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MONTANAREPERTORYTHEATRE

STUDY GUIDE byAnna Dulba Barnett, M.A. Bernadette Sweeney, Ph.D.

CONTENTS:

PAGE THREESYNOPSIS

PAGE FOURTHE PLAYWRIGHTCAST / CHARACTERS

PAGE FIVEDIRECTOR’S NOTE

PAGE SIXDESIGN AND PRODUCTION

PAGE TENWORLD WAR 1THE ROARING TWENTIES

PAGE ELEVENNOTES ABOUTTHE GREAT GATSBY

PHOTO BY TERRY J. CYR

UMARTSCollege of Visual and Performing ArtsSchool of Theatre & Dance

University of MontanaMissoula, Montana 59812

MONTANA REP STUDY GUIDE / www.montanarep.org 2015 NATIONAL TOUR / THE GREAT GATSBY

M I S S I O N

Montana Repertory Theatre tells the great stories of our world to enlighten, develop, and celebrate the human spirit in an ever-expanding community.

F. SCOTT FITZGERALD’S

Adapted for the stage by

SIMON LEVY

2015NATIONAL TOUR

MONTANA REP is funded in part by a grant from the Montana Arts Council (an agency of state government), with support from the Montana State Legislature, the University of Montana, the Montana Cultural Trust, Dr. Cathy Capps, Dr. Sandy Sheppard, The Dramatist Guild, and The Shubert Foundation.

I think I can safely say I love The Great Gatsby. The power of the narrative, the accurate, haunting, and heartfelt snapshot of the Roaring Twenties, and the sheer beauty of the prose still take my breath away. I’ve discovered and rediscovered this masterpiece over the years with new perspective, joy, and appreciation. I first read The Great Gatsby in one thrilling afternoon on the Jersey shore during high school, and I have long dreamed of bringing the novel to the stage. Only recently has this become possible, with the publication of Simon Levy’s masterful adaptation. Although there are several movie versions of varying artistic merit, the stage offers a new, exciting, and fertile ground for the story. On the stage we can feel the energy of Jay Gatsby, the sensual allure of Daisy Buchanan, and the Everyman complexity of Nick Carraway. As Montana Rep continues telling great American stories, we approach The Great Gatsby with all the honor and care such an outstanding work of art deserves. We’re pleased to reintroduce and reinvigorate this classic, bringing the beauty and poetry of this masterpiece––living and breathing on stage––to a new generation of theatergoers.

~ GREG JOHNSON, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

PAGE 2 / MONTANA REP STUDY GUIDE / www.montanarep.org 2015 NATIONAL TOUR / THE GREAT GATSBY

““That is part of the beauty of literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you’re not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong.”

