The Great Gatsby

This article is about the novel. For the film, TV and opera adaptations, see The Great Gatsby (disambiguation).

Not to be confused with Gadsby (novel).

The Great Gatsby

File:TheGreatGatsby 1925jacket.jpeg Cover of the first edition in 1925
Author	F. Scott Fitzgerald
Cover artist	Francis Cugat
Language	English
Genre	Tragedy
Published	April 10, 1925 (US) February 10, 1926 (UK)
Publisher	Charles Scribner's Sons (US) Chatto & Windus (UK)
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (hardcover & paperback)
Pages	218 (Original US Edition)
Preceded by	The Beautiful and Damned (1922)
Followed by	Tender Is the Night (1934)

The Great Gatsby is a 1925 novel written by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald that follows a cast of characters living in the fictional towns of West Egg and East Egg on prosperous Long Island in the summer of 1922. The story primarily concerns the young and mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and his quixotic passion and obsession with the beautiful former debutante Daisy Buchanan. Considered to be Fitzgerald's magnum opus, The Great Gatsby explores themes of decadence, idealism, resistance to change, social upheaval and excess, creating a portrait of the Roaring Twenties that has been described as a cautionary tale regarding the American Dream.

Fitzgerald—inspired by the parties he had attended while visiting Long Island's North Shore—began planning the novel in 1923, desiring to produce, in his words, "something new—something extraordinary and beautiful and simple and intricately patterned." Progress was slow, with Fitzgerald completing his first draft following a move to the French Riviera in 1924. His editor, Maxwell Perkins, felt the book was vague and persuaded the author to revise over the following winter. Fitzgerald was repeatedly ambivalent about the book's title and he considered a variety of alternatives, including titles that referred to the Roman character Trimalchio; the title he was last documented to have desired was Under the Red, White, and Blue.

First published by Scribner's in April 1925, The Great Gatsby received mixed reviews and sold poorly. In its first year, the book sold only 20,000 copies. Fitzgerald died in 1940, believing himself to be a failure and his work forgotten. However, the novel experienced a revival during World War II, and became a part of American high school curricula and numerous stage and film adaptations in the following decades. Today, The Great Gatsby is widely considered to be a literary classic and a contender for the title of the "Great American Novel."

The novel's U.S. copyright will expire on January 1, 2021, when all works published in 1925 enter the public domain in the United States.

Historical context

Further information: Roaring Twenties and Jazz Age

Set on the prosperous Long Island of 1922, The Great Gatsby provides a critical social history of Prohibition-era America during the Jazz Age. That period—known for its jazz music, economic prosperity, flapper culture, libertine mores, rebellious youth, and ubiquitous speakeasies—is fully rendered in Fitzgerald's fictional narrative. Fitzgerald uses many of these 1920s societal developments to tell his story, from simple details such as petting in automobiles to broader themes such as Fitzgerald's discreet allusions to bootlegging as the source of Gatsby's fortune.

Fitzgerald educates his readers about the hedonistic society of the Roaring Twenties by placing a relatable plotline within the historical context of "the most raucous, gaudy era in U.S. history," which "raced along under its own power, served by great filling stations full of money." In many ways, The Great Gatsby represents Fitzgerald's attempt to confront his conflicted feelings about the Jazz Age, an era whose themes he would later regard as reflective of events in his own life.

F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Sayre

Many events in Fitzgerald's life are reflected throughout The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald was a young Midwesterner from Minnesota, and, like the novel's narrator who went to Yale, he was educated at an Ivy League school, Princeton. While at Princeton, the 19-year-old Fitzgerald met Ginevra King, a 16-year-old socialite with whom he fell in love. However, Ginevra's family discouraged Fitzgerald’s pursuit of their daughter due to his lower-class status, and her father purportedly told the young Fitzgerald that "poor boys shouldn't think of marrying rich girls."

Rejected as a suitor due to his lack of financial prospects, Fitzgerald joined the military and became a second lieutenant. He was stationed at Camp Sheridan in Montgomery, Alabama where he met Zelda Sayre, a vivacious 17-year-old Southern beauty. Zelda agreed to marry him but her parents delayed their wedding until he could prove a financial success. Thus Fitzgerald is similar to Jay Gatsby in that he fell in love while stationed far from home in the military and then sought success to prove himself to the woman he loved.

After his success as a novelist and as a short story writer, Fitzgerald married Zelda and moved to New York. He found his new affluent lifestyle in the exclusive Long Island social milieu to be seductive and exciting. Much like Gatsby, Fitzgerald had always idolized the rich and was driven by his love for a woman who symbolized everything he wanted, even as he was led towards a lifestyle which he despised.

Plot summary

George Wilson and his wife Myrtle live in the "valley of ashes," a refuse dump (shown in the above photograph) historically located in New York City during the 1920s. Today, the area is Flushing Meadows–Corona Park.

In the summer of 1922, Nick Carraway, a Yale graduate from the Midwest and veteran of the Great War—who serves as the novel's narrator—takes a job in New York as a bond salesman. He rents a small house on Long Island, in the fictional village of West Egg, next door to the lavish mansion of Jay Gatsby, a mysterious multi-millionaire who holds extravagant parties but does not participate in them.

