1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

2. “Then wear the gold hat if that will move her: If you can bounce high, bounce for her too, Till she cry, “Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover, I must have you.” - Thomas Parke D’Invilliers

3. Key Facts Genre – Modernist, Jazz Age novel, novel of manners
Time written: 1923 –24
Narrator: Nick Carraway – not only narrates but implies that he is the book’s author
Point of view: first and third person – some sections presented objectively and some sections presented with his own interpretations

4. Tone: Nick’s attitudes towards Gatsby are ambivalent and contradictory – at times he seems to disapprove of Gatsby’s excesses and at other times, he admires Gatsby and describes him in a nostalgic tone
Tense: past
Setting: Summer 1922
Place: Long Island and New York City
Protagonist: Gatsby and/or Nick

5. Characters
Nick Carraway: narrator and moral arbiter of The Great Gatsby
Tom Buchanan: represents brutality and the moral carelessness of the established rich
Daisy Fay Buchanan: Nick’s distant cousin and Tom’s wife. She is the “golden girl” who has become the incarnation of Gatsby’s dream
Jordan Baker: an attractive woman golfer who becomes involved with the narrator and who is given to compulsive lying
Jay Gatsby: a racketeer and a romantic idealist, he devotes his life to amassing the wealth he thinks he need to win Daisy and thereby make his dream come true

6. George Wilson: the proprietor of a shabby garage in the Valley of Ashes.
Myrtle Wilson: a woman of ludicrous ostentation, whose “animal vitality” attracts Tom
Owl-Eyes: A stout, middle-aged man who attends Gatsby’s parties
Meyer Wolfsheim: The Jewish gambler and racketeer who is Gatsby’s business associate

7. Symbols The Valley of Ashes and ashes – the modern world
The green light at the end of Daisy’s dock
East Egg and West Egg
The parties
The careers of the main characters
The eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg – God
The automobile – an ideal based on materialism is ultimately destructive

8. Themes The decline of the American Dream The spirit of the 1920s
The difference between social classes
The role of symbols in the human search for meaning
The role of the past in dreams of the future

9. Motifs: The connection between events and weather
The connection between geographical location and social values
Images of time
Extravagant parties
The quest for wealth