Transcript The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby
Take Notes
Background Discussion
 Prohibition
 Speakeasies and Bootlegging
 The Jazz Age
 Suffragette Movement and Sexual Freedom
 Rise of the Stock Market and Speculation
 Movie Industry
 Organized Crime
 Industrial Magnates and High Society
 The Lost Generation and Roaring Twenties
 Long Island
 Southampton
About Gatsby
Tom: dictator/bully
Daisy: clinging vine
Myrtle: clinging vine/weakling
Gatsby: calculator
Nick: nice guy/judge
George: nice guy/protector
Jordan: calculator
Themes
 The corruption of the American Dream
 Sight and Insight (Many images of blindness/No one
seems to see what is really going on)
 The meaning of the past(holds something for Gatsby and
Nick; a simpler, nobler time;when people believed in the
importance of the family and church)
 The education of a young man (Bilungsromen: German
for Initiation theme: growing up. Nick writes the Great
Gatsby to show what he has learned.)
 Illusion vs. Reality
Color Symbols
 Gray: death, lifelessness (people &land)
 Green: money (light at end of Daisy’s peer), Gatsby’s
goal
 Blue: dream (eyes of Dr. Eckleburg-rep’s. sightlessness)
 White: corruption is underneath-wedding cake, Daisy’s
and Jordon’s clothes(airiness and fairylike)
 Darks & Lights: Gatsby’s world is deceptive
 Gold or Yellow: wealth, materialism
 Red: violence/violent death
 Pink: violence underneath
Other Symbols
 Valley of Ashes: The Wasteland-T.S. Eliot
 Daisy: wealth, position, status, “golden girl,”
 Eckleburg: represents capitalistic profit(He is the God of
the Wasteland.)
 Ashes: gray, lifeless, wasteland, death, True Reality
 Apartment: on outside, a beautiful wedding cake; inside,
there is corruption, greed & selfishness
 Gatsby’s house: white: garden: blue Chauffer’s
uniform:blue
More Symbols
 Buchanan’s house: red and white/carpet crimson
 Nick’s boats: red & gold: dream stained by violence
 Myrtle: wears brown when in Valley of Ashes; changes
to ecru or cream dresses; she becomes unreal and
someone else.
 Sunday: Most people worshipping/ people at Gatsby’s
house partying: un-God-like
 East and West: represent old and new wealth, names of
people who go to Gatsby’s parties are listed: reader
knows the difference between the old and new wealth(the
new have acquired wealth by ruthless means.)