Kirsten Kaye L.

Yu

English 11

Sir Jonathan Chandler

January 17, 2019

NSCASI

1. N- Narrator/ POV

a. The narrator or point of view of this movie is Nick Carraway. He is a first-person

narrator, which means that this story/movie is from his point of view or

perspective. Also since he is not the center of the movie/story, that makes him a

peripheral narrator, which is someone who’s always on the outside looking in. He

states in the first chapter that “I’m inclined to reserve all judgements, a habit that

has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a

few veteran bores.” This tells us that he does not know what other characters are

thinking unless they tell him. This also tells us people like to tell Nick all their

stories, he’s someone they can confide in. Be it Tom, Jordan, Daisy and of course

Gatsby. He tells the audience their stories that was told to him.

b. However Nick Carraway’s point of view is a bit biased. One because he is

Daisy’s cousin and the other is because he absolutely adores Gatsby. This makes

him not the most reliable narrator. Nick Carraway is too fond of Gatsby that it

affects his view of the story and is contrasted by his clear distaste for the other

characters in the book/movie. He sees Gatsby as a symbol of hope, hope for

 humanity, which makes his perspective biased and occasionally makes us

question his representation of Gatsby, Daisy, or the other characters.

i. Nick’s bias towards Gatsby started in the early pages of the book, where

he tells us that “there was something gorgeous about him (Gatsby), some

heightened sensitivity to the promises of life.” When interpreted it

basically means that Gatsby is a sensitive genius and it also inclines the

audience to side with him in the romantic triangle between Gatsby, Daisy,

and Tom.

ii. Nick feels contempt for Tom, and Daisy and his personal feelings for the

characters similarly color his presentation of events.

2. S- Setting

a. Great Gatsby is set in New York City and on Long Island in the Early 1920’s. The

action of the movie/book Great Gatsby takes place along New York all the way to

its suburbs. More specifically the West and East Egg, which in real life are the

two peninsulas along the northern shore of Long Island.These two peninsulas are
 the Great Neck and Port Washington peninsulas on Long Island. The author,

Fitzgerald actually lived in a small house in West Egg.

b. The story is opened in the early 1920’s; just after WW1, and right in the middle of

Prohibition, when alcohol was effectively illegal. However there’s also a different

setting where Myrtle and George Wilson are placed in. Which is the grey valley

of ashes that joins the fabulous worlds of the Eggs and Manhattan. This corridor

between New York and the suburbs encomasses the full range of social class.

Where the valley of ashes represents poverty, both the city the city and the two

suburbs represent bastions of affluence.

c. As said in the book while both East and West Egg are wealthy communities,

families with inherited wealth, or “old money”, live in the more fashionable East

Egg. In West Egg, by contrast, residents whose wealth is new, such as Gatsby,

conspicuously mimic European aristocracy to appear established. For example;

Gatsby’s House. It is modeled on the Hotel de Ville in Normandy, France, and

was built by a brewer who offered to pay neighbors to live in thatched cottages,
 like peasants. While many of the descriptions of the houses in the novel seem

over the top, they are in fact based on real mansions that existed on Long Island

back in the 1920s. However in the end, it seems to matter little where the

characters find themselves along the corridor between New York and the twin

Eggs, because Nobody in ​The Great Gatsby​ is happy about their lot in life.

3. C- Characterization

a. Nick Carraway

i. He is the novel’s narrator. Nick Carraway is a young man from Minnesota

who, after being educated in Yale and fought in World War 1, goes to

New York City to learn about the bond business. He is an honest, tolerant,

and inclined to reserve judgement. Nick serves as a confidant for those

with troubling secrets. After moving to West Egg, home of the newly rich,

Nick quickly befriends his next-door neighbor, Jay Gatsby. As Daisy

Buchanan’s cousin, he also facilitates the rekindling of the romance

between her and Gatsby. The whole book is entirely told or seen through

Nick’s eyes, his thoughts and perceptions shape and color the story.

b. Jay Gatsby

i. The main character, per say, and the protagonist of the novel. Jay Gatsby

is a fabulously wealthy young man living in a Gothic mansion in West

Egg, where all, just like him, new money lives. He is famous for throwing

all his extravagant and lavish parties every Saturday night. However no

one in that party really knows who he is. Where he comes from, what he
 does, or even how he made his fortune. Some haven’t even seen his face

or barely know how he looks like at all. However Nick discovered his

story, his background. Jay Gatsby was born James Gatz on a farm in North

Dakota. He worked for a millionaire who inspired him to dedicate his life

to achieving wealth and power. When he met Daisy while training to be an

officer in Louisville, he fell deeply in love with her. However Nick also

learned how Gatsby makes his fortunes, through criminal activities.

