Setting/ Staging/ Tone and Mood The story takes place during the 1920s, there are four

major settings: West Egg East Egg New York City The Valley of Ashes

The West Egg is the less fashionable side of Long Island where Gatsby and Nick live. The East Egg is the fashionable side of Long Island where the Buchanans and other old money people live. The Valley of Ashes is the desolate wasteland where the Wilsons live. New York City is a symbol of what America has become in the 1920s a place where anything goes, where money is made and bootleggers flourish. The mood is largely dark, pessimistic, and vapid as set by the purposelessness and carelessness of the wealthy, the ongoing string of meaningless parties, the ugliness of the Valley of Ashes, and the tragic deaths of Gatsby and Myrtle. Only Nick Carraway's honest and moral view of life breaks the sense of tragedy. Throughout this passage, Nick portrays a tone of admiration towards Gatsby with heroic, respectable, god-like references. Nick's view of Gatsby is described by saying."... [That] there is something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life... Then later in the passage, speaking of the "extraordinary gift of hope", Nick later states."...as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again." In this quote, Nick is referring to Gatsby's hope. He gives Gatsby exclusivity and isolates Gatsby from everyone else in a positive way. The fact that Gatsby is the only one that Nick might ever find to be like that further idolizes him and establishes his tone towards Gatsby Minor characters Minor Character Meyer Wolfsheim Characterization Jewish man, a gambler who fixed the World Series She defends her sister after her death, with all the reporters McKee is in the artistic game, he is a Relationship to Main Character Friend of Gatsby

Catherine

Sister of Myrtle Wilson Myrtles New York friends

Chester and Lucille McKee

Owl Eyes Ewing Klipspringer Henry C. Gatz Michaelis Dan Cody

photographer Drunken party-goer He is a sponger He helped build up the country Witness of the death of Myrtle Wilson Millionaire, teaches Gatsby how to make money

Friend of Gatsby Friend of Gatsby Dad of Gatsby George Wilson neighbor Friend of Gatsby

Motifs Geography Throughout the novel, places and settings epitomize the various aspects of the 1920s American society that Fitzgerald depicts. East Egg represents the old aristocracy, West Egg the newly rich, the valley of ashes the moral and social decay of America, and New York City the uninhibited, amoral quest for money and pleasure. Additionally, the East is connected to the moral decay and social cynicism of New York, while the West is connected to more traditional social values and ideals. Nicks reveals his sensitivity to this dichotomy: though it is set in the East, the story is really one of the West, as it tells how people originally from west of the Appalachians react to the pace and style of life on the East Coast. Symbols The green light Situated at the end of Daisys East Egg dock and barely visible from Gatsbys West Egg lawn, the green light represents Gatsbys hopes and dreams for the future. Gatsby associates it with Daisy, and he reaches toward it in the darkness as a guiding light to lead him to his goal. Because Gatsbys quest for Daisy is broadly associated with the American dream, the green light also symbolizes that more generalized ideal. Nick compares the green light to how America, rising out of the ocean, must have looked to early settlers of the new nation. The valley of ashes The valley of ashes between West Egg and New York City consists of a long stretch of desolate land created by the dumping of industrial ashes. It represents the moral and social decay that results from the uninhibited pursuit of wealth, as the rich indulge themselves with regard for nothing but their own pleasure. The