Nick drives around the bay to East Egg for dinner at the home of his beautiful cousin, Daisy Fay Buchanan, and her husband, Tom, a college acquaintance of Nick's. They introduce Nick to Jordan Baker, an attractive, cynical young golfer. She reveals to Nick that Tom has a mistress, Myrtle Wilson, who lives in the "valley of ashes," an industrial dumping ground between West Egg and New York City.

Not long after this revelation, Nick travels with Tom to a garage owned by Myrtle's husband George Wilson before heading to an apartment in New York City that Tom uses for trysts with Myrtle, as well as other women with whom he has sex. At Tom's New York apartment, a vulgar and bizarre party ensues, ending with Tom striking Myrtle and breaking her nose after she angers him by saying Daisy's name several times.

Nick eventually receives an invitation to one of Gatsby's parties. Nick encounters Jordan Baker at the party and they meet Gatsby himself, an aloof and surprisingly young man who recognizes Nick because they were in the same division in the Great War. Through Jordan, Nick later learns that Gatsby knew Daisy through a purely chance meeting in 1917 when Daisy and her friends were volunteering with young officers headed to Europe. From their brief meetings and casual encounters at the time, Gatsby became (and still is) deeply in love with Daisy. Gatsby had hoped that his wild parties would attract an unsuspecting Daisy, who lives across the bay, to appear at his doorstep and allow him to present himself as a man of wealth and position.

The twenty-story luxury Plaza Hotel in the early 1920s

Having developed a budding friendship with Nick, Gatsby uses him to arrange a reunion with Daisy: Nick invites Daisy to have tea at his house without telling her that Gatsby will also be there. After an initially awkward reunion, Gatsby takes Nick and Daisy to his large mansion in an attempt to demonstrate his wealth and sophistication. Daisy, Nick and Gatsby spend the day enjoying all the activities Gatsby can provide and Nick realizes Daisy is also in love with Gatsby. Soon, the two begin an affair.

At a luncheon at the Buchanan estate, Daisy speaks to Gatsby with such undisguised intimacy that Tom realizes their affair. Although Tom is an adulterer, he is outraged by his wife's infidelity. The group drives to the Plaza Hotel, where Tom confronts Gatsby in his suite, asserting that he and Daisy have a history that Gatsby could never understand. In addition, he discloses that Gatsby is a criminal whose fortune comes from bootlegging alcohol and other illegal activities. Daisy decides to stay with Tom, and Tom contemptuously sends her back to East Egg with Gatsby, attempting to prove that Gatsby cannot hurt him.

So we beat on, boats against the current,

borne back ceaselessly into the past.

— F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

On the way back, Gatsby's car strikes and kills Tom's mistress, Myrtle. Nick later learns that Daisy, not Gatsby, was driving the car at the time of the accident. George mistakenly concludes that the driver of the yellow car is his wife's secret lover. Learning from Tom that the yellow car is Jay Gatsby's, George fatally shoots Gatsby in Gatsby's swimming pool before turning the gun on himself.

Nick organizes a funeral for Gatsby, but only one of Gatsby's party-goers and his estranged father, Henry Gatz, attend. None of Gatsby's business associates attend, nor does Daisy. Nick runs into Tom in New York and learns that it was Tom who told George that the yellow car belonged to Gatsby and gave him Gatsby's address. Disillusioned with the East, Nick moves back to the Midwest, having decided not to tell Tom that it was Daisy behind the wheel of the car that killed Myrtle.

Major characters

Ginevra King (left)—whom Fitzgerald romantically pursued—inspired the character of Daisy Buchanan. Edith Cummings (right) was an amateur golfer who inspired the character of Jordan Baker. Both were fêted in the press as among Chicago's "four most desirable" debutantes.

