The Great Gatsby
The
Great Gatsby is a 1925 novel
written by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald
that follows a cast of characters living in the fictional towns of West Egg and
East Egg on prosperous Long
Island in the summer of 1922. The story
primarily concerns the young and mysterious millionaire Jay
Gatsby and his quixotic passion and obsession
with the beautiful former debutante Daisy Buchanan. Considered to be Fitzgerald's magnum
opus, The Great Gatsby explores
themes of decadence,
idealism, resistance to change, social upheaval and excess, creating
a portrait of the Roaring
Twenties that has been described as a
cautionary[a] tale regarding the American
Dream.[1][2]
Fitzgerald—inspired
by the parties he had attended while visiting Long Island's North Shore—began planning the novel in 1923, desiring to produce, in
his words, "something new—something extraordinary and beautiful and
simple and intricately patterned."[3] Progress was slow, with Fitzgerald completing his first
draft following a move to the French
Riviera in 1924.[4] His editor, Maxwell
Perkins, felt the book was vague and
persuaded the author to revise over the following winter. Fitzgerald was
repeatedly ambivalent about the book's title and he considered a variety of
alternatives, including titles that referred to the Roman character Trimalchio; the title he was last documented to have desired was Under
the Red, White, and Blue.[5]
First
published by Scribner's
in April 1925, The Great Gatsby received mixed reviews and sold poorly.
In its first year, the book sold only 20,000 copies.[6][7] Fitzgerald died in 1940, believing himself to be a failure
and his work forgotten.[8] However, the novel experienced a revival during World
War II,[9]
and became a part of American high school curricula and numerous stage and film
adaptations in the following decades.[10] Today, The Great Gatsby is widely considered to be a
literary classic and a contender for the title of the "Great American Novel."[11][12]
The
novel's U.S. copyright will expire on January 1, 2021, when all works published
in 1925 enter the public domain in the
United States.[13]
Historical context
Set
on the prosperous Long Island of 1922, The Great Gatsby provides a
critical social history of Prohibition-era
America during the Jazz
Age.[b] That period—known for its jazz music,[15] economic prosperity,[16] flapper
culture,[17] libertine mores,[18] rebellious youth,[19] and ubiquitous speakeasies—is fully rendered in Fitzgerald's fictional narrative.
Fitzgerald uses many of these 1920s societal developments to tell his story,
from simple details such as petting in automobiles[20] to broader themes such as Fitzgerald's discreet allusions
to bootlegging
as the source of Gatsby's fortune.[21]
Fitzgerald
educates his readers about the hedonistic[22] society of the Jazz Age by placing a relatable plotline
within the historical context of "the most raucous, gaudy era in U.S.
history,"[14] which "raced along under its own power, served by
great filling stations
full of money."[16][23] In Fitzgerald's eyes, the 1920s era represented a morally
permissive time when Americans of all ages became disillusioned with prevailing
social
norms and were monomaniacally obsessed
with self-gratification: "[The Jazz Age represented] a whole race going
hedonistic, deciding on pleasure."[22] Hence, The Great Gatsby represents Fitzgerald's
attempt to communicate his ambivalent feelings regarding the Jazz Age, an era
whose themes he would later regard as reflective of events in his own life.[24]
Various
events in Fitzgerald's youth are reflected throughout The Great Gatsby.[25] Fitzgerald was a young Midwesterner from Minnesota, and, like the novel's narrator who went to Yale, he was educated at an Ivy
League school, Princeton.[25] While at Princeton, the 19-year-old Fitzgerald met Ginevra
King, a 16-year-old socialite with whom he fell in love.[26] However, Ginevra's family discouraged Fitzgerald's pursuit
of their daughter due to his lower-class status, and her father purportedly
told the young Fitzgerald that "poor boys shouldn't think of marrying rich
girls."[27]
Rejected
as a suitor due to his lack of financial prospects, Fitzgerald joined the United States Army
and was commissioned as a second
lieutenant.[25] He was stationed at Camp Sheridan in Montgomery, Alabama
where he met Zelda Sayre,
a vivacious 17-year-old Southern belle. Zelda agreed to marry him but her
parents ended their engagement until he could prove a financial success.[25] Thus Fitzgerald is similar to Jay Gatsby in that he fell in
love while a military officer stationed far from home and then sought success
to prove himself to the woman he loved.[25]
After
his success as a novelist and as a short story writer, Fitzgerald married Zelda
and moved to New York. He found his new affluent lifestyle in the exclusive
Long Island social milieu
to be simultaneously both seductive and repulsive.[25] Fitzgerald—like Gatsby—had always exalted the rich[25]
and was driven by his love for a woman who symbolized everything he desired,
even as he was led towards a lifestyle which he loathed.[25]
Plot summary
George Wilson and his wife Myrtle
live in the "valley of ashes," a refuse
dump (shown in the above photograph)
historically located in New York City during the 1920s. Today, the area is Flushing Meadows–Corona Park.
