes in the Novel?
• How Does Fitzgerald Convey a Notion of the American Dream Through Metaphors and Symbols?
• What Does the Green Light in Daisy’s Window Represent in the Great Gatsby?
• What Does the Valley of Ashes Symbolize in the Great Gatsby?
• What Role Does Nick Carraway’s Narration Play in the Story? If We Got It Through an Omniscient Third-Person Narrator, What Would We Gain or Lose?
• Could the Story Have Been Set in Other Places, Like Chicago or Los Angeles, or Were New York City and Long Island Absolutely Necessary?
• Look at the Novel’s Opening Lines. If We Accept Nick’s Advice When We Read the Story, Will Our Views of It Change? Or, in Other Words, Does Refraining From Criticism Promote Compassion?
• Is There a Hidden Meaning of the Title of the Great Gatsby? What Is It?
• How Is the Color White Used Within the Novel? When Does It Make a False Representation of Innocence? When Does It Truly Represent Innocence?
• What Is the Role of a New York Setting in the Novel’s Storyline?
• What Is the Real Meaning of ‘Great’ in the Title of the Great Gatsby?
• What Significance Do Colors Have in the Party’s Descriptions in Chapter 3?
• Elaborate on the Green Light as the Symbol of the American Dream
• What Is the Meaning of the Phrase “Can’t Repeat the Past?.. Why of Course You Can!” What Does Gatsby Really Want From Daisy?
• What Role Do the Eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg Play in the Great Gatsby?
• How Is the Great Gatsby a Satirical Representation of the Society?
• Are the Rich in the Novel Really So Careless as Everyone Believes Them to Be?
• Create an Alternative Ending for the Great Gatsby. Justify Your Choice
• What Is the Relationship Between Those Born Rich and Those Who Became Rich in the Novel?
• Discuss Female Characters and Their Significance in the Great Gatsby
• Compare Gatsby and Wilson. In What Ways Are They Similar?
• Who Is the Most Responsible for Gatsby’s Death? Why Is It So?
• Why Do Tom and Daisy Stay Together at the End of the Novel?
• Does Gatsby’s Money Bring Him Real Happiness?
• Can Jay’s Feelings for Daisy in the Great Gatsby Be Considered Love?
• How Do Secondary Characters Affect the Story?
• Who Is the Real Hero in the Great Gatsby?
• Can We Call Jay Gatsby a Romantic Hero or a Villain?
• What Does Jay Gatsby Really Live For in the Novel: the Present or the Past?
• Compare Myrtle and Daisy
• What Does Tom’s Quarrel With Myrtle in Chapter 2 Tell Us About His Personality?
• Elaborate on How Both Tom and Gatsby Want to Change Not Only the Future, but the Past in Chapter 7.
• What Was Gatsby’s Power of Dreaming Like? Was Daisy a Worth Object?
• Is Anyone to Blame for Gatsby’s Death?
• Are There Any Moral Characters in the Novel?
• Can Jordan and Daisy Be Considered Perfect Role Models for the Upper Class in America? Why or Why Not?
• Is Gatsby Really Great? In What Way? How Does His Greatness Evolve as the Plot Unfolds?
• How Does Nick’s Character Change over the Course of the Great Gatsby?
• Does Gatsby Deserve the Definition of a Self-Made Man? Why or Why Not?
• What Role Does Daisy Play in the Conflict Between Gatsby & Tom?
• Describe How F.S. Fitzgerald’s Life Experiences Influenced the Great Gatsby
• What Are the Central Themes in the Great Gatsby?
• What Roles Do Fidelity and Infidelity Play in Fitzgerald’s the Great Gatsby?
• What Importance Does Sex Have in the Story?
• What Role Does Alcohol Play in the Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald?
• Did Fitzgerald Really Criticize the Idea of the American Dream in the Great Gatsby?
• Does Love Play Have Any Importance in the Great Gatsby?
• What Role Does the Relationship Between Geography and Social Values Play in the Novel?
• What Is the Meaning of Time in the Great Gatsby?
• How Do the Aristocratic East Eggers, Tom and the Sloanes, Regard Gatsby in Chapter 6? How Is Their Contempt Connected to the Theme of Social Class in the Novel?
• Analyze the Great Gatsby Through the Prism of Feminist Theory
• How Are the Themes of Kindness and Compassion Presented in the Great Gatsby?
• Describe How the Theme of Ambition Is Presented in the Novel
• Elaborate on How Fitzgerald Contrasts Education and Experience in the Great Gatsby
• Make a Critical Comparison of the Novel With the 2013 Movie
• Make a Comparison of the Novel With the 1949 Movie
• Compare the Great Gatsby Movies of 1949 and 2013
• Compare and Contrast Two Classic American Novels: The Great Gatsbyand the Grapes of Wrath
• How Are Donald Trump and the Great Gatsby’s Tom Buchanan Alike?
• Compare Miller’s Death of a Salesman and the Great Gatsby