• Nick Carraway—a Yale University graduate from the Midwest, a World War I veteran, and, at the start of the plot, a newly arrived resident of West Egg, age 29 (later 30). He also serves as the first-person narrator of the novel. He is Gatsby's next-door neighbor and a bond salesman. He is easy-going, occasionally sarcastic, and somewhat optimistic, although this latter quality fades as the novel progresses. He is more grounded and more practical than the other characters, and is always in awe of their lifestyles and morals.
• Jay Gatsby (originally James "Jimmy" Gatz)—a young, mysterious millionaire with shady business connections (later revealed to be a bootlegger), originally from North Dakota. He is obsessed with Daisy Buchanan, a beautiful debutante whom he met when he was a young military officer stationed at the Army's Camp Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky, during World War I. Gatsby is also said to have briefly studied at Trinity College, Oxford in England after the end of the war. According to Fitzgerald's wife Zelda, the character was based on the bootlegger and former World War I officer, Max Gerlach.
• Daisy Buchanan—an attractive, though shallow and self-absorbed, young debutante and socialite from Louisville, Kentucky, identified as a flapper. She is Nick's second cousin once removed, and the wife of Tom Buchanan. Before she married Tom, Daisy had a romantic relationship with Gatsby. Her choice between Gatsby and Tom is one of the central conflicts in the novel. The character of Daisy is believed to have been inspired by Fitzgerald's youthful romances with Ginevra King.
• Thomas "Tom" Buchanan—a millionaire who lives in East Egg, and Daisy's husband. Tom is an imposing man of muscular build with a "husky tenor" voice and arrogant demeanor. He was a football star at Yale University. Buchanan has parallels with William Mitchell, the Chicagoan who married Ginevra King. Buchanan and Mitchell were both Chicagoans with an interest in polo. Like Ginevra's father, whom Fitzgerald resented, Buchanan attended Yale and is a white supremacist.
• Jordan Baker—an amateur golfer and Daisy Buchanan's long-time friend with a sarcastic streak and an aloof attitude. She is Nick Carraway's girlfriend for most of the novel, though they grow apart towards the end. She has a slightly shady reputation because of rumors that she had cheated in a tournament, which harmed her reputation socially and as a golfer. Fitzgerald told Maxwell Perkins that Jordan was based on the golfer Edith Cummings, a friend of Ginevra King, though Cummings was never suspected of cheating. Her name is a play on the two popular automobile brands, the Jordan Motor Car Company and the Baker Motor Vehicle, alluding to Jordan's "fast" reputation and the new freedom presented to Americans, especially women, in the 1920s.
• George B. Wilson—a mechanic and owner of a garage. He is disliked by both his wife, Myrtle Wilson, and Tom Buchanan, who describes him as "so dumb he doesn't know he's alive." At the end of the novel, he kills Gatsby, wrongly believing that he had been driving the car that killed Myrtle, and then kills himself.
• Myrtle Wilson—George's wife, and Tom Buchanan's mistress. Myrtle, who possesses a fierce vitality, is desperate to find refuge from her disappointing marriage. She is accidentally killed by Gatsby's car, as she thinks it is Tom still driving and runs after it (driven by Daisy, though Gatsby takes the blame for the accident).
• Meyer Wolfsheim—a Jewish friend and mentor of Gatsby's, described as a gambler who fixed the 1919 World Series. Wolfsheim appears only twice in the novel, the second time refusing to attend Gatsby's funeral. He is a clear allusion to Arnold Rothstein, a New York crime kingpin who was notoriously blamed for the Black Sox Scandal that tainted the 1919 World Series.

Writing and production

The now-demolished Beacon Towers partly served as an inspiration for Gatsby's home.

Oheka Castle was another North Shore inspiration for the novel's setting.

Fitzgerald began planning his third novel in June 1922, but it was interrupted by production of his play, The Vegetable, in the summer and fall. The play failed miserably, and Fitzgerald worked that winter on magazine stories struggling to pay his debt caused by the production. The stories were, in his words, "all trash and it nearly broke my heart," although included among those stories was "Winter Dreams," which Fitzgerald later described as "a sort of first draft of the Gatsby idea."

After the birth of their only child, Frances Scott "Scottie" Fitzgerald, the Fitzgeralds moved in October 1922 to Great Neck, New York, on Long Island. The town was used as the scene of The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald's neighbors in Great Neck included such prominent and newly wealthy New Yorkers as writer Ring Lardner, actor Lew Fields, and comedian Ed Wynn. These figures were all considered to be "new money," unlike those who came from Manhasset Neck or Cow Neck Peninsula—places that were home to many of New York's wealthiest established families, and which sat across the bay from Great Neck.

This real-life juxtaposition gave Fitzgerald his idea for "West Egg" and "East Egg." In this novel, Great Neck (Kings Point) became the "new money" peninsula of West Egg and Port Washington (Sands Point) became the "old money" East Egg. Several mansions in the area served as inspiration for Gatsby's home, such as Oheka Castle and Beacon Towers, since demolished. (Another possible inspiration was Land's End, a notable Gold Coast Mansion where Fitzgerald may have attended a party.)

While the Fitzgeralds were living in New York, the Hall-Mills murder case was sensationalized in the daily newspapers over the course of many months, and the highly publicized case likely influenced the plot of Fitzgerald's novel. The case involved the double-murder of a man and his lover which occurred on September 14, 1922, mere weeks before Fitzgerald and his wife arrived in Great Neck. Scholars have speculated that Fitzgerald based certain aspects of the ending of The Great Gatsby as well as various characterizations on this factual incident.

By mid-1923, Fitzgerald had written 18,000 words for his novel, but discarded most of his new story as a false start. Some of it, however, resurfaced in the 1924 short story "Absolution." Work on The Great Gatsby began in earnest in April 1924. Fitzgerald wrote in his ledger, "Out of woods at last and starting novel." He decided to make a departure from the writing process of his previous novels and told Perkins that the novel was to be a "consciously artistic achievement" and a "purely creative work—not trashy imaginings as in my stories but the sustained imagination of a sincere and yet radiant world." Soon after this burst of inspiration, work slowed while the Fitzgeralds made a move to the French Riviera, where a serious crisis in their relationship soon developed.

By August, however, Fitzgerald was hard at work and completed what he believed to be his final manuscript in October, sending the book to his editor, Maxwell Perkins, and agent, Harold Ober, on October 30. The Fitzgeralds then moved to Rome for the winter. Fitzgerald made revisions through the winter after Perkins informed him in a November letter that the character of Gatsby was "somewhat vague" and Gatsby's wealth and business, respectively, needed "the suggestion of an explanation" and should be "adumbrated." Fitzgerald thanked Perkins for his detailed criticisms and stated, "With the aid you've given me I can make Gatsby perfect."