In
Spring 1922, Nick Carraway—a Yale alumnus from the Midwest and a veteran of the Great
War—journeys east to New
York City to obtain employment as a bond
salesman. He rents a bungalow in the Long
Island village of West Egg, next to a
luxurious estate inhabited by Jay
Gatsby, an enigmatic multi-millionaire who
hosts dazzling soirées yet does not partake in them.
One
evening, Nick dines with his distant relative, Daisy Buchanan, in the
fashionable town of East Egg. Daisy is married to Tom Buchanan, formerly a Yale
football star
whom Nick knew during his college days. The couple have recently relocated from
Chicago to a colonial mansion
directly across the bay from Gatsby's estate. At their mansion, Nick encounters
Jordan Baker, an insolent flapper
and golf
champion who is a childhood friend of
Daisy's. Jordan confides to Nick that Tom keeps a mistress, Myrtle Wilson, who
brazenly telephones him at his home and who lives in the "valley of ashes," a sprawling refuse dump.[28] That evening, Nick sees Gatsby standing alone on his lawn,
staring at a green light across the bay.
Days
later, Nick reluctantly accompanies a drunken and agitated Tom to New York City
by train. En route, they stop at a garage inhabited by mechanic George Wilson
and his wife Myrtle. Myrtle joins them, and the trio proceed to a small New
York apartment that Tom has rented for trysts with her. Guests arrive, and a
party ensues which ends with Tom slapping Myrtle and breaking her nose after
she mentions Daisy.
One
morning, Nick receives a formal invitation to a party at Gatsby's mansion. Once
there, Nick is embarrassed that he recognizes no one, and begins drinking
heavily until he encounters Jordan. While chatting with her, he is approached
by a man who introduces himself as Jay Gatsby and insists that both he and Nick
served in the 3rd Infantry
Division during the war. Gatsby attempts to
ingratiate himself to Nick and, when Nick leaves the party, he notices Gatsby
watching him.
In
late July, Nick and Gatsby have lunch at a speakeasy. Gatsby tries to impress Nick with tales of his war
heroism and his Oxford days.
Afterwards, Nick meets Jordan at the Plaza
Hotel. She reveals that Gatsby and Daisy
met around 1917 when Gatsby was an officer in the American Expeditionary Forces. They fell in love, but when Gatsby was deployed overseas,
Daisy reluctantly married Tom. Gatsby hopes that his newfound wealth and
dazzling parties will make Daisy reconsider. Gatsby uses Nick to stage a
reunion with Daisy, and the two embark upon a sexual affair.
In
September, Tom discovers the affair when Daisy carelessly addresses Gatsby with
unabashed intimacy in front of him. Later, at a Plaza Hotel suite, Gatsby and
Tom argue about the affair. Gatsby insists that Daisy declare that she never
loved Tom. Daisy claims she loves Tom and Gatsby, upsetting both. Tom reveals
that Gatsby is a swindler whose money comes from bootlegging alcohol. Upon hearing this, Daisy chooses to stay with Tom.
Tom scornfully tells Gatsby to drive her home, knowing that Daisy will never
leave him.
So we beat on, boats against the
current,
borne back ceaselessly into the
past.
—
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby[29]
While
returning to East Egg, Gatsby and Daisy drive by Wilson's garage and their car
accidentally strikes Tom's mistress, Myrtle, killing her instantly. Gatsby
reveals to Nick that it was Daisy who was driving the car, but that he intends
to take blame for the accident to protect her. Nick urges Gatsby to flee to
avoid prosecution but he refuses. After Tom tells George that Gatsby owns the car
that struck Myrtle, a distraught George assumes the owner of the vehicle must
be Myrtle's paramour.
