The Great Gatsby

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 5

Characters

Tom Buchanan - Daisy Buchanan - Jay Gatsby - Jordan Baker - Nick Carraway

How are the characters related to each other? (question to check whether studentss have read chapter 1 and 2)

Other characters mentioned (C 2): 

George and Myrtle Wilson

Mr and Mrs McKee

Doctor T.J. Eckleburg (trick question)

What do you think of the first two chapter?

What do you (already) know about the novel? 

How do you think the story will continue? 

Have you seen the movie? What it is about?

Do you like the narrator?

2 minutes

Try to spoil it as little as possible for the students who have not watched the movie/finished the book

ALSO, point out three students to give you a word + definition (assignment from the reading schedule). 

Write these words done to create a list that can be used when making the test!!

F. Scott Fitzgerald

• 1896 - 1940
• American short-story writer and novelist
• Famous for depicting the Jazz Age / Roaring Twenties
• Aristocratic blood
• "A heightened sensitivity to the promises of life"
• Zelda Fitzgerald
• The "fast life"
• The 1930s: disorderly and unhappy life

Context of composition =

Writers are also affected by their environment and personal experiences. Time, race, gender nationality and family history are a few factors. 

People, authors, are products of their time (when writing contemporary stories, so not in the case of historic novels)

Aristocratic blood: Fitzgerald was the only son of an unsuccessful, aristocratic father and an energetic, provincial mother. Half the time he thought of himself as the heir of his father’s tradition. As a result, he had typically ambivalent American feelings about American life, which seemed to him at once vulgar and dazzlingly promising.

Heightened sensitivity: He also had an intensely romantic imagination, what he once called “a heightened sensitivity to the promises of life,” and he charged into experience determined to realize those promises.

Zelda Fitzgerald:

known for their extraordinary love and their way of life.

Fast life: literary and economic success made it possible for Fitzgerald and Zelda to live a life they dreamed about, he wrote about. They were beautifully equipped for it as it was in their blood (aristocrats). However, living the fast life, the couple realized it could end them (losing touch with reality, not ever being satisfied or content). They moved to France. Nonetheless, they found themselves again in a world of glamour. Unsure how he felt about it all, he depicted the divided nature in his finest work The Great Gatsby. His other works represented the Jazz Age, but not with the same level of nuance and gravity as in Gatsby. 

1930s: Fitzgerald becomes an alcoholic, Zelda mentally unstable. Eventually goes to a sanitarium. With its failure and his despair over Zelda, Fitzgerald was close to becoming an incurable alcoholic. By 1937, however, he had come back far enough to become a scriptwriter in Hollywood, and there he met and fell in love with Sheilah Graham, a famous Hollywood gossip columnist. He started writing a novel again, a novel about Hollywood, it was his final attempt to create his dream of the promises of American life and of the kind of man who could realize them. Ironically, he died from a heart attack halfway through writing. Why is this ironic? (= he could not make his dream true. He was not the type of man who could realize the American dream lif.

The Roaring Twenties / The Jazz Agee

- Fashion

- Music

- Dancing

- Prosperity

- Loose morals

-  Alcohol

- Flapper girls

- Mafiosi 

The Roaring Twenties

• The American Dream
• Roaring twenties/The Jazz Age
• Prohibition
• Old money vs New money

Context of composition =

Writers are also affected by their environment and personal experiences. Time, race, gender nationality and family history are a few factors. (Look for contextual clues as evidence that show what the writer wants to convey.)

The American Dream = During the 1920s, the perception of the American Dream was that an individual can achieve success in life regardless of family history or social status if they only work hard enough -> New Money

Roaring Twenties = period of rapid industrial and economic growth and social change. The decade has a distinctive cultural edge in various big Western cities, so in Paris the "roaring twenties" was also a thing. Art and culture were at the center of attention, Jazz also peaked during this period. Roaring Twenties is also known as the Jazz age.  

Jazz: (black) culture, dance.

The spirit of the Roaring Twenties was marked by a general feeling of novelty associated with modernity and a break with tradition. (break from the depressive times associated with WWI)

Everything seemed possible through modern technology! (There's a lot of new technology and machinery at play in the novel)

Prohibition = Progressive party became the leading party. The party was backed by the protestant church, believing that prohibition of alcohol and drugs would decrease crime. Its crowning achievement was the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the associated Volstead Act which made illegal the manufacture, import and sale of beer, wine and hard liquor (though drinking was technically not illegal).

Old Money vs Money =

“old money” meaning the generational trend of inheriting money from family opposed to “new money” meaning coming into money independently.