Content after a few rounds of revision, Fitzgerald returned the final batch of revised galleys in the middle of February 1925. Fitzgerald's revisions included an extensive rewriting of Chapter VI and VIII. Despite this, he refused an offer of $10,000 for the serial rights in order not to delay the book's publication. He had received a $3,939 advance in 1923 and $1,981.25 upon publication.

Cover art

Unlike Gatsby and Tom Buchanan, I had no girl whose disembodied face floated along the dark cornices and blinding signs...

Early drafts of the book cover made by illustrator Francis Cugat.

The cover of the first printing of The Great Gatsby is among the most celebrated pieces of art in American literature. It depicts disembodied eyes and a mouth over a blue skyline, with images of naked women reflected in the irises. A little-known artist named Francis Cugat was commissioned to illustrate the book while Fitzgerald was in the midst of writing it.

The cover was completed before the novel, and Fitzgerald was so enamored with it that he told his publisher he had "written it into" the novel. Fitzgerald's remarks about incorporating the painting into the novel led to the interpretation that the eyes are reminiscent of those of fictional optometrist Dr. T. J. Eckleburg, depicted on a faded commercial billboard near George Wilson's auto repair shop, which Fitzgerald described as:

"blue and gigantic—their retinas are one yard high. They look out of no face, but instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a non-existent nose."

Although this passage has some resemblance to the painting, a closer explanation can be found in the description of Daisy Buchanan as the "girl whose disembodied face floated along the dark cornices and blinding signs." Years later, Ernest Hemingway wrote in A Moveable Feast that when Fitzgerald lent him a copy of The Great Gatsby to read, he immediately disliked the cover, but "Scott told me not to be put off by it, that it had to do with a billboard along a highway in Long Island that was important in the story. He said he had liked the jacket and now he didn't like it."

Alternative titles

Fitzgerald's editor, Maxwell Perkins, convinced the author to abandon his original title of Trimalchio in West Egg in favor of The Great Gatsby.

Fitzgerald had difficulty choosing a title for his novel and entertained many choices before reluctantly choosing The Great Gatsby, a title inspired by Alain-Fournier's Le Grand Meaulnes. Previously he had shifted between Gatsby, Among Ash-Heaps and Millionaires, Trimalchio, Trimalchio in West Egg, On the Road to West Egg, Under the Red, White, and Blue, The Gold-Hatted Gatsby, and The High-Bouncing Lover. The titles The Gold-Hatted Gatsby and The High-Bouncing Lover came from Fitzgerald's epigraph for the novel, one which he wrote himself under the pen name of Thomas Parke D'Invilliers. He initially preferred titles referencing Trimalchio, the crude parvenu in Petronius's Satyricon, and even refers to Gatsby as Trimalchio once in the novel:

"It was when curiosity about Gatsby was at its highest that the lights in his house failed to go on one Saturday night—and, as obscurely as it had begun, his career as Trimalchio was over."

Unlike Gatsby's spectacular parties, Trimalchio participated in the audacious and libidinous orgies he hosted but, according to Tony Tanner's introduction to the Penguin edition, there are subtle similarities between the two.

In November 1924, Fitzgerald wrote to Perkins that "I have now decided to stick to the title I put on the book ... Trimalchio in West Egg," but was eventually persuaded that the reference was too obscure and that people would not be able to pronounce it. His wife, Zelda, and Perkins both expressed their preference for The Great Gatsby and the next month Fitzgerald agreed. A month before publication, after a final review of the proofs, he asked if it would be possible to re-title it Trimalchio or Gold-Hatted Gatsby but Perkins advised against it. On March 19, 1925, Fitzgerald expressed intense enthusiasm for the title Under the Red, White and Blue, but it was at that stage too late to change. The Great Gatsby was published on April 10, 1925. Fitzgerald remarked that "the title is only fair, rather bad than good."

Early drafts of the novel have been published under the title Trimalchio: An Early Version of The Great Gatsby. A notable difference between the Trimalchio draft and The Great Gatsby is a less complete failure of Gatsby's dream in Trimalchio. Another difference is that the argument between Tom Buchanan and Gatsby is more even, although Daisy still returns to Tom.

Contemporary reception

The Great Gatsby was published by Charles Scribner's Sons on April 10, 1925. Fitzgerald called Perkins on the day of publication to monitor reviews: "Any news?" "Sales situation doubtful," read a wire from Perkins on April 20, "[but] excellent reviews." Fitzgerald responded on April 24, saying the cable "depressed" him, closing the letter with "Yours in great depression." Fitzgerald had hoped the novel would be a great commercial success, perhaps selling as many as 75,000 copies. By October, when the original sale had run its course, the book had sold fewer than 20,000 copies. Despite this, Scribner's continually kept the book in print; they carried the original edition on their trade list until 1946, by which time Gatsby was in print in three other forms and the original edition was no longer needed. Fitzgerald received letters of praise from contemporaries T. S. Eliot, Edith Wharton, and Willa Cather regarding the novel; however, this was private opinion, and Fitzgerald feverishly sought the public recognition of reviewers and readers.

Critic H.L. Mencken dismissed the novel upon its publication as lacking in substance, although he praised its ending.