George fatally shoots Gatsby in his mansion's swimming pool and then commits
suicide.
Several
days after Gatsby's murder, his father Henry Gatz arrives for the
sparsely-attended funeral. After Gatsby's death, Nick comes to hate New York
and decides that Gatsby, Daisy, Tom, and he were all Westerners unsuited to
Eastern life. Nick encounters Tom and refuses to shake his hand. Tom admits
that he was the one who told George that Gatsby owned the vehicle which killed
Myrtle. Before returning to the Midwest, Nick returns to Gatsby's mansion one
last time and stares across the bay at the green light emanating from the end
of Daisy's dock.
Major characters
- Nick Carraway—a Yale University graduate from the Midwest, a World War I veteran, and, at the start of the plot, a newly arrived resident of West Egg, age 29 (later 30). He also serves as the first-person narrator of the novel. He is Gatsby's next-door neighbor and a bond salesman. He is easy-going, occasionally sarcastic, and somewhat optimistic, although this latter quality fades as the novel progresses. He is more grounded and more practical than the other characters, and is always in awe of their lifestyles and morals.[30]
- Jay Gatsby (originally James "Jimmy" Gatz)—a young, mysterious millionaire with shady business connections (later revealed to be a bootlegger), originally from North Dakota. He is obsessed with Daisy Buchanan, a beautiful debutante whom he met when he was a young military officer stationed at the Army's Camp Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky, during World War I. Gatsby is also said to have briefly studied at Trinity College, Oxford in England after the end of the war.[31] According to Fitzgerald's wife Zelda, the character was based on the bootlegger and former World War I officer, Max Gerlach.[32]
- Daisy Buchanan—an attractive, though shallow and self-absorbed, young debutante and socialite from Louisville, Kentucky, identified as a flapper.[33] She is Nick's second cousin once removed, and the wife of Tom Buchanan. Before she married Tom, Daisy had a romantic relationship with Gatsby. Her choice between Gatsby and Tom is one of the central conflicts in the novel. The character of Daisy is believed to have been inspired by Fitzgerald's youthful romances with Ginevra King.[34]
- Thomas "Tom" Buchanan—a millionaire who lives in East Egg, and Daisy's husband. Tom is an imposing man of muscular build with a "husky tenor" voice and arrogant demeanor. He was a football star at Yale University. Buchanan has parallels with William Mitchell, the Chicagoan who married Ginevra King.[35] Buchanan and Mitchell were both Chicagoans with an interest in polo. Like Ginevra's father, whom Fitzgerald resented, Buchanan attended Yale and is a white supremacist.[36][37]
- Jordan Baker—an amateur golfer and Daisy Buchanan's long-time friend with a sarcastic streak and an aloof attitude. She is Nick Carraway's girlfriend for most of the novel, though they grow apart towards the end. She has a slightly shady reputation because of rumors that she had cheated in a tournament, which harmed her reputation socially and as a golfer. Fitzgerald told Maxwell Perkins that Jordan was based on the golfer Edith Cummings, a friend of Ginevra King, though Cummings was never suspected of cheating.[38] Her name is a play on the two popular automobile brands, the Jordan Motor Car Company and the Baker Motor Vehicle, both of Cleveland, Ohio,[39] alluding to Jordan's "fast" reputation and the new freedom presented to Americans, especially women, in the 1920s.[40][41][42]
- George B. Wilson—a mechanic and owner of a garage. He is disliked by both his wife, Myrtle Wilson, and Tom Buchanan, who describes him as "so dumb he doesn't know he's alive." At the end of the novel, he kills Gatsby, wrongly believing that he had been driving the car that killed Myrtle, and then kills himself.
- Myrtle Wilson—George's wife, and Tom Buchanan's mistress. Myrtle, who possesses a fierce vitality, is desperate to find refuge from her disappointing marriage. She is accidentally killed by Gatsby's car, as she thinks it is Tom still driving and runs after it (driven by Daisy, though Gatsby takes the blame for the accident).
