• Some readers may argue that Nick's 1st person narration is unreliable
• Nick says at the start of the novel 'I'm inclined to reserve all judgement'.
  
  • However, at moments Nick is sharp, disapproving & cynical.
  • Describes Gatsby as representing everything that makes Nick feel 'unaffected scorn', Tom Daisy are 'careless people' & Jordan is 'incurably dishonest'
• Results in readers contemplating whether they can trust Nick
  
  
  

• Nick isn't classically unreliable, Fitzgerald gives no indications that Nick is lying to the reader or that his version of events directly contradicts anyone else's
  
  • truthful 'I am one of the few honest people I have ever known' description makes readers question how much they can trust Nick

• In some passages, Nick's voice is one completely & he narrates thoughts & feelings of characters as though he is inside their heads
  
  • Gatsby tells Nick about his past with Daisy, Nick writes directly from Gatsby's point of view 'His heart beat faster as Daisy's white face came up on his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl... his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited...'
  • Passages presented as recollections Gatsby has told Nick, so they don't violate 1st person narration
    

• Nick sees Gatsby as a symbol of hope
  
  • Making his perspective biased & readers question his representation of all characters
• Bias is clear at beginning of novel, 'there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life'. Readers are inclined to see Gatsby as a sensitive & to side with him in the romantic triangle
  
  • The fact he's involved in adultery, organised crime are justified by the romantic lengths to which he'll go to be reunited with Daisy
• Nick feels contempt for Tom & to lesser extent, Daisy, & his personal feelings for the characters colour his presentation of events

Chapter 1:

• Nick presents scene, set in Buchanans house that involves dramatic dialogue between characters. Effective way to vary tone
  
  • Fitzgerald prevents Nick's voice from seeming monotonous or self-absorbed
    
    
    

• Words & actions foreshadow others in the novel
  
  
  

• After Tom hurts Daisy's finger
  
  • Nick interrupts dialogue with comment on the distinction between social manners in the American East & West
    
    • Dinners in East = predictable & drift to an inevitable conclusion
    • West = plenty of nervous energy, may result in uncomfortable situations, but at least they have life
    • Each phase of Western dinner party is surge into uncertain future
• Nick building distinction that runs throughout novel between hopeful, forward looking west & bored, trapped East.

• Nick's relationship with Jordan baker develops quickly. Questions about trust in him

Chapter 1

• He reaches toward it in the darkness as a guiding light to lead him to Daisy (his goal/ American dream)
  
  • Green light also symbolises the American dream

• Represents the plight of the poor, like George Wilson, live among the ashes & lose their vitality as a result

• Gatsby & Daisy's reunion begins amid pouring rain, proving awkward & melancholy
  
  • Their love rewaken'` just as the sun begins to come out

• Gatsby's climatic confrontation with Tom occurs on the hottest day of the summer, under the scorching sin

Symbol

• Attempt to stop time & restore his relationship with Daisy to the way it was 5 years ago

Chapter 1: 'He stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling. [...] distinguished nothing except a single green light'

Chapter 5: 'You always have a green light that burns all night at the end of your dock'

'Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us'

'So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past'

Chapter 2: 'above the grey land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg.'
'The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic—their retinas are one yard high. They look out of no face but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles.'

• Myrtle seeing Tom with Gatsby's car is another crucial plot point.
• Myrtle's despair at seeing Tom with his "wife" is linked to T. J. Eckleburg's dead eyes.

• Myrtle's death destroys Wilson's dream, leaving him nothing.
• The Roaring Twenties conflict between old and new money has destroyed him: he can't even distinguish an advertisement from God.
• Wilson's "way" of finding out who killed Myrtle is mysterious. Fitzgerald is building tension.