F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

F. SCOTT FITZGERALD’S

Adapted for the stage by

SIMON LEVY

ACT ONE: The Great Gatsby is set on Long Island, New York in the summer of 1922. Nick Carraway tells the story of his enigmatic neighbor Gatsby. The play does not have traditional scenes but rather each sequence shifts into the next as the stage is transformed into different locations and settings. As the play opens, Nick introduces Gatsby as a person with “a gift for hope, a romantic readiness.” Nick visits his cousin Daisy, the wife of a wealthy man named Tom Buchanan. While visiting, Nick also meets Jordan Baker who is a friend of Daisy’s staying with her for the summer. During their conversation Nick describes the big parties that Gatsby is throwing regularly at his mansion which is across the bay from the Buchanan’s property. After Jordan hints that Tom is cheating on his wife, Daisy opens up to Nick about her unhappy marriage. The stage then transforms to present three key scenes, which build the narrative. The first is the auto-shop and gas station of Wilson and his wife Myrtle. Tom discusses buying Wilson’s car, and it is made clear by the furtive glances and secret conversation while Wilson is out, that Tom and Myrtle are having an affair. The second scene transforms the stage from Wilson’s garage to a New York apartment, where we see a secret party thrown by Tom and Myrtle. As the alcohol flows freely a dispute arises between Tom and Myrtle and Tom strikes her. The stage then transforms a third time to Gatsby’s mansion where a huge party is taking place. Nick has been personally invited by Gatsby and, while unaware of exactly who Gatsby is, Nick discusses with Gatsby their experiences during World War I. Across the bay Daisy stares out from her dock and observes from afar the lights of Gatsby’s party. She longs to be a part of the nightlife of the Long Island residents, but her husband disregards her desires. As the action of the play progresses, Gatsby and Nick take a ride in Gatsby’s hydroplane. During the flight Gatsby describes his life to Nick. Later over lunch Gatsby wants to make a request of Nick but, since the matter of his appeal is so delicate, he has Jordan participate in the conversation. Jordan reveals to Nick the details of a romance that once bloomed between Gatsby and Daisy and tells him how, while Gatsby was off fighting in World War I, Daisy married Tom. Now Gatsby wants Nick to help him reunite with Daisy. Nick invites Daisy to his house, where Gatsby anxiously awaits her arrival. As Gatsby and Daisy meet the old spark of love is reignited and the lovers make new plans to arrange a future together and “repeat the past.”

ACT TWO: Act II opens on another big party at Gatsby’s mansion, however, this time both Daisy and Tom are present. The love affair between Gatsby and Daisy is in full bloom. Tom becomes increasingly suspicious of the mysterious Gatsby’s intentions toward his wife. Daisy reveals to Nick and Jordan her plan to leave her husband and run away with Gatsby. The next scene is at Tom and Daisy’s house where Nick, Jordan and Gatsby are all present. The atmosphere between the lovers and the suspicious husband becomes more and more intense. Daisy tries to avoid the tension by suggesting they all go into the city. They take two cars, with Gatsby driving Tom’s car and Tom driving Gatsby’s car. They gather in a hot stuffy hotel room in New York. Tom begins to get drunk and more aggressive toward Gatsby. Finally, Gatsby breaks the news to Tom about his romance with Daisy. In order to avoid a brewing fight, Daisy storms out of the hotel and gets into Gatsby’s car. Gatsby jumps in the car as well and frantically they speed off back to Long Island. Along the way the car passes Wilson’s auto shop, where Myrtle and her husband have been fighting. When Myrtle sees Gatsby’s car approaching, she thinks it is Tom, because he had been driving that car earlier, and she rushes out in front of the car to stop Tom. Instead Gatsby’s car hits Myrtle, but doesn’t stop. Tom is following behind with Nick and Jordan in his car. They come upon the accident scene and see that Myrtle is dead. At Daisy’s house, Gatsby assures Daisy that he will wait for her to give him a sign that she is ready to run away with him. After they say goodnight, Nick and Jordan arrive. Gatsby reveals to Nick that Daisy was the one that was driving his car when Myrtle was killed. The stage transforms back into Gatsby’s mansion. Gatsby reveals to Nick the true story of his life and that the Great Gatsby is just an invention. He insists, however, that his love for Daisy is true. Nick says goodbye and leaves. Meanwhile, Wilson comes to Gatsby’s home bent on revenge. He brings a gun and, finding Gatsby defenselessly floating on an air mattress in the pool, shoots him and then turns the gun on himself. The play ends with Nick’s narration describing Gatsby’s funeral. No one showed up to mourn him, not even Daisy. All the crowds that had gathered at Gatsby’s mansion to party during his life failed to gather when it was time to honor him in death. Nick ends with a reflection on Gatsby’s romantic faith in possibilities. Gatsby had picked the site for his mansion deliberately to be across the bay from the green light that blinked at the end of the dock on Daisy’s property. “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arm farther …. So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly ceaselessly into the past.”