The Great Gatsby received mixed reviews from literary critics of the day. Generally the most effusive of the positive reviews was Edwin Clark of The New York Times, who felt the novel was "A curious book, a mystical, glamourous story of today." Similarly, Lillian C. Ford of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "[the novel] leaves the reader in a mood of chastened wonder," calling the book "a revelation of life" and "a work of art." The New York Post called the book "fascinating ... His style fairly scintillates, and with a genuine brilliance; he writes surely and soundly." The New York Herald Tribune was less impressed, referring to The Great Gatsby as "purely ephemeral phenomenon, but it contains some of the nicest little touches of contemporary observation you could imagine—so light, so delicate, so sharp ... a literary lemon meringue." In The Chicago Daily Tribune, H. L. Mencken called the book "in form no more than a glorified anecdote, and not too probable at that," while praising the book's "charm and beauty of the writing" and the "careful and brilliant finish."

The thing that chiefly interests the basic Fitzgerald is still the florid show of modern American life—and especially the devil's dance and that goes on at the top. He is unconcerned about the sweating and suffering of the nether herd; what engrosses him is the high carnival of those who have too much money to spend, and too much time for the spending of it. Their idiotic pursuit of sensation, their almost incredible stupidity and triviality, their glittering swinishness—these are the things that go into his notebook.

— H. L. Mencken, Chicago Tribune, May 1925

Several writers felt that the novel left much to be desired following Fitzgerald's previous works and promptly criticized him. Harvey Eagleton of The Dallas Morning News believed the novel signaled the end of Fitzgerald's success: "One finishes Great Gatsby with a feeling of regret, not for the fate of the people in the book, but for Mr. Fitzgerald." John McClure of The Times-Picayune said that the book was unconvincing, writing, "Even in conception and construction, The Great Gatsby seems a little raw." Ralph Coghlan of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch felt the book lacked what made Fitzgerald's earlier novels endearing and called the book "a minor performance ... At the moment, its author seems a bit bored and tired and cynical." Ruth Snyder of New York Evening World called the book's style "painfully forced," noting that the editors of the paper were "quite convinced after reading The Great Gatsby that Mr. Fitzgerald is not one of the great American writers of to-day." The reviews struck Fitzgerald as completely missing the point: "All the reviews, even the most enthusiastic, not one had the slightest idea what the book was about."

Fitzgerald's goal was to produce a literary work which would truly prove himself as a writer, and Gatsby did not have the commercial success of his two previous novels, This Side of Paradise and The Beautiful and Damned. Although the novel went through two initial printings, some of these copies remained unsold years later. Fitzgerald himself blamed poor sales on the fact that women tended to be the main audience for novels during this time, and Gatsby did not contain an admirable female character. According to his own ledger, now made available online by University of South Carolina's Thomas Cooper library, he earned only $2,000 from the book. Although 1926 brought Owen Davis' stage adaption and the Paramount-issued silent film version, both of which brought in money for the author, Fitzgerald still felt the novel fell short of the recognition he hoped for and, most importantly, would not propel him to becoming a serious novelist in the public eye. For several years afterward, the general public believed The Great Gatsby to be nothing more than a nostalgic period piece. By the time Fitzgerald died in 1940, the novel had fallen into near obscurity.

Revival and reassessment

Fitzgerald's friend Edmund Wilson helped revive the author's posthumous reputation.

In 1940, Fitzgerald suffered a third and fatal heart attack, and died believing his work forgotten. His obituary in The New York Times mentioned Gatsby as Fitzgerald "at his best." A strong appreciation for the book gradually developed in underground circles. Future writers Edward Newhouse and Budd Schulberg were deeply affected by it, and author John O'Hara acknowledged its influence. The republication of Gatsby in Edmund Wilson's edition of The Last Tycoon in 1941 produced an outburst of comment, with the general consensus expressing the sentiment that the book was an enduring work of fiction.

In 1942, a group of publishing executives created the Council on Books in Wartime. The Council's purpose was to distribute paperback books to soldiers fighting in the Second World War. The Great Gatsby was one of these books. The books proved to be "as popular as pin-up girls" among the soldiers, according to the Saturday Evening Post's contemporary report. 155,000 copies of Gatsby were distributed to soldiers overseas.

By 1944, full-length articles on Fitzgerald's works were being published, and the following year, "the opinion that Gatsby was merely a period piece had almost entirely disappeared." This revival was paved by interest shown by literary critic Edmund Wilson, who was Fitzgerald's friend. In 1951, Arthur Mizener published The Far Side of Paradise, a biography of Fitzgerald. He emphasized The Great Gatsby's positive reception by literary critics, which may have influenced public opinion and renewed interest in it.

By 1960, the book was steadily selling 50,000 copies per year, and renewed interest led The New York Times editorialist Mizener to proclaim the novel "a classic of twentieth-century American fiction." The Great Gatsby has sold over 25 million copies worldwide as of 2013, annually sells an additional 500,000 copies, and is Scribner's most popular title; in 2013, the e-book alone sold 185,000 copies.

Critical analysis

Themes

American Dream

The myth of the "American dream"—the "belief that every man, whatever his origins may pursue and attain his chosen goals"—is a central theme underlying Fitzgerald's work.