• Nick describes the novel as a book about Westerners, a 'story of the West' > all characters hail from places other than East
• The American idea of going to West to seek & make one's fortune on the frontier turned on its ear in the 1920s stock boom
• The split between the eastern & western regions of US mirrored i Gatsby by the divide between East Egg & West Egg

Chapter 3
'On a chance we tried an important-looking door, & walked into a high Gothic library, panelled with carved English oak'

Chapter 5
'That huge place there?' she cried pointing. 'Do you like it?'
'I love it, but I don't see how you live there all alone'
'I keep always keep it full of interesting people, night & day. People who do interesting things. Celebrated people'

Chapter 6
"I wouldn't ask too much of her," I ventured. "You can't repeat the past."
"Can't repeat the past?" he cried incredulously. "Why of course you can!"
He looked around him wildly, as if the past were lurking here in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand.

Motif - Driving

• Roaring twenties were also a time of overindulgence, negligence, & selfishness.
• Various characters own expensive cars that drive recklessly, which reflects a broader culture of carelessness

• We get to know Gatsby in the same was as in real life when we become acquainted with a friend > progressively by fitting together fragments that are picked up as we read the novel
  
  
  

• 1st Gatsby appears to Nick appears to Nick as a pictorial vision, an emblematic figure that is almost real in the night 'a figure had emerged from the shadow [...] regarding the silver pepper of the stars'
• Then through Nick's narrative we move forward & backward over Gatsby's past

Throughout Nick is back in the Mid-West & reflects on his past experience

• There's a network of correspondences & sharp contrast between the prologue & the epilogue

• Nick eulogises Gatsby through to the end because he was an idealist
• Framing passages explore the riddle, enigma that is at the heart of Nick's fascination for Gatsby

1. Gatsby's encounter with Dan Cody recounted in chapter 6
2. Love affair between Gatsby & Daisy which took place 5 years ago in Chapter 4 & 6 & 8, from various points of view & with various degrees of fullness
3. Gatsby's war experiences & his trip back to Louisville after his discharge in Chapter 8
4. Gatsby's entry into his mysterious occupation in the underworld through Wolfshiem's agency

• Scene from first part paired with a corresponding on from last part
• Scene at the Buchanans in Chapter 1 > Chapter 7. Both followed by a trip to New York
• Tom is no longer called by his mistress but by his mistress's husband
• Chapter 1 Nick stares as Gatsby holding out his arms towards green light > chapter 7 is the house in West Egg which Gatsby points out to Tom

• Conveys the giddiness of the 20s
• Patchy & disjointed structure to picture a universe that is on the brink of collapse

• Nick escapes from Myrtle's party, finds himself with McKee
• Disjointed speech are uttered without an explanation
• Are they senseless words pronounced by an intoxicated man?

• Characters don't finish their sentences 'Gatsby began leaving his elegant sentences unfinished' or 'I am the son of some wealthy people in the Middle West - all dead now'
  
  
  

• Other characters abruptly interrupt their speeches by unexpected lapses into silence
• Wolfshiem fills in unspoken words by a wave of his hand 'Mr Wolfsheim swallowed a new sentence he was starting & lapsed into a somnambulatory abstraction'

• Tension between moving on, progressing & regressing being propelled into the future & thrown back into the past which informs the narrative
• Allusions to wrecked cars, lives & broken noses that ironically comment on the broken central dream

• 'Jazz Age' describes the decade of decadence & prosperity that America enjoyed in the 1920s
• After WW1 ended, US experienced an enormous economic expansion
• Surging economy turned the 1920s into a time of easy money, hard drinking & lavish parties
• 1920s = time of great optimism, Fitzgerald portrays the much bleaker side of the revelry by focussing on its indulgence, hypocrisy, shallow recklessness & perilous, fatal, consequences
• TGG depicted the detail of the culture at the time

• Aeschylus, Sophocles & Euripides wrote tragic plays in the fifth century
  
  • Involved the downfall of a noble protagonist who is frustrated by intervention of the gods or by adverse circumstances, compounded by the effect of some personal flow or an error of judgement
  • Sometimes, reversal of fortunes results in the death of the hero; often accompanied by the clearer nature of human life

• Can the death of Gatsby in 1922 tragic compared with all the deaths lost during the world war

• Thomas Hardy suggested that tragic literature portrays 'the worthy encompassed by the inevitable'.
• Tragedy occurs when an individual whose virtue or merit is obvious suffers because they have no control over a course of events that unfolds with a kind of mechanical inevitability, indifferent to the fate of an individual
• Is Gatsby worthy & his death inevitable?

