Introduction to the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

1. Group Task
Sem : II (M.A.)
Paper : 106
(The Twentieth Century Literature:1900 to World War II)
Topic Name : The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Given by : Prof. Dr. Dilip Barad
Prepared by : Daya Vaghani
Riddhi Bhatt
Chandani Pandya
M. K. Bhavanagar University
Department of English

2. F. Scott Fitzgerald
 Born September 24, 1896
 Died December 21, 1940
 Only son of an “aristocratic father” and “energetic mother” – named after Francis Scott
Key, a relative of his father’s
 Went to private schools and attended college at Princeton
 Leading figure in a dramatic society, The Triangle Club
 Neglected his studies – flunked out and joined the army
 Met his wife, Zelda, while stationed in Alabama
 She refused to marry him due to his lack of success
 1920 - published his first novel
 This Side of Paradise – it made him famous!
 Zelda agreed to marry him
 Called the “prince and princess” of the generation
 The couple had a daughter, Scotty, in 1921

3.  Although Fitzgerald was a famous author, the couple spent the
money much faster than he earned it.
 1935-37 is known as the “crack up” in Fitzgerald life
◦Decent into alcoholism
◦In debt
◦Unable to be a present father for Scotty (sent to boarding schools)
 Fitzgerald went to Hollywood in 1937 to try his luck at
screenwriting
◦He won a substantial contract with MGM, but still wasn’t
financially viable due to his debt
◦Met and fell in love with Sheilah Graham
 Fitzgerald died of a heart attack in Graham’s apartment in 1940
 Zelda died in a fire in 1948

4. His Famous Works
Novels
 This Side of Paradise
(1920)
 The Beautiful and the
Damned (1922)
 The Great Gatsby (1925)
 Tender is the Night (1934)
The Last Tycoon (unfinished
Magazines,
Newspaper Short
Stories
 Featured in Esquire, The
Saturday Evening Post
 All the Sad Young Men (best
collection of short stories)

5. The Great Gatsby
Key Facts
 Author -F. Scott Fitzgerald
 Date Of First Publication- 1925
 Publisher- Charles Scribner’s Sons
 Type Of Work- Novel
 Genre - Tragedy, Realism, Modernism, Social Satire
 Language- English
 Time And Place Written- 1923–1924, America and France
 Setting (Time) Summer 1922
 Settings (Place) -Long Island and New York City
 Protagonist – Jay Gatsby

6. Characters
 Nick Carraway - narrator
 Jay Gatsby – Protagonist
 Tom & Daisy Buchanan –
 Jordan Baker – based off Edith Cummings, 1923 women’s
golf champion; combines two car names – the sporty Jordan
and conservative Baker Electric
 George & Myrtle Wilson – Tom’s mistress and her
husband; live in the valley of ashes
 Meyer Wolfshiem – based on Arnold Rothstein, a real-life
gangster

7. Title ' The Great Gatsby'
 The title “The Great Gatsby” is displaying the significance of
the character Jay Gatsby. Gatsby is a delusional dreamer that
achieved the American dream and used its purpose to impress
his love.
 The reason the author decides to put the word “Great” before
Gatsby is to signify Gatsby’s popularity in the story. Everyone
sees Gatsby as one of the wealthiest men alive. He throws
parties all night to showcase his grandeur. The reason why the
author chose Gatsby’s name as the title is because it also
shows the general theme of the novel.

8. Introduction to 'The Great Gatsby'
 In 1925, The Great Gatsby was published and hailed as an artistic
and material success for its young author, F. Scott Fitzgerald.
 It is considered a vastly more mature and artistically masterful
treatment of Fitzgerald's themes than his earlier fiction. These
works examine the results of the Jazz Age generation's adherence
to false material values.
 In nine chapters, Fitzgerald presents the rise and fall of Jay
Gatsby, as related in a first-person narrative by Nick Carraway.
Carraway reveals the story of a farmer's son-turned racketeer,
named Jay Gatz. His ill-gotten wealth is acquired solely to gain
acceptance into the sophisticated, moneyed world of the woman
he loves, Daisy Fay Buchanan.

9.  His romantic illusions about the power of money to buy respectability
and the love of Daisy—the "golden girl" of his dreams—are skillfully and
ironically interwoven with episodes that depict what Fitzgerald viewed as
the callousness and moral irresponsibility of the affluent American
society of the 1920s.
 America at this time experienced a cultural and lifestyle revolution. In
the economic arena, the stock market boomed, the rich spent money on
fabulous parties and expensive acquisitions, the automobile became a
symbol of glamour and wealth, and profits were made, both legally and
illegally. The whirlwind pace of this post-World War I era is captured in
Fitzgerald's Gatsby, whose tragic quest and violent death foretell the
collapse of that era and the onset of disillusionment with the American
dream. By the end of the novel, the reader slowly realizes that Carraway
is transformed as he recognizes Gatsby's moral superiority to the
Buchanans. In fact, the triumph of Gatsby's legacy is reached by Nick
Carraway's ruminations at the end of the book about Gatsby's valiant,
however futile, attempts to regain his past love.

10. Themes
 The Decline of the American Dream in the 1920s
 The Hollowness of the Upper Class
 The American Dream
 Love and Marriage
 Death and Failure
 Morality and Ethics
 The Mutability of Identity

11. Motifs
 Money
 Hypocrisy
 Friendship
 Carelessness
 Dishonesty
 The American Dream
 Cars/Driving
 Ashes/Dust
 Time/Clocks
 Colors: green, white, yellow, silver, gold

12. Symbols
 The green light at the end of Buchanan’s dock
 Gatsby’s library/books
 Dr. T.J. Eckleburg’s eyes on the billboard
 Owl Eyes
 Valley of Ashes
 East Egg/West Egg