SYNOPSIS


FRANCIS SCOTT KEY FITZGERALD (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) is considered one of the greatest American authors of the 20th century. He wrote four novels The Great Gatsby, This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned, and Tender Is the Night. Of these, The Great Gatsby is the most famous. Fitzgerald’s own ambitions and those of his wife Zelda pushed him to more lucrative forms of writing such as short stories and Hollywood screenplays. He received much criticism as a writer, but the success of The Great Gatsby proved his indisputable talent. Many of his novels and short stories have been adapted for the screen including The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and six versions of The Great Gatsby including the 2013 version directed by Baz Luhrmann, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Gatsby. An opera of The Great Gatsby was commissioned and staged by the New York Metropolitan Opera in 1999. This play adaptation was written by Simon Levy in 2012, by exclusive permission of the Fitzgerald Estate.

THE AUTHORF. SCOTT FITZGERALD

JAY GATSBY

“there was something … gorgeous about him … some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life. He has an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I never found in any other person”

This is Nick Carraway’s description of Jay Gatsby at the beginning of the play. Gatsby is a striking, mysterious and intriguing man. He reveals himself to the audience little by little, but only at the end of the play does his true story become known. Gatsby invented himself, his biography and his achievements. The image he carefully constructs is that of a man from a wealthy San Francisco family. He claims to have inherited a great deal of money from his parents and this has allowed him to travel and live all over Europe. He has served in the military during World War I and was decorated for his participation in the famous battle of the Argonne Forest. Before the War he met and fell in love with Daisy Buchanan, but their budding relationship was cut short by his deployment. Gatsby’s family history is mere invention. His actual family name is Gatz and his parents were poor farmers in North Dakota. At the age of seventeen he decided to invent the persona of Jay Gatsby and went on to generate extraordinary wealth through organized crime and bootlegging. His wealth accrued, he moved across the water from where Daisy lived with her husband, in pursuit of his lost love.

NICK CARRAWAY is the narrator of the story of Jay Gatsby. Carraway was born into a well-situated family in Minnesota. His family sponsored his education at Yale University. Having finished his education, he traveled to Europe and participated in World War I. After the War, he decides to study finance in New York and becomes a successful bond specialist. He rents a small house next to Jay Gatsby’s mansion. His cousin is Daisy Buchanan and this family relationship makes him a valuable friend to Gatsby, who plans to reunite with his love.

THE CHARACTERS

THE CAST

Jay Gatsby . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mark Kuntz*Daisy Buchanan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kelly Campbell*Nick Carraway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Mason WagnerTom Buchanan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hugh BickleyJordan Baker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Amber Rose Mason*Myrtle Wilson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jourdan NoklebyGeorge Wilson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Hugh ButterfieldMeyer/Mr. McKee/Cop/Dancer . . . . . .Colton HochhalterMrs. McKee/Mrs. Michaelis/Dancer. . . Elizabeth Bennett

* Member of Actors’ Equity Association


ACTORS’ EQUITY ASSOCIATION (AEA), founded in 1913, represents more than 45,000 actors and stage managers in the United States. Equity seeks to advance, promote, and foster the art of live theatre as an essential component of our society. Equity negotiates wages and working conditions, providing a wide range of benefits, including health and pension plans. AEA is a member of the AFL-CIO and is affiliated with FIA, an international organization of performing arts unions. The Equity emblem is our mark of excellence. www.actorsequity.org

DAISY BUCHANAN comes from a wealthy family in Kentucky. At the age of 17 she met Jay Gatsby, with whom she had a relationship until he was deployed to Europe to fight in WWI. In Gatsby’s absence she married a very rich man named Tom Buchanan. On the day of her wedding to Tom she received a letter from Gatsby, stating that he was returning from Europe and that he hoped for reunion, but instead Daisy decided to proceed with the wedding to Tom. She now has a daughter with her husband and she lives a life of luxury. She is rather careless and frivolous, and the price she pays for her lifestyle is being married to a brutish, driven husband who is not faithful to her.