• In 1949 essay 'Tragedy & the Common Man' American dramatist Arthur Miller redefined the tragic hero as an ordinary person struggling to maintain human dignity
• Gatsby has raised his social status but his rise to wealth isn't a dignified process

• Modern novelists realised the they offer great potential for increasing the psychological & thematic richness of a story
• Fitzgerald was particularly impressed by the depth of meaning achieved by such means in Joseph Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness'
• His own frame narrative for TGG tells of Nick Carraway's return to the Middle West where he settled down to write an account og events that happened in New York
• Nick's point of view as a narrator becomes an explicit ingredient in the novel, which we need to take into account as we read #

• Symbols such as the green light create mystery around Gatsby's American Dream, for example, when he is a mysterious figure reaching out towards it, we are unaware why
• At first readers may interpret that Gatsby's American Dream is wealth, soon to find out that his proclaimed wealth & life is to obtain Daisy
• Towards the end of the novel, the mystery becomes whether he really will fully obtain/win Daisy over

• Gatsby is mysterious
  
  • Particularly with personal life & his history
• Comes across as an observer to everyone else
  
  • He prefers to watch his parties take place rather than join them

• Love is tied to class
  
  • Gatsby fell for Daisy & Daisy promised to wait for him after the war
  • Any chance of a real relationship was precluded by Gatsby's lower social class
  • Instead of waiting, Daisy married Tom - East Egg & Old money
  • Unhappy marriage of convenience
  • Tom has affairs and seems just as romantically uninterested in Daisy as she is in him.
    
    
    

• Myrtle & George's marry is unhappy
• Myrtle is Tom's mistress

• Novel takes a cynical view of love
• The central romance between Daisy & Gatsby is less a true love story and more a depiction of Gatsby's obsessive desire to relive—or even redo—his own past.
  
  • He loves the image of Daisy more than the woman in front of him.
• Romantic love isn't powerful in TGG

• East & West Egg, concerned with 20th century materialism & moral anarchy
• Unending quest of romantic dream, which is forever betrayed
• Fitzgerald's personal dreams of romance contained the seeds of their own destruction
• Fitzgerald creates an American fable which redeems as well as explains romantic nature

Motif - parties

• The parties take place very frequently throughout the book
• Symbolise glamorous lifestyle of the Roaring 20s
• The flashy spending of someone with 'new money' seeking to impress those who will never accept him
• The corruption of the American Dream
• Gatsby was so focused on his dream Daisy that he did not establish any true friendships until he met Nick.
• Fitzgerald conveys that being too focused on the American Dream can distract one from living in the moment
• He communicates that it is more important to focus on things that matter more than money, such as relationships.
• Gatsby's life becomes fuller when he creates a relationship with Nick, not because of wealth
• None of the guests except Owl Eyes come to pay respects to Gatsby at his funeral
• After Gatsby’s death, his generosity to the party guests was ignored & forgotten, illustrating the insensitive & selfish society that the American Dream has produced.
• Fitzgerald conveys a decline in society’s moral and is critical of the careless lifestyles of Americans. He warns that if Americans continue to live this way, they will come to experience hardship, or even destruction.