Old money families are proud and value their history and connections. Closed-knit community. Looks down upon New Money because they are lower class people who have climbed up the financial ladder. 

New Money: related to the American dream, to be self-made. Success can be reached when you work hard (new money = labour)

Chapter 1, p. 4

In my younger and more vulnerable years, my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. 

"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had."

He didn't say any more, but we've always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that. In consequence, I'm inclined to reserve all judgments...

... Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth.

Does this set the tone? Is everything that the narrator say true and objective?

Does this make the narrator reliable? 

Do you think the narrator will change? Will he stop reserving judgment? 

"Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope." = Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope suggests a willingness to delay judgment on people who behave badly. We want to give them the benefit of the doubt (if there is any) but find some people never change hence "infinite hope".

Chapter 1, p. 7

I lived at West Egg, the - well, the less fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them. My house was at the very tip of the egg, only fifty yards from the sound, and squeezed between two huge places that rented for twelve or fifteen thousand a season...

My own house was an eyesore, but it was a small eyesore, and it had been overlooked, so I had a view of the water, a partial view of my neighbor's lawn, and the consoling proximity of millionaires - all for eighty dollars a month. 

What is this passage about? 

-> Money, contrast between rich and poor

What does this passage say about Nick? 

-> humble, content, does not hold material in high value

Will talk about money more next lesson (chapter 3). The theme money is important throughout the whole novel!!

Tom Buchanan

• "Two shining arrogant eyes" 
• "the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward"
• "a cruel body"
• "a brute of a man, a great, big, hulking physical specimen of a --"

Daisy Buchanan

• "she laughed, an absurd, charming little laugh, and I laughed too"
• "That was a way she had"
• "low, thrilling voice... the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down, as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again"
• "her voice compelled me forward breathlessly"
• "her voice glowing and singing"

Body VS Voice

Negative tone VS positive tone

Criticizing VS praising

"That was a way she had" = "(I've heard it said that Daisy's murmur was only to make people lean toward her; an irrelevant criticism that made it no less charming.)" 

Daisy

the author builds her character with associations of light, purity, and innocences, when all is said and done, she is the opposite of what she presents herself t obe

Chapter 2, p. 20

About halfway between West Egg and New York the motor road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarteer of a mile, so as to shrink away from a certain desolate area of land. This is a valley of ashes - a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air...

But above the gray land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlesssly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg. 

Settings of TGG:

• East and West Egg
• New York
• The Vally of Ashes

The Valley of Ashes, space between East and West Egg and New York. Characters continuously travel through the valley. 

- Also, Mr and Mrs Wilson live/work here (garage/repair shop)

- Symbolism: moral decay of the 20s, the eyes of God

Chapter 2, p. 29

I wanted to get out and walk southward toward the park through the soft twilight, but each time I tried to go I became entangled in some wild, strident argument which pulled me back, as if with ropes, into my chair. Yet high over the city our line of yellow windows must have contributed their share of human secrecy to the casual watcher in the darkening streets, and I was him too, looking up and wondering. I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.

What does this say about Nick as a character?

AND what does this say about him as a narrator? (reliable or not?)

•  “Nick’s reserved nature and indecisiveness show in the fact that though he feels morally repelled by the vulgarity and tastelessness of the party, he is too fascinated by it to leave. This contradiction suggests the ambivalence that he feels toward the Buchanans, Gatsby, and the East Coast in general.” 

Can you relate to the feeling of being within and without? Think about school, your friend group. 

* Share personal anecdote if there is time

Mr. Gatsby

I saw that I was not alone...

But I didn't call to him, for he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to be alone - 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. Involuntarily I glanced seaward - and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock. When I looked once more for Gatsby he had vanished, and I was alone again in the unquiet darkness. (p. 19)

"Well, they say he's a nephew or a cousin of Kaiser Wilhelm's. That's where all his money 

comes from."

"Really?" 

She nodded.

"I'm scared of him. I'd hate to have him get anything on me."

This absorbing information about my neighbor was interrupted by Mrs. McKee's pointing 

suddenly at Catherine. (p. 27)

• The first time that the narrator sees Gatsby.

What does this scene say about Nick? 

-> he is considerate, polite, sensitive

What does this scene say about Gatsby?

-> he is mysterious, strange, ghost/myth like (Is Gatsby the type of man that can realize the American dream?)

Vocabulary

5 unknown words and 5 interesting words...

Name 5 students, each givess one unknown word and one interesting word. 

Note down the words the students give so you can use them in the test. 

Students have to share the definitions with the class, and explain what they liked about the interesting words!