Because he was willing to do anything to gain the social position he

thought necessary to win Daisy. Gatsby, in Nicks view, is a deeply flawed

man, dishonest and vulgar, whose extraordinary optimism and power to

transform his dreams into reality make him “great” nonetheless.

c. Daisy Buchanan

i. Daisy Buchanan is Nick’s cousin, and of course the woman Gatsby loves.

As a young woman in Louisville before the war, Daisy was courted by a

number of officers, including Gatsby. She, like Gatsby, fell in love in first

sight and promised that she would wait for Gatsby forever. However,

Daisy harbors a deep need to be loved, and when a wealthy, powerful

young man named Tom Buchanan asked her to marry him, her promise

was broken. Now a beautiful socialite, Daisy lives with Tom across from

Gatsby in the fashionable East Egg, where all the old money lives. She is

kind of sardonic and somewhat cynical, and behaves superficially to mask

her pain at her husband’s constant infidelity.

d. Tom Buchanan

i. He is Daisy’s immensely wealthy husband, who was once a member of

Nick’s social club at Yale. Powerfully built and hailed from a socially

solid old money family, Tom is an arrogant, hypocritical bully. His social

status matches his social attitude, laced with racism and sexism. He also

never even considers trying to live up to the moral standard he demands

from those around him. Basically he has no moral qualms whatsoever as

seen on his own extramarital affair with Myrtle, but when he begins to

suspect Daisy and Gatsby of having an affair, he becomes outraged and

forces a confrontation.

e. Jordan Baker

i. She is Daisy’s golf-playing friend and a woman with whom Nick becomes

romantically involved during the course of the novel. As a competitive

golfer, Jordan represents one of the “new women” of the 1920s -- cynical,

cunning, boyish, and self-centered. Jordan is one beautiful woman but is

also a dishonest one. She cheated in order to win her first golf tournament

and continually bends the truth, which makes her someone hard to trust.

f. Myrtle Wilson

i. She is Tom’s lover, whose lifeless husband George owns a run-down

garage in the valley of ashes. Myrtle herself possesses a fierce vitality and

desperately looks for a way to improve her situation. Unfortunately for

 her, she chooses Tom, who treats her as nothing but a mere object of his

desire.

g. George Wilson

i. He is Myrtle’s husband who is, as I said before, the lifeless, exhausted

owner of a run-down auto shop at the edge of the valley of ashes. George

loves and idealize Myrtle, and is devastated by her affair with Tom.

George is consumed with grief when Myrtle is killed. George is

comparable to Gatsby in the sense where both are dreamers and both are

ruined by their unrequited love for women who love Tom.

h. Meyer Wolfsheim

i. Gatsby’s ‘friend’, a prominent figure in organized crime. Before the novel

took place, Wolfsheim helped Gatsby to make his fortune bootlegging

illegal liquor. His continued acquaintance with Gatsby suggests that

Gatsby is still involved in illegal business.

4. A- Action

a. The Great Gatsby​ is the story of eccentric millionaire Jay Gatsby as told by Nick

Carraway, a Midwesterner who lives on Long Island but works in Manhattan.

 Gatsby’s enormous mansion is adjacent to Carraway’s modest home, and

Carraway becomes curious about his neighbor after being invited to one of his

famous parties. Nick soon learns that Gatsby is in love Daisy Buchanan, Nick’s

cousin and the wife of one Tom Buchanan, an acquaintance of Nick’s from Yale.

Buchanan takes his old friend for a day in the city, where Nick learns that

Buchanan has a kept woman, Myrtle, the wife of a long island mechanic.

b. Gatsby sends a message through he and Nick’s mutual friend, professional golfer

Jordan Baker, insisting that Nick plan a “chance" meeting for Gatsby and Daisy.

Nick learns that Gatsby, Jay Gatz at the time, and Daisy had once been in love,

but Daisy married Tom while Gatsby was in Europe during the Great War. In the

aftermath of this, Jay Gatz abandoned his old identity, becoming Jay Gatsby and

amassing a fortune with the help of notorious criminal Meyer Wolfsheim. Gatsby

chose the site of his house in Long Island because it was across the bay from

Daisy’s house, from which a green light could be seen at night.

c. Nick manages to get Gatsby and Daisy together, and while the meeting is

awkward at first, Gatsby soon relaxes and invites Nick and Daisy back to his

mansion. Gatsby and Daisy begin to see each other secretly with some frequency.