• Gatsby is constantly called away from his guests at his parties by the 'shrill metallic urgency' of the telephone
  
  • Gatsby misses out on the chance to build relationships with his guests
• Phone calls usually about his mysterious job & he retreats to an empty room to take them; therefore, he continually keeps his relationship with his work a secret
• Perhaps Fitzgerald is suggesting that he opposes the advancements in technology & wishes to return to the time when people needed to be physically there in order to hear their voice
• Idea that the action of using a telephone can connect you & disconnect you to people at the same time is almost parallel to the idea that the telephone allows you to be reached or unreachable

• Nick "called up Daisy [Buchanan] instinctively and without hesitation. But she and Tom had gone away early that afternoon, and taken baggage with them,"
• Daisy and Tom take advantage of the possibility of being unreachable by leaving no forwarding address or telephone number.
• Meyer Wolfshiem, also takes advantage of being unreachable by telephone. His "name wasn't in the phone book" therefore, in order to get in touch with him, Nick had to write him a letter & go see him
• communication, no matter what form it takes place in, will always help people form relationships and bonds.
  
  • Face to face > less likely for people to misunderstand & emotions to get confused

• Symbolises baptism - cleansing of wrong doings, purification, renewal of live & the inevitable separation

Circular pool

• Seen throughout the film
• Every Saturday night an extravagant party is thrown
• Gatsby converses with his gardener about emptying the pool ready for winter, symbolic meaning of letting go of love, the image & dream
• Death within the pool symbolises baptism, cleansing of Gatsby's soul & the renewal of his life after death ad water has been a transformative medium

Motif of rebirth

• when Gatz meets Dan Cody. Before adopting the name “Jay Gatsby,” his name was originally James Gatz
• noticed Cody’s yacht on Lake Superior, & decided to go & warn him of an upcoming storm
• That moment he introduced himself as Jay Gatsby
• Specific moment that witnessed the beginning of his career

Motif of rebirth & purity in Gatsby's death scene

• “There was a faint, barely perceptible movement of the water as the fresh flow from one end urged its way toward the drain at the other...The touch of a cluster of leaves revolved around it slowly, tracing, like the leg of a transit, a thin red circle in the water”
• Language to portray a peaceful scene which is contradictory to the matter
• Gatsby’s death scene being placed in the pool serves as a metaphor for his ridding of sins & entrance into peace as he is free from his never ending chase
• Gatsby is no longer faced with rejection of his true love & can finally be at peace when he is no longer alive.

• Gatsby climbed up the social & economic ladder & prospered by method of dubious negotiations of bootlegging
• Daisy inherited her old money status
  
  
  

• Gatsby attempts to act as though he is old money in order to be accepted by Daisy's class
• Daisy causes Gatsby's disillusionment when he understands that 'her voice is full of money'
  
  
  

• By illustrating social-economic differences through Gatsby & his desire for Daisy, Fitzgerald depicts the mistaken hype of the corrupted American Dream & the gap of economic class that will never close.

• Tom treats Myrtle as an object of desire & there is a clear social gap between them
• Myrtle chooses Tom, though she knows the rich think of money all the time & tries to improve her material situation

• As Nick witnesses this he tries to escape from this emptiness of the society
• Fitzgerald vividly portrays American society issues & tendencies of richness, glamour worshiping, materialistic ideas & the issue of the American Dream
  
  • Decline & social class distinction resulting in a gap between the rich & the poor

• Wilson is portrayed as nearly invisible when Myrtle walks 'through her husband as if he were a ghost' when going up to greet Tom
• Wilson is invisible to Tom, Nick & Myrtle because of his lack of wealth
• Parallel to Gatsby
  
  • 'Mr Nobody from nowhere'
    
    
    

• He is the only character from lower class that isn't actively trying to move up the social ladder
• He is often pictured as just having finished work
  
  • Always working in order to make a living

Daisy's unattainability

• The first time we (and Nick) see Gatsby, he is standing with his arms outstretched, “trembling” reaching for the green light, which Fitzgerald describes as insubstantial – it is “minute and far away,” & “might have been the end of a dock.”
• In this way, he suggests that Gatsby’s quest is toward something ephemeral.
• When Nick looks again, Gatsby has disappeared into the “unquiet darkness” – foreshadowing his disappearance into death at the end of the book.
• The inaccessibility of the green light tells us to expect a narrative in which the object of desire will never be obtained.
• Despite being reunited with Daisy, Gatsby is unable to fully attain her, just as the green light will never come closer to his grasp.