• What Other Fictional or Non-fictional Character From a Book or Movie Can Nick Carraway Be Compared To?
• Make a Critical Comparison of the Sun Also Rises and the Great Gatsby
• Compare the Great Gatsby With a Farewell to Arms
• Make a Comparison of Daisy From the Great Gatsby With Henrietta Bingham From Irresistible
• What Pop Stars of Nowadays Daisy Can Be Compared To?
• Macbeth vs. Jay Gatsby: Make a Character Comparison
• Why does Daisy cry about the shirts in chapter 5 of The Great Gatsby?
• What is Daisy’s opinion of Gatsby’s party in chapter 6?
• How does The Great Gatsby explore the ideas of illusion versus reality?
• How did Gatsby measure the success of his party in chapter 6?
• What is the true relationship between Daisy and Tom in The Great Gatsby?
• What does Gatsby tell Nick about himself and his past?
• What role do the first lines of The Great Gatsby play?
• What destroyed Gatsby’s dreams in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald?
• What is the cause of the problem between Jordan and Nick?
• Describe Daisy and Gatsby’s new relationship. What is it like?
• Why does Jordan want to leave the group from East Egg?
• What does Old Money vs. New Money mean in The Great Gatsby?
• Which excerpt from The Great Gatsby is the best example of foreshadowing?
• How does Fitzgerald represent the society of his time in thenovel? Would you like to live in the Jazz Era? Why or why not?
• How does Nick describe himself at the beginning of The Great Gatsby?
• How do we know that Myrtle Wilson is not an intellectual?
• Who does the narrator think Daisy is at the end of the story?
• What role does the book “The Rise of the Colored Empires” play in The Great Gatsby?
• How is America shown in The Great Gatsby? What values do the East and the West represent?
• Why did Gatsby fail to achieve the American Dream?
• How did F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby reflect the culture of the 1920s?
• Which excerpt from The Great Gatsby best indicates that Nick is not fully content with his life?
• What role does social class in The Great Gatsby play?
• What does Nick mean by the last line of The Great Gatsby?
• What are the main differences between The Great Gatsby book and movie?
• How does Fitzgerald provide a critical social history of Prohibition-Era America in his novel?
• How does Nick know Daisy and Tom in The Great Gatsby?
• What did Dan Cody do for Gatsby? What did Gatsby learn from him?
• How does Myrtle behave as the party progresses in chapter 2?
• Describe the meeting between Gatsby and Daisy in chapter 5. What was it like?
• How does The Great Gatsby reflect the Jazz Age?
• What were the rumors about Gatsby?
• What does The Great Gatsby’s ending mean?
• What part does social class play in The Great Gatsby?
• Why was young Gatsby drawn to Daisy?
• How does Nick describe Tom Buchanan in chapter 1?
• In The Great Gatsby, is Nick a reliable narrator?
• What is the main conflict in The Great Gatsby?
• How does Nick meet Gatsby for the first time?
• Why is Gatsby great?
• How women are portrayed in The Great Gatsby?
• Who killed Myrtle in The Great Gatsby?
• What was Jay Gatsby’s real name & background?
• How is Gatsby different from his guests?
• Who killed Gatsby and how did that happen?
• In chapter 7, why does Gatsby stop giving parties?
• Does money buy love in The Great Gatsby?
• What does “owl eyes” reveal about Gatsby’s books?
• What does Gatsby want from Daisy in chapter 6?
• How does the Narrator describe Gatsby?
• What is Gatsby doing when Nick first sees him?
• How did Gatsby get rich?
• Is The Great Gatsby about love or money?
• Why did Daisy marry Tom in The Great Gatsby?
• What role does Dan Cody’s yacht play in Great Gatsby?
• Who attended Gatsby’s funeral?
• What is the climax of The Great Gatsby?
• What is Gatsby’s real history?
• How is society shown in The Great Gatsby?
• What does “her voice is full of money” mean?
• Short Summary
• Summary (Chapter 1)
• Summary (Chapter 2)
• Summary (Chapter 3)
• Summary (Chapter 4)
• Summary (Chapter 5)
• Summary (Chapter 6)
• Summary (Chapter 7)
• Summary (Chapter 8)
• Summary (Chapter 9)
• Symbolism & Style
• Quotes Explained
• Questions & Answers
• F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Biography
• A Good Man Is Hard to Find Essay Ideas
• The Road Not Taken Topics
• The Yellow Wallpaper Ideas
• Their Eyes Were Watching God Ideas
• The Picture of Dorian Gray Questions
• Heart of Darkness Essay Ideas
• Jane Eyre Ideas
• The Old Man and the Sea Research Topics
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — The Great Gatsby — The Great Gatsby as the Work of Modernism

