THE GREAT GATSBY

THE GREAT GATSBY

TOM
1. "One of those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterwards savours of anti-climax"
2. "even in college his freedom with money was a matter for reproach"
3. "Making a short deft movement, Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand"
  1. 'short' & 'deft' - state the ease & casualty of his violence towards others and emphasise his extremely powerful body
  2. shows Tom's chauvinism & reinforces a woman's place in the 1920s
    1. implies how men were superior both financially and in the household along with the subservience and docility of females
4. "hard malice"
5. "Once in a while I go off on a spree and make a fool of myself, but I always come back, and in my heart I love her all the time"
NICK
1. "I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known"
2. "normal"
3. "a guide, a pathfinder, an original settler"
  1. THE PIONEERS
    1. iconic, representing those who went into unexplored territory to establish prosperity & a new life
    2. Nick sees himself in the role of a pioneer when he moves to NY to become a financier
    3. Wilson hopes to move west with Myrtle, to follow in the pioneer's footsteps & finally realise the American Dream
4. "sense of the fundamental decencies"
  1. the tension between people's ideas of how to behave towards each other is one of the factors which ultimately causes the final tragedy"
GATSBY
1. "new money"
  1. GATSBY'S MANSION
    1. "eyesore"
    2. represents the 'new money' class, which overcompensates for its lack of social connections through lavish displays of wealth
2. "elegant young rough-neck...whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd"
3. "I asked him to wait for half an hour. But it wasn't any use. Nobody came."
4. "rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it"
5. "I carry on a little business on the side...it happens to be a rather confidential sort of thing"
  1. BOOTLEGGING
  2. does not result in the wealth required to marry Daisy
GEORGE
1. "one of those worn out men"
  1. ends up poor, unhappy and ultimately destroyed
  2. seems grey compared to the vitality and bright colours associated with Gatsby and the upper class
  3. THE VALLEY OF ASHES
    1. "a fantastic farm where ashes grow"
      1. an image of complete desolation and poverty
      2. symbolises the moral decay and inner emptiness that is hidden between the glamorous facades of 'the eggs' and Manhattan
2. "He's so dumb he doesn't know he's alive"
  1. reinforces Tom's elitism towards people who are inferior in terms of either status or wealth
DAISY
1. "I hope she'll be a fool-that's the best thing a girl can be in this world a beautiful little fool"
  1. a product of social environment that does not value intelligence in women
  2. girls can have more fun if they are beautiful/simplistic
2. "What a grotesque thing a rose is"
  1. Gatsby made her into a thing of beauty by making her the object of his dreams
    1. Nick suggests roses are only beautiful as people choose to view them that way
      1. if Gatsby had not given her such value she would be an idle, bored rich young women with no particular moral strength or loyalty

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	Created by Georgia Robinson over 7 years ago