TOM BUCHANAN. Like Nick, Tom is a Yale graduate. He comes from a rich family, he is strong physically and financially, and he exerts his influence over his environment. He cheats on his wife Daisy with another woman, Myrtle Wilson, and does not hesitate to physically abuse Myrtle during their fights. Tom regularly tests the men that surround him including Nick and Gatsby. He is short-tempered and uses his wealth to achieve his social goals.

JORDAN BAKER is an independent and athletic woman and symbolizes a new type of woman in the post WWI era. Jordan is a friend of Daisy’s and is often a guest at the Buchanan house. Contrary to her female friends, she does not allow any men to dominate her. She does enter a relationship with Nick, but at no point do either of them talk about love for or commitment to each other.

MYRTLE WILSON is married to George, who owns a small gas station, but she aspires to a wealthy lifestyle. She is also Tom Buchanan’s lover. Tom mistreats her, but she allows his abuse as long as he provides her with access to luxuries and entertainment. She despises her husband. She dies tragically when hit by a car.

GEORGE WILSON is a poor working man who runs his own auto garage and gas station. He is seemingly unaware that Tom Buchanan’s frequent visits to his garage are less about cars and more about Tom’s affair with George’s wife Myrtle.

MEYER WOLFSHEI played a key role in creating The Great Gatsby myth by helping Jay become rich after he returned from World War I. He is an influential man in the worlds of illegal trade and gambling. He is believed to have been responsible for fixing the World Series in 1919.

THE CHARACTERS continued from page 4


“The center cannot hold.” ~ WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS 1921

The Great Gatsby is an icon of American and world literature. As such one approaches it with awe and trepidation. Most Americans know well the story of Nick, Jordan, Jay Gatsby and Daisy, it is in our blood. Most students have read it by their senior year in High School. Add to this, the films based or loosely based on the material and we realize that The Great Gatsby has been deeply ingrained in our American culture. It deserves all this attention. First of all it is the quintessential and essential snapshot of the period, the signature piece of that comet of a decade called the “Roaring Twenties.” During this reckless party between the first world war and the Great Depression the country was running as fast as it could from that catastrophic war, hell bent on dulling the nation’s psychic pain, all the while running headlong into the depression. The Great Gatsby at once reflects, predicts and answers all the compelling questions that war, avarice, capitalism, caprice and hedonism were asking in 1922. The text is pure poetry, some of the best and thrilling sentences, paragraphs, pages and chapters ever written by an American. So now it is theatre’s turn. There have been numerous productions of Simon Levy’s adaptation of The Great Gatsby since The Fitzgerald estate granted permission for a theatrical license in 2005. We feel the theatre is remarkably well suited to tell this story. The sheer humanness of the theatre, the living and breathing presence of the actors, highlight these remarkable personalities as only live theatre can. The conflicts, the poetry, and the vehement action are all enhanced by the live experience of the theatrical event.

DIRECTOR’S NOTEGREG JOHNSON

The physical staging and atmospheric requirements for the theatrical presentation of The Great Gatsby create unusual challenges for the director and the designer. A set is a playground for movement, for the story’s pantomime and dance as represented by the physicality of the actors. The written words of the script for The Great Gatsby require a fluidity of motion that carries from scene to scene, with a minimum of staging interruptions and set changes. Returning to the “scene of the crime” meant researching the visual history of the Gold Coast, the great enclave of American wealth on the North Shore of Long Island at the turn of the century until the Great Depression. It was another world of pastoral splendor and artificial gentility that the rich of Manhattan aspired to escape to, as well as to the mansions further away in Newport Road Island. During the depression many of these vast estates began to decay, and after World War II, the era of the North Shore was over. Too expensive to maintain, and out of step in the modern times of the 1950’s the decay continued and one by one the great mansions fell to the bulldozer. Of the many mansions that stood, few remain today, some subdivided, others living on as schools, convents, museums, with very few remaining in private hands. An enchanted world of architecture, decoration, and landscaping is gone. Among the many styles presented, neoclassic revival was one of the most popular, and English and French styles dominated. Through research we discovered wonderful photographs of some of these homes in ruins, as they collapsed in disrepair, were vandalized, and ultimately bulldozed away. So our set is the decaying ballroom of a grand mansion, the ghost of another time, the visual metaphor of ruin, with views through the big window; a view of the sound, the valley of ashes, of Manhattan and sometimes into the hearts and emotions of the characters and even the tone of the story through abstract color and design. The ballroom furnishings from the past become our props to move and set about as needed, with additional elements as required, to tell the story of Daisy, Gatsby, and Tom.