valley of ashes also symbolizes the plight of the poor, like George Wilson, who live among the dirty ashes and lose their vitality as a result The eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are a pair of fading, bespectacled eyes painted on an old advertising billboard over the valley of ashes. They may represent God staring down upon and judging American society as a moral wasteland, though the novel never makes this point explicitly. The connection between the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg and God exists only in George Wilsons grief-stricken mind. This lack of concrete significance contributes to the unsettling nature of the image. Thus, the eyes also come to represent the essential meaninglessness of the world and the arbitrariness of the mental process by which people invest objects with meaning. Nick explores these ideas, when he imagines Gatsbys final thoughts as a depressed consideration of the emptiness of symbols and dreams. Themes The Death of a Dream .......Gatsby dreams of one day being reunited with Daisy Buchanan. To win her back, he makes a fortune apparently through dealings with mobsters so that he can compete in the moneyed world of Daisy. But though his wealth buys him a place in elite society, it cannot buy him Daisy. Ultimately, he becomes a man who has everything but ends up with nothing. The Death of an Ideal .......After Europeans colonized America, the New World offered them the dream of a better life if they worked at honest jobs and held fast to noble goals and ideals. Everyone had a chance to fulfill his dream, for everyone was equal. In The Great Gatsby, the central characters achieve wealth and social status. But their craving for material possessions and high living overcomes the desire to aspire to noble ideals. Racism and snobbery obviate equality. Selfishness undermines selflessness. .Corruption in Capitalist America .......The First World War made America a powerful nation, not only militarily but also economically. Factories mass-produced cars, radios, telephones, kitchen appliances, and other goods. Jobs opened at home, and markets for Americanmade products opened abroad. Hollywood and the entertainment industry flourished. Even gangsters thrived, thanks in part to the Volstead Act, a new law passed to enforce the 18th Amendment prohibition of the manufacture, sale, and distribution of alcoholic beverages. Mobs circumvented the law, making and selling booze on a large scale at speakeasies (nightclubs that served the liquor) and

bribing many police officers to look the other way. .......In the meantime, America's well-to-do bought what they wanted: new homes, fast cars, the latest fashions. And they threw parties, like those at Gatsby's, where they consumed illegal gin and whiskey, danced to the hottest jazz, gossiped, met paramours, and made shady business deals. It is this self-indulgent, materialistic, corrupt society that Fitzgerald holds up to public view in The Great Gatsby. What Money Cannot Buy: Happiness .......Gatsby and the Buchanans have everything that they want materially but little, if anything, spiritually. Gatsby tries to buy the one thing that will make him happy, the love of Daisy, but fails. Meyer Wolfsheim attempts to buy the 1919 World Series, bribing Chicago White Sox players to throw the series. Although the novel does not discuss at length the series and its outcome, readers of Fitzgerald's novel well knew all the details. After the series, suspicions of a fix surfaced, and four of the eight players who reportedly accepted bribes admitted their guilt to a grand jury. In a trial, the accused players were acquitted because key evidence could not be found. However, the baseball commissioner forbade all eight players including one of the greatest players in the history of baseball, Shoeless Joe Jackson from ever playing professional baseball again. Irresponsibility .......Tom Buchanan, Daisy Buchanan, and Jordan Baker all act irresponsibly. Born into wealthy families that saw to their every need, they expect others such as servants and friends to look out for their welfare while they go their merry way. Jordan Baker drives carelessly and expects others to get out of the way. Daisy shirks her responsibility as a mother. Tom cheats on his wife with Myrtle Wilson and openly crows about his affair. Nick Carraway says of the Buchanans, "They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back to their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they made." .......Near the end of the novel, Daisy strikes and kills Myrtle Wilson in a hit-and-run accident while driving home from New York in Gatsby's car. Gatsby is in a passenger seat. But Daisy never admits that she was at the wheel when the accident occurred. Tom Buchanan, who knows all the details of the accident, implicates Gatsby when talking with Myrtle's husband, George Wilson. So Gatsby takes the blame and dies at the hands of Wilson. Bigotry .......Many Americans of the 1920's were openly bigoted against blacks, Jews, Roman Catholics, and other racial, ethnic, and religious groups. When Nick Carraway is a dinner guest at the Buchanan home, Tom Buchanan exhibits bigotry when he discusses a book he is reading, The Rise of the Coloured Empires. Of the author, he says, "This fellow has worked out the whole thing. It's up to us who are the dominant race to watch out for these other races will have control of things." At

a small party in Tom's New York City apartment, Mrs. Lucille McKee, one of the guests, observes, "I almost married a little kyke who'd been after me for years. I knew he was below me. Everybody kept saying to me: 'Lucille, that man's way below you!' But if I hadn't met Chester, he'd of got me sure." Reference Michael Cummings. "Study Guide." Free Study Guides for Shakespeare and Other Authors. 2011. Web. 27 Aug. 2011. http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides2/Gatsby.html