Download Gatsby Chapter 1 - Madison Public Schools

English Notes
March 3, 2014
Beginning The Great Gatsby
Based on the epigram, what can we determine this novel is about?
The 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 bounding lover,
I must have you!”
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Man would do anything for a woman’s love
Money –does it help you achieve/buy love?
Consider what this means in 1925 when the book was written
Chapter 1
Exposition
Nick Carraway, the narrator, tells us that his father gave him advice not to citizen anyone
because other people haven’t had the same advantages he has had
He says he is “inclined to reserve all judgments”—claims he does not judge/isn’t judgmental
He says in college he was accused of being a politician because he didn’t want to judge others
People would tell him things because he wouldn’t judge
Other men open up to him, but their stories are cliché and distorted—they may think that they
are telling the whole truth, but telling the whole truth is difficult.
Calls into question can our narrator, Nick really tells us the whole truth? Can we trust him to
be non-judgmental? Can we trust him because he says he won’t cast judgment?
“Reserving Judgments is a matter of infinite hope.”—believing in people rather than being
cynical and not trusting others.
Wealth, class, and economic inequality = parceled out at birth (you are born into these things)—
he asserts that people are not equal economically and in the quality of their character.
Narrator tells us that he came back from being out east last autumn
he will tell this story in retrospect (flashback, after events have occurred)
Nick tells us about Gatsby:
He’s “ok” in the end (We wonder how he’s ok in the end?)
He had “an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness”
narrator has an “unaffected scorn” for Gatsby (things that bothered Nick about other
people didn’t bother him about Gatsby)
something preyed on Gatsby’s dreams
ability to “romanticize” or make things seem better than they are by using one’s
imagination
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Nick:
Graduated from Yale in 1915, was in WWI
from the Midwest
came from a well-to-do family, great uncle started a hardware business
goes to New York in the spring of 1922 in order to learn the bond business ($$ boom time
before the crash)
29 years old
not married
family was hesitant for Nick to go to New York, however, Nick’s father agrees to finance him
for a year
felt that live was beginning over that summer, gathered books on the secrets of wealth and
banking
began to feel at home, hopeful for his future, rented a house in West Egg, the less fashionable
of the two
explains that there are two “eggs” West and East, and although they are geographically
similar, they couldn’t be different in terms of who lived there.
Nick lives in a rented bungalow next to a huge mansion that is a copy of a massive French
chateau
East Egg:
Daisy’s mansion
Old money
West Egg:
Nick lives there
Gatsby lives next door
New money—Gatsby’s mansion is a copy of a French chateau, new ivy grows (not established
old plants)
Tom Buchannan:
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Played football in college (there was no professional football, so collegiate football was the
highest an athlete of his stature could go)
He reached his prime “excellence” at 21—he peaked in college and everything else couldn’t
measure up