Following the novel's revival, later critical writings on The Great Gatsby focus in particular on Fitzgerald's disillusionment with the American dream in the context of the hedonistic Jazz Age, a name for the era which Fitzgerald claimed to have coined. In 1970, scholar Roger L. Pearson published an essay in which he asserted that Fitzgerald "has come to be associated with this concept of the American dream more than any other writer of the twentieth century." Pearson traced the literary origins of this particular dream to Colonial America:

"The American dream, or myth, is an ever recurring theme in American literature, dating back to some of the earliest colonial writings. Briefly defined, it is the belief that every man, whatever his origins, may pursue and attain his chosen goals, be they political, monetary, or social. It is the literary expression of the concept of America: The land of opportunity."

However, Pearson noted that "Fitzgerald's unique expression of the American dream lacks the optimism, the sense of fulfillment, so evident in the expressions of his predecessors." He posited that Fitzgerald created the character of Gatsby to serve as a false prophet of the American dream and to demonstrate how that dream no longer exists except in the minds of those as materialistic as Gatsby. Pearson concluded that the American dream pursued by Gatsby "is, in reality, a nightmare," bringing nothing but discontent and disillusionment to those who chase it as they realize that it is unsustainable and ultimately unattainable.

Echoing Pearson's interpretation, scholar Sarah Churchwell similarly views The Great Gatsby to be a "cautionary tale of the decadent downside of the American dream." Churchwell posits the story concerns the limits of America's ideals of social and class mobility, and the hopelessness of lower-class aspirants to transcend the stations of their birth. This is illustrated through the novel's narrator, Nick Carraway, who observes that "a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth." Churchwell posits that Fitzgerald's novel is "a story of class warfare in a nation that denies it even has a class system, in which the game is eternally rigged for the rich to win."

The green light that shines at the end of the dock of Daisy's house across the Sound from Gatsby's house is frequently mentioned in the background of the plot. It has variously been interpreted as a symbol of Gatsby's longing for Daisy and, more broadly, of the American dream.

Gender relations

In addition to exploring the trials and tribulations of achieving the American dream during the Jazz Age, The Great Gatsby explores societal gender expectations as a theme. Although early scholars viewed the character of Daisy Buchanan to be a "monster of bitchery," later scholars such as Leland S. Person, Jr. asserted that Daisy's character exemplifies the marginalization of women in the East Egg social milieu that Fitzgerald depicts. Writing in 1978, Person noted that:

"Daisy, in fact, is more victim than victimizer: She is victim first of Tom Buchanan's 'cruel' power, but then of Gatsby's increasingly depersonalized vision of her. She becomes the unwitting 'grail' in Gatsby's adolescent quest to remain ever-faithful to his seventeen-year-old conception of self."

Daisy is thus "reduced to a golden statue, a collector's item which crowns Gatsby's material success." As an upper-class white woman living in East Egg during this time period, Daisy must adhere to societal expectations and gender norms such as actively fulfilling the roles of dutiful wife, mother, keeper of the house, and charming socialite. Many of Daisy's choices—ultimately culminating in the tragedy of the ending and misery for all those involved—can be partly attributed to her prescribed role as a "beautiful little fool" who is reliant on her husband for financial and societal security. Her decision to remain with her husband despite her feelings for Gatsby is thus attributable to the status, security, and comfort that her marriage to Tom Buchanan provides.

Class inequality

Journalist Nick Gillespie interprets The Great Gatsby as a story of the underlying permanence of class differences, even "in the face of a modern economy based not on status and inherited position but on innovation and an ability to meet ever-changing consumer needs." This interpretation asserts that The Great Gatsby captures the American experience because it is a story about change and those who resist it, whether the change comes in the form of a new wave of immigrants or the nouveau riche or successful minorities. Americans living in the 1920s to the present are thus defined by their fluctuating economic and social circumstances. As Gillespie states, "While the specific terms of the equation are always changing, it's easy to see echoes of Gatsby's basic conflict between established sources of economic and cultural power and upstarts in virtually all aspects of American society." Because this can be seen throughout American history, readers are able to relate to The Great Gatsby, which has contributed to the novel's enduring popularity.

Other interpretations

Postmodern criticism of Gatsby seeks to place the novel and its characters in historical context almost a century after its original publication. These interpretations argue that Jay Gatsby and The Great Gatsby can be viewed as the personification and representation of human-caused climate change, as "Gatsby's life depends on many human-centered, selfish endeavors" which are "in some part responsible for Earth's current ecological crisis."

Controversy

Fitzgerald based the character of Meyer Wolfsheim on Jazz Age racketeer Arnold Rothstein who was murdered in 1928.

Like many of Fitzgerald's works, The Great Gatsby has been accused of displaying anti-Semitism through the use of Jewish stereotypes. The book describes Meyer Wolfsheim as "a small, flat-nosed Jew," with "tiny eyes" and "two fine growths of hair" in his nostrils, while his nose is described as "expressive," "tragic," and able to "flash... indignantly." A dishonest and corrupt profiteer who assisted Gatsby's bootlegging operations and spearheaded the Black Sox scandal, Wolfsheim has also been seen as representing the Jewish miser stereotype. Richard Levy, author of Antisemitism: A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution, claims that Wolfsheim is "pointedly connected Jewishness and crookedness."

