The Great Gatsby

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The Great Gatsby

• Themes!

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Theme 1

• Gatsbys Self Invention
• Thoughts?

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Gatsbys Self Invention

• Post WW1, American Reality was one of loss,
  particularly for youth
• The American psyche (shared existence) carried a
  profound sense that life was meaningless
• The Pursuit of money now overtook the previous
  cultural roots of working together for a common
  good. This was the concept of the American Dream.

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Gatsbys Self Invention

• Fitzgerald embodied this concept in his creation
  of his character Gatsby, by imposing on him a
  sense of rootlessness
• Gatsby acts for the characters around him,
  becoming that person that he wishes to be in
  their eyes
• He is self-invented
• He started as James Gatz, but created his name,
  Jay Gatsby before boarding Dan Codys yacht.

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Gatsbys Self Invention

• Gatsby confides in Carraway that he misled Daisy
  five years earlier into believing that he was
  wealthier than he is, and that he used his army
  uniform as a guise to hide the fact that he could
  not afford more expensive clothes.
• He hides the illegal source of his wealth
  (bootlegging and selling stolen or forged bonds).
  Carraway does not learn the truth until after
  Gatsbys death.

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Gatsbys Self Invention

• Henry C. Gatz displays an old copy of Hopalong
  Cassidy showing a schedule Gatsby penned in when
  he was a boy. This shows that even as a child,
  Gatsby sought to transform and improve himself.
• Material displays define him (ie. The yellow car
  that Tom Buchanan considered clownish)
• None of his displays of wealth provide his life
  with meaning because his love for Daisy goes
  unfulfilled

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Gatsbys Self Invention

• Roger Lewis, a critic, comments that Gatsby
  sought to recreate the hpast by marrying Daisy,
  but with his new wealthy persona, in tact.
• Lewis states

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• When ones sense of self is self-created, when
  one is present at ones own creation, so to
  speak, one is in a paradoxical position. One
  knows everything about oneself that can be known,
  and yet, the significance of such knowledge is
  unclear, for no outside contexts exist to create
  meaning. The result is that the self-created man
  turns to the past, for he can know that. It is
  an inescapable context. For Gatsby, and for the
  novel, the past is crucial.

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Any Thoughts?

• Start to consider the relationship of Gatsby as a
  Christ-like figure. What connections can you make?

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Theme 2

• Love and Money

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Love and Money

• Gatsbys adoration of Daisy is at the heart of
  the plot.
• Gatsby becomes the only character to see clearly
  the connection between his quest for the ideal of
  love and that of wealth
• He describes Daisys voice by saying, her voice
  is full of moneyshe is a golden girl.
• To Gatsby, her charm and his attraction to her is
  allied in her wealth.

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• Roger Lewis states
• It is true that from Wolfsheim to Nick Carraway,
  people are in the East to earn their livings But
  Gatsby with his boundless capacity for love, a
  capacity unique in the sterile world he inhabits,
  sees the pursuit of money as a substitute for
  love. He knows himself well enough to see that
  his own attraction toward love is tied to his
  love for Daisy. The fact that Gatsbys money,
  like his love, should be self-made gives his
  description of her voice authority and depth.

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Theme 3

• An Ambivalent Narrator
• (Definition- having opposing attitudes or more
  than one point of view)

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An Ambivalent Narrator

• Nick Carraway is a practical character and
  therefore is suitable to tell the story
• Carraways character is marked by a need for
  order, which, although allowing for the story to
  be narrated, means that for a majority of the
  story, he exists in a state of relative
  ambivalence
• He prides himself on his honest I am one of
  the few honest people I have ever known.
• The reader belives and identifies with him

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An Ambivalent Narrator

• His relative position to the characters plays a
  role in his ability to narrate
• A critic, A.E. Dyson explains, Carraway is one
  middle class character in the novel - vaguely at
  home in the worlds of both Daisy and Myrtle, but
  not belonging to neither, and so able to see and
  judge both very clearly.

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An Ambivalent Narrator

• He seeks to reserve judgment
• However David Parker, another literary critic
  states that Nick is slow-thinking. He does
  not learn immediately from the experiences of
  Gatsby, but slowly, reluctantly, and in
  retrospectThe reader sees him, in the course of
  the novel, gradually coming to realization Nick
  wants the world and the people in it to be
  cleaner and simpler that they are. This affects
  his reliability as a narrator.

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Theme 4

• Gatsby as a Heroic Romantic

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Gatsby as a Heroic Romantic

• When Fitzgerald was young he fell in love with a
  girl named Ginevia King, who he later found out
  called him the poor boy, and it crushed him.
  This echoes the relationship between Gatsby and
  Daisy.
• Daisy does not share the romantic sentiments of
  Gatsby and thus belongs to Tom, be cause he
  understands the nature of things, which reflects
  how she acts.

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Gatsby as a Heroic Romantic

• Daisys character is too much like Tom, so she is
  able to use Gatsby the same way Tom uses Myrtle.
• Although Toms attitude is realistic, it is hard
  against Gatsbys romantic ideas.
• The reality shatters the fantasy

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Gatsby as a Heroic Romantic

• The events leading to Gatsbys death symbolize
  that Gatsbys downfall, though inevitable, is
  by no means an unambiguous triumph of moral
  powers. His death is brought about by Daisy who
  first lets him shield her and then deserts him
  by Tom who directs the demented Wilson to the
  place where he is to be found and by Wilson
  himself- a representative of the ash-grey men who
  comes to Gatsby, in his disillusionment, as a
  terrible embodiment of the realities which have
  killed his dream. (Dyson)

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Gatsby as a Heroic Romantic

• Gatsby pays the price of death for his loyalty,
  but it is his willingness to adhere to his heroic
  passions that allows Carraway, and the reader, to
  overlook the faults of Gatsby and to have the
  most repect for him as a result.

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Other Themes Unexplored

• Nick Carraways Price The Loss of Innocence
• The Art of The Great Gatsby