Chapter 3, p 46

At first I was flattered to go places with her, because she was a golf champion, and everyone knew her name. Then it was something more. I wasn't actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity. The bored haughty face that she turned to the world concealed something - most affections conceal something eventually, even though they don't in the beginning - and one day I found what it was. When we were on a house-party together up in Warwick, she left a borrowed car out in the rain with the top down, and then lied about it - and suddenly I remembered the story about her that had eluded me that night at Daisy's. At her first big golf tournament there was a row that nearly reached the newspapers - a suggestion that she had moved her ball from a bad lie in the semi-final round. The thing approached the proportions of a scandal - then died away. A caddy retracted his statement, and the only other witness admitted that he might have been mistaken. The incident and the name had remained together in my mind. 

Jordan Baker instinctively avoided clever, shrewd men, and now I Isaw that this was because she felt safer on a plane where any divergence from a code would be thought impossible. She was incurably dishonest. 

... It made no difference to me. Dishonesty in a woman is a thing you never blame deeply.

Read together, ask students their first impression. 

What does Nick liking Jordan say about his character? 

About his abilities to be a reliable narrator when it comes to narrating Gatsby’s story?

Is Nick a hypocrite? 

He says he reserves all judgment, but does this passage not sound judgmental? Or is he simply narrating facts?

Does Nick not judging people make him reliable? Should a reliable narrator not be the reader's moral filter?

Contrast:

honesty vs dishonesty

reliable vs unreliable 

Chapter 3, p 47

... for a moment I thought I loved her. But I am slow-thinking and full of interior rules that act as brakes on my desires, and I knew that first I had t get myself definitely out of that tangle back home. I'd been writing letters once a week and signing them: "Love, Nick," and all I could think of was how, when that certain girl played tennis, a faint mustache of perspiration appeared on her upper lip. Nevertheless, there was a vague understanding that had to be tactfully broken off before I was free. 

Everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known. 

Refers back to chapter 1 where Tom and Daisy ask Nick whether he is engaged with a girl. He denies the gossip, but it appears to be true. He is in contact with a girl. 

He believes himself to be an honest man as h first wants to formally break up that engagement before continuing with Jorden. Is this true? Can he be an honest man if he denied that relationship in the first place? 

Does this little secret make the narrator more human, more of a character rather than just a narrator? 

Your passages

Why is it important to the progression 

of the story?

Where do you think the story is 

progressing towards? 

• Point out two/three students to discuss their passage. Question them why they choose the passage, why is it important to the progression of the story, whether they like what is going on at this point of the story and where do they think the story is going to. 

(7-10 minutes)

Money

his two motor-boats... his Rolls-Roys... eight servants, including an extra gardener... a corps of caterers... the orchestra... swimmers

Contrast

Personal vs Impersonal

Leisure vs Labour

Kind vs Dangerous

Upper class vs Lower class

Appearance vs Reality

• Personal vs Impersonal

Gatsby's guests, they don't know the host but come t other party anyway. Only Nick is invited and personally invested, he wants to find Gatsby to thank him for the invitiation

• Leisure vs Labour

Most people come to party, however, the English men come to work, earn money (p. 34). 

The first half of the chapter, party. Second half of the chapter, Nick describing his day to day life, work

• Kind vs Dangerous

Is Gatsby a good man or not? Rumors that he has killed a man, but also, buys a guest a new dress when she rips her dress at his party (p.35)

• Upper class vs Lower class

Foreshadows the battle of old money vs new money, the original upper classes and the new upper class (= rising lower class). Next slide has textual evidence (Close reading)

• Appearance vs Reality

Gatsby is still very mysterious. Nick has not yet been acquainted with the man, he has only heard rumors. This big party, is Gatsby hiding something? 

Also, what about the library? Why did the owl-eyed man think the books would be fake? (p. 37)

Chapter 3, p. 36

Instead of rambling, this party had preserved a dignified homogeneity and assumed to itself the function of representing the staid nobility of the countryside - East Egg condescending to West Egg, and carefully on guard against its spectroscopic gayety. 

East Egg vs West Egg

Old money vs New Money

West Egg makes a dignified appearance to not be judged by old money East egg. 

Apperance vs Reality

"Homogeneity" suggests that this is not a mixed group, but a singular and representative collection of people who all stand for the same thing. Set as a contrary to the "spectroscopic" nature of the other Egg, this party does not cover the spectrum but, rather, is concentrated in one band of the social spectrum. 

• This passage does not offer good evidence regarding the materialism of the people at the party, but it does offer evidence relating to the high value placed on social status.