In a 1947 article for Commentary, Milton Hindus, an assistant professor of humanities at the University of Chicago, stated that while believed the book was "excellent" on balance, Wolfsheim "is easily its most obnoxious character," and "the novel reads very much like an anti-Semitic document." Hindus argued that the Jewish stereotypes displayed by Wolfsheim were typical of the time period in which the novel was written and set, and that any anti-Semitism was of the "habitual, customary, 'harmless,' unpolitical variety."

A 2015 article by Arthur Krystal agreed with Hindus' assessment that Fitzgerald's use of Jewish caricatures was not driven by malice and merely reflected commonly-held beliefs of his time. He notes the accounts of Frances Kroll, a Jewish woman and secretary to Fitzgerald, who claimed that Fitzgerald was hurt by accusations of anti-Semitism and responded to critiques of Wolfsheim by claiming that he merely "fulfilled a function in the story and had nothing to do with race or religion." This claim is further supported by evidence that Wolfsheim was based on real-life Jewish gambler Arnold Rothstein.

Adaptations

Cover of the first edition of The Great Gatsby's Italian-language edition, as published by Mondadori in 1936.

Ballet

• In 2009, BalletMet premiered a version at the Capitol Theatre in Columbus, Ohio. It was choreographed by Jimmy Orrante.
• In 2010, The Washington Ballet premiered a version at the Kennedy Center. It was received an encore run the following year.
• In 2013, the Northern Ballet premiered a version of The Great Gatsby at Leeds Grand Theatre in the UK, with choreography and direction by David Nixon, a musical score by Richard Rodney Bennett, and set designs by Jerome Kaplan. Nixon also created the scenario and costume designs.

Computer games

• In 2010, Oberon Media released a casual hidden object game called Classic Adventures: The Great Gatsby. The game was released for iPad in 2012.
• In 2011, as a tribute to old NES games, developer Charlie Hoey and editor Pete Smith created an 8-bit-style online game of The Great Gatsby. Ian Crouch of The New Yorker compared it to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1989) for the NES.

Film and television

A lobby card for the 1926 film.

The Great Gatsby has resulted in a number of film and television adaptations:

• The Great Gatsby (1926), by Herbert Brenon—starring Warner Baxter, Lois Wilson, and William Powell, now a lost film.
• The Great Gatsby (1949), by Elliott Nugent—starring Alan Ladd, Betty Field, and Macdonald Carey.
• The Great Gatsby (1974), by Jack Clayton—starring Robert Redford, Mia Farrow, and Sam Waterston.
• The Great Gatsby (2000), by Robert Markowitz—a TV movie starring Toby Stephens, Mira Sorvino, and Paul Rudd.
• The Great Gatsby (2013), by Baz Luhrmann—starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan, and Tobey Maguire.

Literature

• The Double Bind (2007) by Chris Bohjalian imagines the later years of Daisy and Tom Buchanan's marriage, as a social worker in 2007 investigates the possibility that a deceased elderly homeless person is Daisy's son.
• Great (2014) by Sara Benincasa is a modern-day young adult fiction retelling of The Great Gatsby with a female Gatsby named Jacinta Trimalchio.

Opera

• The New York Metropolitan Opera commissioned John Harbison to compose an operatic treatment of the novel to commemorate the 25th anniversary of James Levine's debut. The work, called The Great Gatsby, premiered on December 20, 1999.

Radio

• On January 1, 1950, an hour-long adaptation was broadcast on CBS's Family Hour of Stars starring Kirk Douglas as Gatsby.
• In October 2008, the BBC World Service commissioned an abridged 10-part reading of the story, read from the view of Nick Carraway by Trevor White.
• In May 2012, BBC Radio 4 broadcast The Great Gatsby, a Classic Serial dramatization by Robert Forrest.

Theater

• The 1926 stage adaptation of Owen Davis, subsequently developed, became the 1926 film version. The play, directed by George Cukor, opened on Broadway on February 2, 1926, and ran for 112 performances. A successful tour later in the year included performances in Chicago, 1 August 20 through 2 October.
• In July 2006, Simon Levy's stage adaptation, the only one authorized and granted exclusive rights by the Fitzgerald estate, premiered at The Guthrie Theater to commemorate the opening of its new theatre, directed by David Esbjornson. It was subsequently produced by Seattle Repertory Theatre. In 2012, a revised version was produced at Arizona Theatre Company and Grand Theatre in London, Ontario, Canada.
• In 2010, Gatz, an Off-Broadway production by Elevator Repair Service, debuted and was highly praised by critic Ben Brantley of The New York Times.