Tom's relationship with Myrtle

• Tom takes Nick to Myrtle’s apartment & the reader comes to understand Tom’s attachment to Daisy.
• After Myrtle enrages Tom by repeating Daisy’s name, Tom hits her & breaks her nose.
• This attack reveals Tom’s brutal nature & pinpoints the relationship between Myrtle & Tom as a stressor for the story.
• When Myrtle’s sister tells Nick that Daisy won’t divorce Tom because she’s Catholic, Nick is “shocked at the elaborateness of the lie” suggesting Daisy & Tom are more enmeshed than Myrtle knows.
• This revelation foreshadows Daisy’s later refusal to say she never loved Tom.
• The passage also sets up the scene after Myrtle is killed, when Nick sees Daisy & Tom together & remarks on the “unmistakable air of natural intimacy about the couple.”
• Daisy’s manslaughter of Myrtle is the resolution of the foreshadowing of both violence & the strength of the bond between Tom and Daisy in the party scene.
• The surprising element is that Daisy, not Tom, kills Myrtle, which reverses our expectations. In this way, Fitzgerald manipulates foreshadowing in order to surprise the reader.
  
  

Gatsby's fate

• In a more misleading instance of foreshadowing, Nick implies that Gatsby will have a happy ending; only after the reader has finished the book does the true meaning of Nick’s words become clear.
• In the opening pages Nick says that “Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows & short-winded elations of men.”
• The reader may take the first proclamation as proof that Gatsby survives the story or ends up with Daisy, but in fact Gatsby dies at the end of the novel.
• The red herring increases the reader’s surprise when this occurs. Upon re-reading the passage, we understand another meaning of the phrase, which is that Gatsby turns out to be a hero rather than a villain of the story.
• In the second part of the quotation Nick tells us that the story will end sorrowfully & will have a lasting negative impact on him; this also turns out to be true.

Myrtle killed by a car

• Myrtle’s death in a hit-and-run car accident is both directly & indirectly foreshadowed.
• Automobiles are a preoccupation of the novel, with many references to cars & driving.
• Early in the book, Nick leaves Gatsby’s party & sees a car in a ditch, “violently shorn of one wheel,” an image echoed later by the sight of Myrtle's “left breast swinging loose like a flap” after she is hit by the car.
• Next, Jordan nearly runs over a workman with her car, then tells Nick she’s not concerned about being a careless driver because “it takes two to make an accident.” These scenes foreshadow the scene when Daisy hits Myrtle, who has run out into the road – an accident caused by both Daisy & Myrtle’s carelessness.
• Direct foreshadowing appears near the end of the book, when Nick and Tom & Jordan leave New York.
• Nick has just realized it’s his birthday; he is thirty, & the years ahead of him promise only “a thinning briefcase of enthusiasm, thinning hair.”
• Nick is suddenly aware of his own mortality, so when he says, “we drove on toward death through the cooling twilight,” the sentence can be read as a general reference to mortality. But in fact the line is a specific foreshadowing of Myrtle’s death, which will happen soon down the road.

• Nick describes her & Jordan as stationary & buoyed up floating objects in the room, mimics her empty & privileged life - She is delicate & decorative. Her white dress 'ripples and flutters as it it had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house' - Daisy can afford to be airborne - wealthy enough to have hr child taken care of
• Her only role is to be a trophy for Tom - that Gatsby will attempt to snatch
• Daisy's beauty & charm is what makes her the central female character
• Nick is captivated by her that her exquisite beauty appears to mask her essential lack of character & her reluctance to take any responsibility for her & her actions

'Her voice is full of money'

'The last of the sunshine fell upon her glowing face with romantic affection'

• Daisy's mythology is one of money, purity & ease
• Her childhood is white & golden
• People are attracted to her associations rather than her actual characteristics