Nick and Gatsby also become close, as Nick is one of the only people who

continues to support Gatsby despite the myriad rumors that circulate around the

man. Buchanan eventually confronts Gatsby in Manhattan about the affair, and

the two argue at length about who it is that Daisy genuinely loves. Daisy claims to

love both of them, but she decides to return to Long Island with Gatsby, not her
 husband. Daisy drives Gatsby’s car, but she accidentally kills a woman on the

side of the road, and then speeds off. It turns out that this woman is Buchanan’s

girlfriend Myrtle—she had only run out to see the car because she thought it was

Buchanan’s.

d. Myrtle’s husband blames Buchanan for the death, but Buchanan informs him that

it was Gatsby’s car that killed the woman. The mechanic goes to Gatsby’s house,

where he shoots Gatsby and then himself. Daisy refuses to confess to her crime,

and only a few people, including Gatsby’s father Henry, show up for Gatsby’s

funeral.

5. S- Style

a. Let’s start of with who F Scott Fitzgerald is. He is the author of the book Great

Gatsby who grew up in poverty, much like Gatsby itself, and attained the

‘American Dream’. He is married to Zelda Fitzgerald, who has very significant

similarities to Daisy Buchanan, who would not marry Scott until he could support

her financially. Although he moved to New York to work in advertising and write

short stories, she broke off the engagement. He was also an alcoholic during the

great depression and this fact worsened due to Zelda’s schizophrenia.

b. Back to the story itself, the story wasn’t written in chronological order. It was told

in the way Nick remembers the story . The story was also written in first person,
 where it gives the readers insight into how Nick --- and therefore Fitzgerald ---

feels about certain situations. It allows the audience to experience the events first

hands, but just as an observer, not actually taking part of the actual experience.

When observing closer the author focused more on describing the character’s

personalities rather than their physical appearance. The author/narrator uses

adjectives to create a vivid picture for the readers. Basically the book Great

Gatsby is a descriptive narrative. The author also tends to use flashbacks. For

example James Gatz or Jay Gatsby; Gatsby’s past is recalled in order to explain

his present situation. Like it portrays rejection of his family and his original name

as a necessary precondition to his later glory and wealth.

c. The narrator also uses foreshadowing. For example how Gatsby is unable to

physically touch the green light; this foreshadows how he will be unable to

achieve his goal about having Daisy. Another foreshadow would be when Gatsby

knocks over Nick’s clock.; this foreshadows how much trouble he will cause for

Daisy and how he can not turn back time to how they were before. Fitzgerald also

uses Satire in this book. He uses satire to explain the lavish parties that Gatsby

throws and how nick returns home to the Midwest where he understands the

values of upholding culture. Most importantly he uses satire by showing the

‘American Dream’.

d. The biggest style for me that Fitzgerald used would be Symbolism. He relied a lot

on symbolism as a literary device to further relay his prominent message to the

readers/ audience. For examples:

 i. The Eyes/ Glasses

1. This was the big advertisement board/billboard in the Valley of

Ashes. This was used as a visual reminder on how ‘God is always

watching’. This also allows Nick to see through a different

perspective.

ii. Town Tattle

1. This was the magazine about the rich lifestyle of the people in New

York. Myrtle was seen buying the magazine during her outing with

Tom and Nick. This symbolizes that Myrtle always wanted to live

like the rich. It was her ticket to the upper class, it represented that

Tom’s lifestyle, her dream, was in her hand/grasp.

iii. Time/ Clock

1. This was the clock in Nick’s small cottage that Gatsby knocks over

when he encountered Daisy. This represented the time they have

spent and the time they have left. It also emphasizes how much

time is spent on Gatsby’s pursuit of Daisy. The clock falling means

it was a waste of Gatsby’s time and that he couldn’t bring back the

time they’ve spent before.

iv. Green Light

1. This by far is the most important symbol in the story. This was the

green light at the end of Daisy and Tom’s dock. This represented

Gatsby’s hopes and dreams for the future. Gatsby associates the
 green light with Daisy, and in the first part of the book he reaches

toward it in the darkness as a guiding light to lead him to his goal.

And since Gatsby’s quest for Daisy is broadly associated with the

American dream, the green light also 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.

Basically it symbolizes Gatsby’s perfect world, including Daisy.

e. Fitzgerald also used Irony in this book. We can first spot it in Klipsringer’s Song.