Nick is commenting on the "dignified" mood of the party, which resembles a serious, modest atmosphere, instead of the typical "rambling" and rowdy environment of an extravagant party. As Gatsby lives in the West Egg and the majority of the people attending his party are products of "new money"; as a result, Gatsby and his guests are conscious of behaving in a dignified manner to avoid being negatively stereotyped by the East Egg citizens. The West Egg citizens are essentially putting on airs to impress the East Egg citizens, who come from "old money." The West Egg citizens want to avoid being ridiculed and categorized as wild, disreputable citizens, who are not civilized like the wealthy people of the East Egg. In order to avoid condescending glances from East Egg citizens, Gatsby's guests behave in a dignified, appropriate manner.

Do you like the novel so far?

If there is time, talk with the student about the book. Do they like reading it? are they enjoying the story? Or does it feel like a chore?

Your passages

Why does the passage depict heroism 

with regard to character x?

Question the students whether they chose passages about Gatsby or Nick. 

Discuss two passages, one about Gatsby and one aboutNick. 

Question them. Let the students do all the talking. 

The next slides dive deeper into the concept of "hero"

The Great Gatbsy a Hero?

Protagonist: (main) character that instigates the development of a story.

Hero = 

• The main character in a literary work; the term is also used in a specialized sense for any figure celebrated in the ancient legends (classical).
• Modern heroes, who perform great deeds or selfless acts for the common good instead of the classical goal of wealth, pride, and fame.
• A person who is admired for great or brave acts or fine qualities.
• The good guy

Nick is the narrator

Gatsby is the protagonist of the story that Nick tells, he instigates the development of the story. 

Is Gatsby a hero? 

A lot of rumors circulate around about Gatssby (people say he is the cousin of a prince, a war hero, a murderer, a man who wants no trouble with anyone). 

Looking at these different definitions of a hero, do they suit Gatsby? 

From Nick's pov, Gatsby is definitely a good man and a hero. 

However, what does the reader think? 

Tragic hero?

How about a tragic hero? Does this fit Gatsby better? 

Students have to note this concept down and do their own research on it as homework.

May or may not be questioned on the test :)

Chapter 4, p. 50/51

He was balancing himself on the dashboard of his car with that resourcefulness of movement that is so peculiarly American - that comes, I suppose, with the absence of lifting work or rigid sitting in youth and, even more, with the formless grace of our nervous, sporadic games. This quality was continually breaking through his punctilious manner in the shape of restlessness. He was never quite still; there was always a tapping foot somewhere or the impatient opening and closing of a hand...

So my first impression, that he was a person of some undefined consequences, had gradually faded and he had come simply the proprietor of an elaborate roadhouse next door. 

And then came that disconcerting ride. We hadn't reached West Egg village before Gatsby began leaving his elegant sentences unfinished and slapping himself indecisively on the knee of his caramel-colored suit...

"I'll tell you God's truth."

He looked at me sideways - and I knew why Jordan Baker had believed he was laying. He hurried the phrase "educated at Oxford," or swallowed it, or choked on it, as though it had bothered him before. And with this doubt, his whole statement fell to pieces, and I wondered if there wasn't something a little sinister about him, after all. 

Close Reading: Gatsby tells Nick about his upbringing, his achievements, and his time in Europe. He is not entirely believed by Nick. (this passage could have triggered some feelings with the students)

• Ask the students whether they believe Gatsby or not.

segue to discuss conflict: man vs society

Gatsby feels the need to lie about his past, his upbringing. He has put up an appearance to fit in. 

Conflict

Man vs Society - it may seem that the whole world is against the protagonist

Man vs Man - the person standing in the way of the protagonist is usally the antogonist. The struggles between protagnist and antagonists usally symbolise a greater ideological struggle.

Man vs Nature - sometimes the protagonist just seems to one in the wrong place at the wrong time. There may be incidents that reflect the adverse circumstances that life can throw at you.

Man vs Self - sometimes the protagonisst is his/her own enemy. He may be 'flawed', meaning they have a harmful trait/characteristic, or they are insecure. Part of the plot may involve the protagonist reflecting on events and making changes.

In literature, a conflict is a literary device characterized by a struggle between two opposing forces. Conflict provides crucial tension in any story and is used to drive the narrative forward.

• man vs society

• man vs man

• man vs nature

• man vs self: 

Gatsby's tragic flaw: chasing the American Dream, chasing Daisy. Insecurity: not being good enough, his poor past

Nick struggling with his personal values: rotten crowd eventually.

Your passages

What kind of symbolism does the 

passage depict?

The eyes of TJ Eckleberg

The green light at Daisy's dock

Tell the students to pay attention to the weather in chapter 5, it symbolises something in relation to Gatsby. (homework assignment, could be questioned in the test)

Vocabulary

From chapter 1 and 2

Pick a student to share their interesting and new words from chapter 1, lesson 1. 

