THE GREAT GATSBY

THE GREAT GATSBY

1. TOM

   • "One of those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterwards savours of anti-climax"
   • "even in college his freedom with money was a matter for reproach"
   • "Making a short deft movement, Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand"
     • 'short' & 'deft' - state the ease & casualty of his violence towards others and emphasise his extremely powerful body
     • shows Tom's chauvinism & reinforces a woman's place in the 1920s
       • implies how men were superior both financially and in the household along with the subservience and docility of females
   • "hard malice"
   • "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"

2. NICK

   • "I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known"
   • "normal"
   • "a guide, a pathfinder, an original settler"
     • THE PIONEERS
       • iconic, representing those who went into unexplored territory to establish prosperity & a new life
       • Nick sees himself in the role of a pioneer when he moves to NY to become a financier
       • Wilson hopes to move west with Myrtle, to follow in the pioneer's footsteps & finally realise the American Dream
   • "sense of the fundamental decencies"
     • the tension between people's ideas of how to behave towards each other is one of the factors which ultimately causes the final tragedy"

3. GATSBY

   • "new money"
     • GATSBY'S MANSION
       • "eyesore"
       • represents the 'new money' class, which overcompensates for its lack of social connections through lavish displays of wealth
   • "elegant young rough-neck...whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd"
   • "I asked him to wait for half an hour. But it wasn't any use. Nobody came."
   • "rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it"
   • "I carry on a little business on the side...it happens to be a rather confidential sort of thing"
     • BOOTLEGGING
     • does not result in the wealth required to marry Daisy

4. GEORGE

   • "one of those worn out men"
     • ends up poor, unhappy and ultimately destroyed
     • seems grey compared to the vitality and bright colours associated with Gatsby and the upper class
     • THE VALLEY OF ASHES
       • "a fantastic farm where ashes grow"
         • an image of complete desolation and poverty
         • symbolises the moral decay and inner emptiness that is hidden between the glamorous facades of 'the eggs' and Manhattan
   • "He's so dumb he doesn't know he's alive"
     • reinforces Tom's elitism towards people who are inferior in terms of either status or wealth

5. DAISY

   • "I hope she'll be a fool-that's the best thing a girl can be in this world a beautiful little fool"
     • a product of social environment that does not value intelligence in women
     • girls can have more fun if they are beautiful/simplistic
   • "What a grotesque thing a rose is"
     • Gatsby made her into a thing of beauty by making her the object of his dreams
       • Nick suggests roses are only beautiful as people choose to view them that way
         • if Gatsby had not given her such value she would be an idle, bored rich young women with no particular moral strength or loyalty