• Her frequent stutters appear playful but also suggests her to be a constant performer as she acts out her responses
• 'I'm p-paralysed with happiness'
• She appears to be in performance mode al the time when around people
• 'Daisy was young & her artificial world was redolent of orchids'
• Daisy's prioritisation of beauty mens she buries her head in the sand to the grim reality of life

• Gatsby has created an idol of her & an illusion so vast she can't help but buckle under it; Gatsby alone sets himself up for failure
• Daisy is fickle & shallow > promises to wait for Gatsby but 'she wanted her life shaped now, immediately... by some force - of love, of money'
• Chooses money, status & reputation over Gatsby

• To escape the problems in their marriage they engage in extramarital affairs
• The Buchanan's attempts to preserve their union makes their marriage a symbol of their exclusive membership to the world of old money
• Their toxic relationship defeats Gatsby's relentless affection & commitment shows the dominance & longevity of the old money class

• Initially learn about him through other people's conceptions & perceptions of him & widespread gossip & rumours
• He is separate from the leisurely 7 luxurious life he provides for his guests
• As the novel progresses the mystery of Gatsby unfolds
• Unveilings of his character & history

• Will to climb up the social ladder & attain the acceptance of Daisy
• Economic pursuits are propelled by a romantic idea, he doesn't lose sight of his end goal
• Engagement in organised crime is questionable, it is testament of the drastic lengths he is willing to go in order to realise his ultimate ambition 'an extraordinary gift for hope'

• Gatsby's preference of isolation is in line with his devotion to Daisy, his 'single green light', his sole focus on her is myopic
• The many people who attend Gatsby's parties 'come & go without meeting Gatsby at all' and at the end of the novel when he dies Nick finds himself at his funeral, accompanied only by Gatsby's father, the servants, the minister & Owl Eyes

• Despite the revelation that Daisy will not terminate her relationship with Tom, Gatsby takes responsibility for Daisy's reckless driving that killed Myrtle
• Gatsby is still committed to his own devotion to her
• His devotion pays his way to his fall
• He is so occupied with his dream he loses sight of the fact that Daisy is married & almost demands the same devotion from her
• The fact Gatsby's dream doesn't die when Daisy doesn't reciprocate his love, but at his funeral shows that Gatsby was committed to something more than his love for Daisy

• Perhaps Nick emphasises her physique because he has no particular regard for her intelligence or personality - or perhaps because it is the reason for her affair
• 'the thickish figure of a woman blocked out the light from the office door'
• Earthy description of Myrtle is a stark contrast to descriptions of Daisy, Myrtle's foil

• Aware she can'r advance in society independently as a woman & attempts upwards social mobility through seduction of Tom
• 'I want to get one of those dogs' 'I want to get one for the apartment' - Shows Myrtle's materialism - wants the dog as an accessory

'I like your dress' 'It's just a crazy old thing' - It is obvious that it is a new dress that Tom bought for her, Myrtle wants to seem like she is naturally glamorous & her expensive belongings aren't a big deal

• Fitzgerald makes it clear that wealth is no simply money & material goods, it is the privilege that allows a person to be 'carless', to act recklessly knowing you won't suffer the consequences
• Myrtle can't access the true freedom & carelessness that comes with being one
• She dies in the hands of the upper class - Fitzgerald's way of concretising her lower-class status

Trapped

• Trapped in her marriage with George, at first it seems like she has control of their relationship 'Get some chairs why don't you'
• Later she is imprisoned by him when he discovers she has been cheating & locks her away above the garage
  
  
  

• Myrtle is also imprisoned by Tom due to her reliance on his financial generosity
  
  
  

• Imprisoned by her social status & inability to move up in the social strata of 1920s American society
• Despite the branding of the American dream as the possibility for anyone to achieve social mobility through hard work & determination
• Myrtle's story reveals the truth behind this dream: that it is an illusion & inaccessible to the vast majority of 1920s working-class Americas