See also

• Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century

References

Bibliography

Print sources

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• "Books on Our Table". The New York Post. May 5, 1925.
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• ——— (2002). Some Sort of Epic Grandeur: The Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald (2nd rev. ed.). Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press. ISBN 978-1-57003-455-8. Retrieved February 25, 2013. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Churchwell, Sarah (2013). Careless People: Murder, Mayhem, and the Invention of The Great Gatsby. Little, Brown Book Group. ISBN 978-1-84408-767-9. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
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• ———— (August 30, 1991) [1925]. Bruccoli, Matthew J. (ed.). The Great Gatsby. The Cambridge Edition of the Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-40230-9. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• ———— (2006) [1925]. Bloom, Harold (ed.). The Great Gatsby. New York: Chelsea House Publishers. p. 95. ISBN 978-1-4381-1454-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• ———— (2000) [1925]. Tanner, Tony (ed.). The Great Gatsy. London: Penguin Books. pp. vii–viii. ISBN 978-0-14-118263-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• ———— (1963). Turnbull, Andrew (ed.). The Letters of F. Scott Fitzgerald. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 189. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• ———— (1997). Tredell, Nicolas (ed.). F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby. Columbia Critical Guides. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 184. ISBN 978-0-231-11535-3. ISSN 1559-3002.
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• Hemingway, Ernest (1964). A Moveable Feast. New York: Scribner. p. 176. ISBN 978-0-684-82499-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Hill, W. Speed; Burns, Edward M.; Shillingsburg, Peter L. (2002). Text: An Interdisciplinary Annual of Textual Studies. Vol. 14. University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-0-472-11272-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Karolides, Nicholas J.; Bald, Margaret; Sova, Dawn B. (2011). 120 Banned Books: Censorship Histories of World Literature (Second ed.). Checkmark Books. p. 499. ISBN 978-0-8160-8232-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Keeler, Kyle (2018). "The Great Global Warmer: Jay Gatsby as a Microcosm of Climate Change". The F. Scott Fitzgerald Review. 16 (1): 174–188. doi:10.5325/fscotfitzrevi.16.1.0174. JSTOR 10.5325/fscotfitzrevi.16.1.0174. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Lazo, Caroline Evensen (2003). F. Scott Fitzgerald: Voice of the Jazz Age. Twenty-First Century Books. p. 75. ISBN 978-0-8225-0074-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Leader, Zachary (September 21, 2000). "Daisy Packs Her Bags". London Review of Books. 22 (18): 13–15. ISSN 0260-9592. Retrieved February 24, 2013. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• McClure, John (May 31, 1925). "Literature—And Less". The Times-Picayune. New Orleans, Louisiana. {{cite news}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• McCullen, Bonnie Shannon (2007). "This Tremendous Detail: The Oxford Stone in the House of Gatsby". In Assadi, Jamal; Freedman, William (eds.). A Distant Drummer: Foreign Perspectives on F. Scott Fitzgerald. New York: Peter Lang. pp. 11–20. ISBN 978-0-8204-8851-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Mencken, H. L. (May 3, 1925). "Scott Fitzgerald and His Work". The Chicago Daily Tribune. {{cite news}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Mizener, Arthur (1951). The Far Side of Paradise: A Biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin Company. ISBN 978-1-199-45748-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• O'Meara, Lauraleigh (2002). Lost City: Fitzgerald's New York (1st ed.). Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-86701-6. Retrieved May 21, 2013. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Perkins, Maxwell Evarts (2004) [1950]. Bruccoli, Matthew Joseph; Baughman, Judith S. (eds.). The Sons of Maxwell Perkins: Letters of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe, and Their Editor. University of South Carolina Press. pp. 27–30. ISBN 978-1-57003-548-7. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Pearson, Roger L. (May 1970). "Gatsby: False Prophet of the American Dream". The English Journal. 59 (5): 638–642, 645. JSTOR 813939. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Person, Leland S. (May 1978). "Herstory' and Daisy Buchanan" (PDF). American Literature. 50 (2): 250–257. JSTOR 2925105. Retrieved July 4, 2019. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
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• Scribner, Charles, III (Winter 1992). "Celestial Eyes: From Metamorphosis to Masterpiece" (PDF). Princeton University Library Chronicle (Originally published as a brochure to celebrate the Cambridge Edition of The Great Gatsby). 53 (2) (published October 24, 1991): 140–155. Retrieved July 27, 2013. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
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Online sources

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• Alter, Alexandra (December 29, 2018). "Mickey Mouse Will Be Public Domain Soon—Here's What That Means". Retrieved July 10, 2019. {{cite news}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Andersen, Kurt (November 25, 2010). "American Icons: The Great Gatsby". Studio 360. Public Radio International. 14:26. Archived from the original on October 13, 2013. Retrieved May 22, 2013. {{cite web}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• "Arizona Theatre Company: The Great Gatsby". Arizonatheatre.org. Archived from the original on November 6, 2013. Retrieved December 11, 2013.
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• Borrelli, Christopher (May 7, 2013). "Revisiting Ginevra King, The Lake Forest Woman Who Inspired 'Gatsby'". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved October 21, 2018. {{cite news}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
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External links

• The Great Gatsby at Faded Page (Canada)
• Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby (plain text ed.). Project Gutenberg Australia.
• "In Gatsby's Tracks – Locating the Valley of Ashes". litkicks.com.
• The Great Gatsby Play – Authorized and Granted Exclusive Rights by the Fitzgerald Estate
• Conversations from Penn State: Writers of the Lost Generation with Linda Patterson Miller discussing F. Scott Fitzgerald and his relationships with other writers of the "Lost Generation"
• Oloizia, Jeff; Dhanraj, Emanuel (9 April 2013). "A Book by Its Covers" (interactive photo gallery). T: The New York Times Style Magazine.
• An Index to The Great Gatsby