“In the morning, In the evening, Ain’t we got fun ----- One thing’s sure and

nothing’s surer The rich gets richer and the poor get children. In the meantime, In

between time -----” This song is told from the perspective of a poor man who is

happy. We can also spot irony with the character Myrtle. Myrtle ran out to the

yellow car, thinking her lover was coming to rescue her. “Beat me!” he heard her

cry. “Throw me down and beat me, you dirty little coward!” A moment later she

rushed out into the night waving her hands and shouting, then she got hit and

died.

f. In conclusion the book The Great Gatsby is a descriptive narrative novel. It is a

fictional story, full of rhetorical devices to keep it interesting. Fitzgerald writes

from what he knows, using many of his personal experiences in this novel, such

as his relationship with his wife. The use of Flashbacks, Foreshadowing, Satire,

and Irony are all key parts or ways in which the author points out important

aspects of his novel.

6. I- Ideas

a. There are multiple themes in the book The Great Gatsby such as; justice, power,

greed, betrayal, the American dream, and so on. There’s an obvious distinction

between social classes however in the end, each of these classes have its own

problems to tend to, which reminds us that everyone, no matter what social class

your in, everyone has problems. Also by creating these social classes --- old

money, new money, and no money --- the author is sending a message about the

elitism that runs through every strata of society. The author represented the frenzy

of society in America during the 1920’s, which was the time of great post-war

economic growth.

b. The American Dream

i. The American Dream is one the biggest themes in the Great Gatsby. The

dream that Jay Gatsby so desperately wanted to achieve. The dream that

destroyed not only society in The Great Gatsby but also corrupted the

American society during the 1920s. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of

happiness established the foundation of the American Dream. The need

and want of common people to own property and grow wealthy through

hard work or through illegal matters. For Jay Gatsby's American Dream

was more than money, it was Daisy Buchanan. And according to

Fitzgerald, the dream was corrupted by the desire for ease and comfort.

Jay wanted more than what Daisy could give, he was asking for too much.
 In the end his dream was not realized because the dream itself was not

worth achieving, no matter how hard he tried. In the same way this

represented the American Dream in the 1920s --- ease and material objects

--- was not a dream that was worth achieving. Blinded by the greed

they’ve lost more than they could have earned. Gatsby’s quest for that

dream also represents his longing need to repeat the past and to relive the

greatness of another era. Much like how the Americans wanted to

revitalized the American Dream. But alas you can’t go back to the past

and you would just have to need to move forward. We can see Fitzgerald’s

cynicism and negative views of his society are representative of all

modernist writers.

c. Wealth and Money

i. The extravagant houses, the lavish parties, the roaring twenties, the Great

Gatsby showed of all the money one has in every possible way. As we all

know there are two types of wealthy people in The Great Gatsby; old

money, who live in East Egg, and the nouveau or new rich, who live in

West Egg. The people of the West egg or the nouveau riche are

represented by Gatsby. Who obtained all his wealth through illegal matters

such as bootlegging. His wealth is showcased through all the extravagant

parties, outrageous automobiles, and his over the top mansion. As for

those in the East Egg, they are represented proudly by Tom Buchanan.

Who is an old money and has inherited all his money. However morally
 he’s a sad poor fellow, an adulterer and a liar. He’s a rich bastard who

cares about him and his fellow richies well-being. However overall both

the east-eggers and west-eggers many things in common; corruption and

greed.

d. Class

i. As I’ve said before the theme of class or social class is well presented in

The Great Gatsby. Its already obvious with the setting of the story itself;

East Egg representing the old money, West Egg representing the new

money, and the “valley of ashes” represents the middle and lower classes.

Those who are in the lower and middle school classes strive to live like

those in the upper classes. An example of this would be Myrtle Wilson.

Another good example of this is Jay Gatsby, is obsessed with being seen

as the best and the richest in the West Egg so that Daisy can look at him

the same way and finally be with him.

Word Count: 3479

 Works Cited

SparkNotes​, SparkNotes, www.sparknotes.com/lit/gatsby/point-of-view/.

Study.com​, Study.com, study.com/academy/lesson/motifs-in-the-great-gatsby.html.

SparkNotes​, SparkNotes, www.sparknotes.com/lit/gatsby/symbols/.

“The Great Gatsby Themes.” ​The Logistic Model Has Good and Bad Features PROS CONS

Mathematically Tractable​, College Life,

www.coursehero.com/lit/The-Great-Gatsby/themes/.

Lorcher, Trent. “What Are the Themes of The Great Gatsby? The American Dream and Wealth

and Money.” ​Bright Hub Education,​ 25 June 2009,

www.brighthubeducation.com/homework-help-literature/40047-main-themes-in-the-great-

gatsby/.

Shmoop Editorial Team. “The Great Gatsby Setting.” ​Shmoop​, Shmoop University, 11 Nov.

2008, www.shmoop.com/great-gatsby/setting.html.