• 1920s legal restrictions, it was very challenging to end a marriage especially if the desire to end the relationship was the woman's choice
• Myrtle finds George weak & cowardly - 'Beat me!... Throw me down & beat me, you dirty little coward!' - parallel to where Tom breaks her nose after she says something he doesn't approve of
• Appears Myrtle equates violence with masculinity & bravery
• Myrtle thinks that George is worthless because he doesn't aim to advance in society
• He simply just tries to survive

• Both die by the end of novel
• Fitzgerald's main theme that old money equates privilege, & eve. though the possibility of social mobility exists, the rich who historically held the power will maintain it

Myrtle's death

• Myrtle runs out to escape her husband & flag down who she thinks is Tom
• She is hit by Daisy driving Gatsby's car
• Myrtle first mentioned as having a certain 'vitality'
• When she is killed her vitality is ripped from her 'her life violently extinguished' - extends the metaphor of life force as ashes/coals, which 'smoulders' like coal in the Valley of Ashes
• Symbolic of the fate of women who attempt to shape their own lives
• Many of the females are depicted as trapped & unhappy in their lives but unable or unwilling to forge an independent path

As Gatsby's double

• Fitzgerald uses this doubling to highlight the widespread nature of this desire in 1920s America
• Both characters strive to attain the American Dream
• Gatsby makes lists in his youth as a method of self-improvement while Myrtle makes lists of things she wants to buy
• Both pretend to be upper class

• First become aware of Tom's affair when he receives a phone call from Myrtle
• By first learning of Tom's unfaithfulness through a phone call, the device suggests a loss of intimacy & desire

• Nick describes him as a 'cruel body' with 'enormous power', His muscular strength compliments his cruel & violent nature
• Tom's dominance & arrogance extends to the point that he holds no respect for his wife
• Tom always wants to be in control he 'demands suddenly'

• Part of a traditional upper class who survive on their inherited wealth, enabling them to lead lives of leisure
• Tom's class privilege is threatened by the ideology of the American Dream, which encouraged Americans of all backgrounds to pursue prosperity & success
• Tom disparages Gatsby on the basis of his lower-class roots & New Money tastes 'An Oxford man!' 'Like hell he is! He wears a pink suit'
• Gatsby's relationship with Daisy offends him 'Mr nobody from nowhere'

• George & Myrtle's marriage serves as a foil to Tom & Daisy's
• Tom & Myrtle's affair is a foil for Daisy & Gatsby
  
  
  

• Through the affair is a ticket out of poverty for Myrtle
• 'He had on a dress suit & patent leather shoes and I couldn't keep my eyes off him' - Her fixation on the way he was dressed is representative of the continued material value their affairs holds
• Myrtle's romantic escape from her unhappy marriage of 12 years as well as a chance to fulfil her consumer desires
• For Tom it is an assertion of both his physical & financial dominance
• Tom values his control over Myrtle & panics when George finds out of his affair; diminishes his control, both mistress & wife slip out of his control

• The idea that class boundaries are impermeable is revealed by this relationship
• Myrtle attempts to gain class mobility & ends up dead, Tom's union with Daisy is renewed

As a narrator

• Reluctant participant who is simultaneously attached & detached from dominant action
• 'I was within & without, simultaneously enchanted & repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life' - because of this, Nick has been viewed as both the reliable & unreliable narrator
  
  
  

Trustworthy

• 'I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known' - Perhaps Nick has a different definition of honesty. He continues to spend time with morally questionable characters & enabled Gatsby's affair with Daisy while continuing to liaise with Tom
• Fitzgerald primes the reader to question Nick's honesty through his choice of language
  
  
  

• The novel us told retrospectively. This may diminish the accuracy of the events in the novel; after 2 years he may experience lapses or distortions of memory which may lead him to lead out or misreport events or dialogue
  
  
  

Unreliability

• His trustworthiness is challenged by Jordan who says, 'I thought you were rather an honest, straightforward person'.
• Nick does consistently hold others a high moral standard, his moral standards are influence by his bias towards the characters

Nick's birthday

• 'we drove on toward death through the cooling twilight' - Foreshadows Myrtle's car accident that they discover down the road