~ JOHN SHAFFNER, SCENIC DESIGNER

Director . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Greg JohnsonScenic Designer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .John ShaffnerCostume Designer . . . . . . Karen Hummel KinsleyLighting Designer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mark DeanSound Designer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Zach HamersleyMedia Designer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Hugh Bickley

DESIGN AND PRODUCTION

SCENICDESIGN


This production of The Great Gatsby has been over a year in the making, although the rehearsal process did not begin until just over a month before the production opens. At the time this study guide was going to press, rehearsals had not yet begun, but the play was cast and the design process was well under way. What we have therefore decided to include here are some elements of the scenic, costume, and media design, with insights from the designers on their process.

Set model by John Shaffner

/ MONTANA REP STUDY GUIDE / www.montanarep.org 2015 NATIONAL TOUR / THE GREAT GATSBY

Scenic design plansJOHN SHAFFNER

SCENIC DESIGN continued from page 6

Long Island Gold Coast mansions.DREAMSTIME.COM / DAVID BIAGI (TOP) / LITTLENY (ABOVE)


The mist, the blur, the reflections, the color spectrum. I created this image with this thought in mind. It will be fully versatile and shimmering for the projection on stage.

As Fitzgerald shepherded The Great Gatsby through its many drafts, an unheralded Spanish artist by the name of Francis Cugat offered him an illustration for the book’s cover that so impressed its author that it earned a place in the novel itself. “…don’t give anyone that jacket you’re saving for me,” Fitzgerald wrote to his editor, “I’ve written it into the book.” The iconic image continues to adorn the novel ninety years into its print, as instantly recognizable as it is mysterious. Perhaps this image prompted the creation of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg: “blue and gigantic — their irises are one yard high. They look out of no face, but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose,” or, since the face is a woman’s, Nick’s description of Daisy as a “girl whose disembodied face floated along the dark cornices and blinding signs….” Though it’s impossible to determine what passage, precisely, this image inspired in The Great Gatsby, it has similarly wielded its influence over my own design concept as I embark upon designing media for the novel’s stage adaptation.

With Fitzgerald’s continuous marriage of light to illusion, it’s no wonder that Jay Gatsby’s dreams are physicalized in a green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. When he tells Daisy about the light, however, it occurs to him “that the colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever.” Compared to the great distance that had separated him from Daisy it had seemed very near to her, almost touching her. It had seemed as close as a star to the moon. Now it was again a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one. In an emerging culture of materialism, advertising, and post-war celebration, Fitzgerald mesmerizes us with the blurred and glimmering lights of this American Dreamscape, only to focus his lens and reveal its underbelly, the crimes of its carelessness, the ash heaps that are left in the wake of personal conquests. As Projection Designer, I take my cues from this delicate illusion, constructed so carefully by painter and by author, and intend to take full advantage of the distorted and illusory landscapes that Fitzgerald abandons us in before pulling it all down on our heads.

