<p> F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) Background:</p><p> Born in St. Paul, Minnesota</p><p> Went to Princeton, but dropped out, as he was not doing well.</p><p> Joined the army and was posted at Montgomery, Alabama, where he met Zelda Sayre.</p><p>Major Works:</p><p>This Side of Paradise – somewhat successful (1920); famous at 24</p><p>The Beautiful and the Damned (1922) -- not a huge success</p><p>The Great Gatsby (1925) – drew a great popular and critical response.</p><p> His work reflects the Jazz age and the American world of the twenties</p><p> His wife Zelda had a period of poor mental health and he took up drinking.</p><p> F. Scott Fitzgerald died in 1940 in Hollywood while writing The Last Tycoon.</p><p>Thematic Elements in The Great Gatsby:</p><p>The American Dream and its corruption / failure in the 1920’s</p><p>American Dream:</p><p>Myth that the new world is a land of equality and opportunity for all. This dream contrasts with the European view of society which is governed by a </p><p>K. Clark, River East Collegiate Page 1 relatively rigid social class system in which the social level a man is born into is where he finishes his life. The American Dream is the dream to break free from these structures, incorporating the belief that anyone can be successful in the new world through hard work.</p><p> The Great Gatsby is the story of an individual setting out with a dream of success. Gatsby’s motivation is not only material, he wants to win Daisy. Gatsby goes through much to rise in position, but it seems that a man cannot just come from anywhere and succeed in America. Gatsby has to create a past for himself, representing himself as British by calling attendance at Oxford a tradition in his family and attempting to establish that he comes from old money. He creates an image that follows the aristocratic model.</p><p> In order to achieve his dream, he must be deceptive by representing the idea of success in an old world way. It seems that the American dream doesn’t really exist.</p><p> Gatsby is still not accepted by East Egg. He doesn’t quite fit into their society. There are subtle boundaries that can never be crossed in social class. Gatsby in his pink suit seems vulgar to the East Eggers, who are disdainful of the nouveau riche.</p><p>The corruption of the American Dream goes further in other characters:</p><p>Tom Buchanan:</p><p>K. Clark, River East Collegiate Page 2  Representative of the American upper class. He has never worked for anything in his life. His success is inherited.</p><p> Those who are truly successful in America have inherited their possessions as have those who were successful in the old world. Fitzgerald shows it as a false dream.</p><p> The American Dream is an illusion. It is really old money that has its way.</p><p> Tom, though he has never really worked, fears the ‘Rise of the Colored Empires’ as a threat to his background and success.</p><p> Tom and Daisy are representatives of the elite which governs America. They are more corrupt than anyone else, taking advantage of the people of other social classes.</p><p>Eg) George is morally honest and hardworking, but the Wilsons are the victims of the upper classes.</p><p>Gatsby is a victim of the real upper class.</p><p> Those of lower social class become the playthings of the rich.</p><p> George is deceived by Tom. Tom pretends that he will sell him his car in order to be around the garage.</p><p> Myrtle has a material dream of success. Tom rewards her with trinkets.</p><p> In a sense, Gatsby is destroyed by Tom and Daisy.</p><p> Similarly, after Daisy kills Myrtle, Tom and Daisy get back together to pick up the pieces and avoid trouble.</p><p> Nick imagines that Tom told Wilson that Gatsby was involved.</p><p>K. Clark, River East Collegiate Page 3 Fitzgerald is aware of the shallowness of the prosperity of the apparently successful:</p><p> Notion of hollow, dry, infertile society with superficial values.</p><p> Wasteland imagery: Valley of ashes representing a society fallen into despair and lack of true productivity.</p><p>Juxtaposition of West and East</p><p> Symbolic value: applies to entire nation</p><p> Impression created by the East is contrary to that of the West:</p><p>West Egg East Egg  Frontier  Centre of Civilization  Romantic in the sense that it  Cultivated / Sophisticated is closer to nature  Old money  Unsophisticated by way of contrast with East Egg Motifs in  New money the Work:</p><p>The Green Light:</p><p> Nick’s return from his visit to Daisy’s.</p><p> The first time we see Gatsby, he is reaching for the green light. We later learn that Daisy lives directly across from him.</p><p>“he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and, as far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I </p><p>K. Clark, River East Collegiate Page 4 glanced seaward – and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock” (20 – 21).</p><p> Greenness may imply going toward the future in automobile terms.</p><p> Light seems to be drawing Gatsby toward the promises of the future.</p><p> The flashing light is elusive like a dream. It suggests something of the nature of Gatsby’s dreams. The promises are never fully fulfilled.