Biased

• Nick's presentation of Gatsby is one that is constantly influenced by his attachment to Gatsby
• He admires & is disappointed by Gatsby 'who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn'
• During the confrontation between Gatsby & Tom he says, 'I wanted to get up & slap him on the back. I had one of those renewals of complete faith in him that I'd experienced before' - Nick's bias towards Gatsby & his growing admiration for him, show that his perceptions are emotionally motivated
  
  
  

Susceptible to Alcohol

• Though Nick is one of the more responsible characters
• Chapter 2 - Nick's narrative is distorted when he gets drunk at Tom & Myrtle's party in New York
• His incoherence of the events, depicted by unfinished sentences & ellipses, contributed to the reader's own uncertainty of them

• By the end of Chapter 9, Nick's voice merges into Fitzgerald's voice
• He gives less authority & assurance
• He doesn't become invisible, but makes Fitzgerald's intended messages visible
• Nick participates in the story with subtle action but he satirises the story with constant reflection & mockery
• Although Fitzgerald critiques & mocks the loss of morality in a materialistic America, he is also able to humanise the experience of those corrupted by economic pursuits & disillusioned by the promise of the American dream - this happens through Nick
• His voice is rich & educated, embodying those who come from old money but also holds enough awareness to distance himself from his pre-ordained social group
• Nick uses his privileged voice to redefine his position with the characters in the novel, not based on tradition but based on their commitments to mortality

• Whole story of Gatsby is based on Nicks memories
• Nick is a tie which joins many contradictions and conflicts between characters
• Using 'I' as witness to narrative the story, Fitzgerald allows readers to feel things directly

• Vidicon narration
  “He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God”
• becoming an omniscient narrator
• if there are not these transgressions, readers could only observe Gatsby as a looker-on
• They are not able to appreciate the content of Daisy’s symbolic meanings for Gatsby and Gatsby’s contradictive feelings in the process of getting Daisy

Chapter 7

• Narrator presents Daisy & Gatsby's emotional reactions after Gatsby & Tom's direct conflict
• Uses the eye of "I" to observe Gatsby, Daisy & Tom to the eye of "he"
  
  • First person narration > omniscience
• Makes readers clear that after Tom's malicious attack, Gatsby's dash is shortened & Daisy's emotional direction changes accordingly from Gatsby to Tom
• Nick was not at hand when Myrtle was killed, narrates the story from the use of a character Michaelis

Narrative Time

• Fitzgerald lived in the 1920s which was called 'the transformation from traditional fiction to modern fiction'
• reflects author's concerns on the time
  
  • Fitzgerald arranges the narrative in the East with two year's time-span
• According to literature Spring means, 'revival and refreshing', Nick goes to East restlessly after coming back from the war field in Spring
• Summer is 'season at zenith of power', Nick acquaints with Gatsby & through all summer nights there are parties in Gatsby's blue gardens
• 'Autumn is stage of hero's comedown & dying process' - Nick & Gatsby's farewell, mentions Gatsby 'disappeared among the yellowing trees'. Then Gatsby is killed in his pool 'a thin red circle in the water'. Winter is 'the stage of hero dying tragically'
• Fitzgerald doesn't arrange the narrative time equally
  
  • First 3 chapters are mainly about 3 nights
  • Chapter 1 = night of Nick's visit to Daisy & Tom
  • Chapter 2 = Nick & Tom 7 his mistress in New York
  • Chapter 3 = description of the night of Nick's attendance in Gatsby's feast
    
    • Nick calls these 3 events 'they were merely casual events in a crowded summer' but, they take up a large description
• Fitzgerald firstly lets Nick catch lots of gossip about Gatsby > mysterious veil
  
  • little by little opening up about Gatsby's character gradually until his death

• New York is centre of modern civilisation
• Between centre & West Egg, there locates the Valley of Ashes
• Tragedy of Gatsby & Myrtle express the darkness of the modern civilisation