(The first lesson was too packed with lectures to do this).

Chapter 7 and 8

What happens in chapter 7?

- Vocabulary

What happens in chapter 8?

- Vocabulary

A lot happens in the reading for this lesson (chapter 7 and 8)

Ask two students to summarize the chapters and share their 

Your passages

Why does this passage depict 

conflict and confrontation?

Chapter 7: Dinner at the Buchanan's, the cars, the move to the city, Wilson finding out his wife has an affair, fight scene, the hit and run.

• Conflict and tension at dinner. Tom learns that there is something between his wife and Gatbsy. Start of tension between two opposing forces. Up until now only Gatsby experienced the tension, Tom did not know someone was standing against him. 
• Going by car to New York city: Tom makes a power move by suggesting he drives Gatsby's car with Daisy. 
• Fight scene: Tom and Gatsby argue and fight for Daisy's love

Chapter 7, p. 87

• Nick is a caring character. Nick is a friend. 
• Gatsby depends on Daisy's approval.  

Let the students have a look at page 87 and read it again. 

Start a discussion about above two points. 

Encourage the students to talk. 

"so the whole caravansary had fallen in like a card house at the disapproval in her eyes." 

- Is Nick judging, making his own conclusions? Or is this true? Gatsby says its because of gossip...

Chapter 7, p. 91

"Come outside," he suggested to Gatsby, "I'd like you to have a look at the place."

I went with them out to the veranda. On the green Sound, stagnant in the heat, one small sail crawled slowly toward the fresher sea. Gatsby's eyes followed it momentarily; he raised his hand and pointed across the bay. 

"I'm right across from you."

"So you are."

Foreshadowing - A literary device in which a writer provides the audience with hints and clues about what will happen next.

• Foreshadowing usually appears toward the beginning of a story.

• Foreshadowing allows readers to make better predictions about what will happen next.

These last lines foreshadow the big confrontation that will happen later on in the chapter. 

Also, Tom saying "so you are" foreshadows how Tom will realize that Gatsby is standing across him in terms of Daisy. Tom, up until now, does not know that there is another man in Daisy's life. 

Chapter 7, p. 95

"I justs got wised up to something funny the last two days," remarked Wilson...

... The relentless beating heat was beginning to confuse me and I had a bad moment there before I realized that so far his suspicions hadn't alighted on Tom. He had discovered that Myrtle had some sort of life apart from in another world, and the shock had made him physically sick. I started at him and then at Tom, wh ohad made a parallel discovery less than an hour before -  and it occurred to me that there was no difference between men, in intelligence or race, so profound as the difference between the sick and well. Wilson was so sick that he looked guilty, unforgivably guilty - as if he had just got some girl with child. 

"parallel discovery" = similar discovery

However, Tom has a very different reaction. 

Wilson gets angry and sick, Tom gets frustrated and hyped up. 

Not frustrated with Daisy, but with the object of her desire, Gatsby. He disapproves of Gatsby. 

Wilson gets sick, unwell, weak. He locks Myrtle up so she cannot leave him.

Tom is confident that Daisy will not leave him. 

Chapter 7

p. 100

"Your wife doesn't loove you," said Gatsby. "She's never love you. She loves me."

"Youo musts be crazy!" exclaimed Tom automatically. 

Gatsby sprang to his feet, vivid with excitement. 

"She never loved you, do you hear?" he cried. "She only married you because I was poor and she was tired of waiting for me. It was a terrible mistake, but in her heart she never loved anyone except me!"

p. 102

"Oh, you want too much!" she cried to Gatssby. "I love you now -  isn't that enough? I can't help what's past." she began to sob helplessly. "I did love him once - but I loved you too."

Gatsby'ss eyes opened and closed. 

"You loved me too?" he repeated. 

"Even that's a lie," said Tom savagely. "she didn't know you were alive. Why - there're things between Daisy and me that you'll never know, things that neither of us can ever forget." 

Ask the students what they thought about this scene, about two men arguing about the love of one woman, the two men being the husband and ex fling. 

Discussion points: Gatsby and Daisy

• Gatsby:

Gatsby seems every unhinged. He believes in their love, he has in the past five years. Evrything he did was for Daisy, to be worthy of Daisy. What does this say about him? Hopeless romantic? Obsessive? Dealing with trauma? 

• Daisy

It's all about Daisy, but we don't hear much from her. Even though her voice plays a big role, she is silent. 

Did Daisy love Gatsby as much as he loved her? Did she ever think about him in the past five years? Or was he simply one of her many suitors, only memorable because he was maybe the poorest of the bunch...

The accident