The Great Gatsby as The Work of Modernism

• Categories: Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

About this sample

Words: 1863 |

Pages: 3.5 |

10 min read

Published: Jun 29, 2018

Words: 1863 | Pages: 3.5 | 10 min read

Table of contents

Introduction, examples of modernism in the great gatsby, works cited.

• Abrams, M.H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. Fortworth: Harcourt, 1999.
• Drabble, Margaret. Oxford Companion to English Literature. Oxford: Oxford, UP, 1985. 658.
• Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby [electronic version]. eBooks@Adelaide,1 June 2007.
• The University of Adelaide Library. Retrieved February 8, 2008. http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/f/fitzgerald/f_scott/gatsby/
• Holman, Hugh. A Handbook to Literature. New York, McMillan. 1992. 298-299.
• McMichael, George, ed. Anthology of American Literature. vol. II Upper Saddle River, N.J. Pearson, 2007. 983-984.

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The Great Gatsby

By f. scott fitzgerald, the great gatsby essay questions.

Analyze Fitzgerald's conception of the American Dream. Does he view it as totally dead, or is it possible to revive it?

Is Nick a reliable narrator? How does his point of view color the reality of the novel, and what facts or occurences would he have a vested interest in obscuring?

Trace the use of the color white in the novel. When does it falsify a sense of innocence? When does it symbolize true innocence?

Do a close reading of the description of the "valley of ashes." How does Fitzgerald use religious imagery in this section of the novel?

What does the green light symbolize to Gatsby? To Nick?

How does Fitzgerald juxtapose the different regions of America? Does he write more positively about the East or the Midwest?

What is the distinction between East and West Egg? How does one bridge the gap between the two?

In what ways are Wilson and Gatsby similar? Disimilar? Who is Nick more sympathetic to?

How does Fitzgerald treat New York City? What is permissable in the urban space that is taboo on the Eggs?

Is Tom most responsible for Gatsby's death? Daisy? Myrtle? Gatsby himself? Give reasons why or why not each character is implicated in the murder.

The Great Gatsby Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for The Great Gatsby is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

describe daisy and gatsby's new relationship

There are two points at which Daisy and Gatsby's relationship could be considered "new". First, it seems that their "new" relationship occurs as Tom has become enlightened about their affair. It seems as if they are happy...

Describe Daisy and Gatsby new relationship?

http://www.gradesaver.com/the-great-gatsby/q-and-a/describe-daisy-and-gatsbys-new-relationship-70077/

What are some quotes in chapter 1 of the great gatsby that show the theme of violence?

I don't recall any violence in in chapter 1.

Study Guide for The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby is typically considered F. Scott Fitzgerald's greatest novel. The Great Gatsby study guide contains a biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About The Great Gatsby
• The Great Gatsby Summary
• The Great Gatsby Video
• Character List

Essays for The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

• Foreshadowing Destiny
• The Eulogy of a Dream
• Materialism Portrayed By Cars in The Great Gatsby
• Role of Narration in The Great Gatsby
• A Great American Dream

Lesson Plan for The Great Gatsby

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to The Great Gatsby
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• The Great Gatsby Bibliography

Wikipedia Entries for The Great Gatsby

• Introduction

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New Essays on The Great Gatsby

Part of The American Novel

• Editor: Matthew J. Bruccoli
• Date Published: October 1985
• availability: Available
• format: Paperback
• isbn: 9780521319638

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The introduction to this volume charts the fortunes of The Great Gatsby from its mixed reception and disappointing sales on publication in 1925, through its increasing popularity in the 1940s, to its critical and popular elevation from the standing of an important 'period piece' to that of an undisputed classic of American literature. Of the five essays that follow, one traces this revival in greater detail, and another sets the book in the context of the perennial quest for the 'great American novel'. Two other essays examine the central from the perspective of a practising contemporary novelist.

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Product details.

• length: 132 pages
• dimensions: 216 x 140 x 8 mm
• weight: 0.18kg

Table of Contents

Series editor's preface 1. Introduction Matthew J. Bruccoli 2. Gatsby's long shadow Richard Anderson 3. Money, love, and aspiration in The Great Gatsby Roger Lewis 4. The idea of order at West Egg Susan Resneck Parr 5. The Great Gatsby and the Great American Novel Kenneth E. Eble 6. Fire and freshness: a matter of style in The Great Gatsby George Garrett Notes on contributors Selected bibliography.

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