- Meyer Wolfsheim[c]—a Jewish friend and mentor of Gatsby's, described as a gambler who fixed the 1919 World Series. Wolfsheim appears only twice in the novel, the second time refusing to attend Gatsby's funeral. He is a clear allusion to Arnold Rothstein,[45] a New York crime kingpin who was notoriously blamed for the Black Sox Scandal that tainted the 1919 World Series.[46]
Writing and production
Fitzgerald
began planning his third novel in June 1922,[21]
but it was interrupted by production of his play, The Vegetable, in the summer and fall.[47] The play failed miserably, and Fitzgerald worked that
winter on magazine stories struggling to pay his debt caused by the production.[48][49] The stories were, in his words, "all trash and it
nearly broke my heart,"[49] although included among those stories was "Winter
Dreams," which Fitzgerald later
described as "a sort of first draft of the Gatsby idea."[50]
After
the birth of their only child, Frances Scott "Scottie" Fitzgerald, the Fitzgeralds moved in October 1922 to Great Neck, New York, on Long
Island. The town was used as the scene of The
Great Gatsby.[51] Fitzgerald's neighbors in Great Neck included such
prominent and newly wealthy New Yorkers as writer Ring
Lardner, actor Lew
Fields, and comedian Ed
Wynn.[21] These figures were all considered to be "new
money," unlike those who came from Manhasset
Neck or Cow Neck Peninsula—places that were home to many of New York's wealthiest
established families, and which sat across the bay from Great Neck.
This
real-life juxtaposition gave Fitzgerald his idea for "West Egg" and
"East Egg." In this novel, Great Neck (Kings Point)
became the "new money" peninsula of West Egg and Port Washington (Sands Point)
became the "old money" East Egg.[52] Several mansions in the area served as inspiration for
Gatsby's home, such as Oheka
Castle[53] and Beacon
Towers, since demolished.[54] (Another possible inspiration was Land's End, a notable Gold Coast Mansion
where Fitzgerald may have attended a party.[55])
While
the Fitzgeralds were living in New York, the Hall-Mills murder case was sensationalized in the daily newspapers over the course
of many months, and the highly publicized case likely influenced the plot of
Fitzgerald's novel.[56][57] The case involved the double-murder of a man and his lover
which occurred on September 14, 1922, mere weeks before Fitzgerald and his wife
arrived in Great Neck. Scholars have speculated that Fitzgerald based certain
aspects of the ending of The Great Gatsby as well as various
characterizations on this factual incident.[58]
By
mid-1923, Fitzgerald had written 18,000 words for his novel,[59]
but discarded most of his new story as a false start. Some of it, however,
resurfaced in the 1924 short story "Absolution."[21][60][61] Work on The Great Gatsby began in earnest in April
1924. Fitzgerald wrote in his ledger, "Out of woods at last and starting
novel."[49] He decided to make a departure from the writing process of
his previous novels and told Perkins that the novel was to be a
"consciously artistic achievement"[62] and a "purely creative work—not trashy imaginings as
in my stories but the sustained imagination of a sincere and yet radiant
world."[63][64] Soon after this burst of inspiration, work slowed while the
Fitzgeralds made a move to the French
Riviera, where a serious crisis[d] in their relationship soon developed.[49]
By
August, however, Fitzgerald was hard at work and completed what he believed to
be his final manuscript in October, sending the book to his editor, Maxwell
Perkins, and agent, Harold
Ober, on October 30.[49] The Fitzgeralds then moved to Rome for the winter.[65] Fitzgerald made revisions through the winter after Perkins
informed him in a November letter that the character of Gatsby was
"somewhat vague" and Gatsby's wealth and business, respectively,
needed "the suggestion of an explanation" and should be "adumbrated."[66] Fitzgerald thanked Perkins for his detailed criticisms and
stated, "With the aid you've given me I can make Gatsby
perfect."[67]
Content
after a few rounds of revision, Fitzgerald returned the final batch of revised
galleys in the middle of February 1925.[68] Fitzgerald's revisions included an extensive rewriting of
Chapter VI and VIII.[49] Despite this, he refused an offer of $10,000 for the serial
rights in order not to delay the book's publication.[49] He had received a $3,939 advance in 1923[69] and $1,981.25 upon publication.[70]
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