</p><p> “Gatsby bought the house so that Daisy would be just across the bay.” (78)</p><p> (94) During tour of the house. Daisy, Nick, and Jay are gathered at the window:</p><p>“’If it wasn’t for the mist we could see your home across the bay,” said Gatsby. ‘You always have a green light that burns all night at the end of your dock.’</p><p>Daisy put her arm through his abruptly, but he seemed absorbed in what he had just said. Possibly it had occurred to him that the colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever. Compared to the great distance that had separated him from Daisy it had seemed very near to her. It had seemed as close as a star to the moon. Now it was again a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one.” (93)</p><p> Disappointment when a dream becomes reality. The perfection dreamed of falls short in reality.</p><p> Comment on dreams associated with the light:</p><p>“There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams – not through her own fault, but because of the colossal</p><p>K. Clark, River East Collegiate Page 5 vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart” (95 - 96).</p><p> The light is the object of his romantic quest, but in reality it seems to crumble around him.</p><p> Daisy falls short of his ideal. She plays with people’s lives, but when in trouble, she runs to Tom</p><p>“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter – tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther... And one fine morning --“ (180)</p><p> Parallel of the American Dream and the Green light</p><p> The dream of the ideal falls short in reality. The dream is an illusion.</p><p>Clocks and Time</p><p> The nature of Gatsby’s dream is to recover a moment in the past, as if in a Godlike way he can manipulate time.</p><p> (86) Gatsby is leaning on a broken clock. Suitable. He wants to turn back time.</p><p>K. Clark, River East Collegiate Page 6  Meeting associated with Gatsby’s mistaken belief that he can make time go backwards.</p><p> (110) Nick and Gatsby are discussing the party:</p><p>“ ‘You can’t repeat the past’</p><p>... “I’m going to fix everything just the way it was before’, he said, nodding determinedly, ‘she’ll see.’ He talked a lot about the past, and I gathered that he wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy. His life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was...” (110)</p><p> Gatsby flashes back to the actual scene. There is something mythological about fulfilling his quest.</p><p> Gatsby’s desire to turn back time is evident in other situations:</p><p>-He wants Daisy to tell Tom that she never loved him.</p><p>-The existence of Daisy’s child becomes a problem. (117) He looks at the child in surprise. She is evidence that time has passed.</p><p>-Daisy also makes an attempt to erase time. She tries to remove all traces of Tom’s paternity by emphasizing that the child’s traits come from her.</p><p>-Gatsby admits that there are impediments to his plan:</p><p>“I can’t say anything in his house” (120). He is running up against limits.</p><p> The whole thing comes out (130)</p><p>K. Clark, River East Collegiate Page 7  Tom exposes himself as a racist and a hypocrite:</p><p>“I suppose the latest thing is to sit back and let Mr. Nobody from Nowhere make love to your wife. Well, if that’s the idea you can count me out... Nowadays people begin by sneering at family life and family institutions, and the next they’ll throw everything overboard and have intermarriage between black and white.” (130)</p><p>“I was tempted to laugh whenever he opened his mouth. The transition from libertine to prig was so complete.” (130)</p><p> Gatsby is forced to say what he wants Daisy to say.</p><p> Daisy returns to Tom for security.</p><p> Attempts to turn back time in this situation are unsuccessful, but Gatsby is not entirely disillusioned.</p><p> Gatsby decides that there is something larger directing his relationship with Daisy. He sees any love she may have felt for Tom as being only a trivial emotion in comparison with the great scheme of things: “’In any case,’ he said, ‘it was just personal.’” (152)</p><p>Other images associated with the presentation of America in the 1920’s:</p><p>The Valley of Ashes:</p><p> Perhaps partly influenced by the imagery of Eliot’s Waste Land.</p><p>K. Clark, River East Collegiate Page 8  America has lost its fertility and is apparently in a state of social decay.</p><p> Valley associated with Wilson’s garage and the life of the lower classes unable to rise in their stations. Everything dull, grey, hopeless.</p><p> Seems a kind of underworld bordered by rivers.</p><p> The palaces of the rich are shallow / superficial / immoral.</p><p> Pessimistic view of the state of modern America.</p><p>T. J. Eckleburg:</p><p> Looks dispassionately upon the world below.</p><p> Either portrays an unconcerned God, OR shows how very few people are concerned about the God that watches them. He is uncared for and unpainted. America has seemingly lost its spiritual roots, forgetting that God is watching them. </p><p> Ashen landscape related to a lack of spiritual life.</p><p> The valley of ashes is a kind of Hades with rivers that separate it from the world above.</p><p>K. Clark, River East Collegiate Page 9</p>