~ HUGH BICKLEY, MEDIA DESIGNER

MEDIADESIGN Media design

HUGH BICKLEY

COSTUMEDESIGN


The fashions of The Great Gatsby are the visual representation of a seismic break from women’s clothing styles prior to 1920. Before the Great War, Paris had been the epicenter of world fashion. Women of means or social status would travel once or twice a year to Paris to purchase seasonal wardrobes that were created especially for them. With the advent of the war, the limited contact between the United States and Europe choked the influence of dominant fashion houses and opened the door for a number of new French designers to create fashions that were more simplistic in design and that consequently appealed to the American public. The tubular style that emerged in the early 1920s could be copied, produced, and sold to a woman from any level of society. Because the garments glided over the body and were not contoured to it, the style could be mass produced in a seemingly endless variety of fabric, prints, color combinations and adornments.

~ KAREN HUMMEL KINSLEY, COSTUME DESIGNER

WILSON JORDANDAISY

MYRTLE

TOM

MRS. McKEE

GATSBY

The Great GatsbyBook cover illustration by Francis Cugat.

Costume sketchesKAREN HUMMEL KINSLEY

America during the 1920s was marked by financial prosperity, heightened patriotism, the creation of jazz music, changes in the role of women in society and an overall sense of economic and social progress. The automobile became popular, art deco was a leading trend and motion pictures were gaining prominence in American culture. The sale and manufacture of alcohol was prohibited. The country, especially its urban cities like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New Orleans, was swept up in the feeling of progress, a desire to forget the war, a fascination with the future, and a desire to break with the past and all its rigid rules. It was an era of heroes and celebrities due to the emerging power of the media. The “roaring twenties” was a colorful period in American history with its new music, prohibition, organized crime, large social gatherings and an intense focus on spending money in as many lavish ways as possible. Fitzgerald captured the aura of the twenties in his novel with his vibrant descriptions of events at the Gatsby’s mansion.

World War I, known as The Great War, was a global military conflict that lasted from 1914-1918. The war cost 18 million lives (9 million combatants and 7 million civilians killed). The human toll made it one of the most deadly wars in the history. F. Scott Fitzgerald believed, as did many others, that World War I would be the “war to end all wars” and yet he was not able to serve overseas and he greatly regretted this. The war became an ever present motif in his writing. Characters Nick Carraway and Jay Gatsby talk about the war with a certain level of nostalgia and they treat it as a defining moment in their young lives:

NICK: The war? Yes I think I enjoyed it so much I came back restless. Made going home pretty dull.

GATSBY: I know what you mean. I doubt most people of the people here have any idea what it’s like to be in the trenches.

NICK: Then came the war, old sport. It was a great relief and I tried very hard to die but I seemed to bear an enchanted life.

THE ROARING TWENTIES

WORLD WAR I


Roaring twenties flappers.PUBLIC DOMAIN

WORLD WAR 1 PHOTOS FROM TOP:

American soldiers on the Piave front hurling a shower of hand grenades into the Austrian trenches.PHOTO BY SGT. A. MARCIONI

British soldiers in a trench in France, during the Battle of the Somme.UNITED KINGDOM GOVERNMENT PHOTOGRAPH

French forces at the First Battle of the Marne.PUBLIC DOMAIN

Fitzgerald stated in a letter to John Peale Bishop, a classmate from Princeton and a fellow writer, “I never at any one time saw him [Gatsby] clear myself—for he started out as one man I knew and then changed into myself—the amalgam was never complete in my mind.” Biographical facts and events of Fitzgerald’s life make the links between the main character of his novel and Fitzgerald himself quite clear. The parallels between Jay Gatsby and Fitzgerald himself can also be found in the romantic aspects of both their lives. Gatsby’s love for Daisy was challenged by the war when he was deployed and had to leave her for several years. When he came back to win her, she was already married to Tom. Gatsby held onto the hope that he might one day see Daisy and be able to win her back. Fitzgerald’s story is less colorful, but some of the dynamics are shared by the author and his character. Fitzgerald fell for Zelda Sayre, a popular southern belle from a prominent family. Although Zelda showed interest in the young writer, her family deemed him unsuitable. In order to prove them wrong, Fitzgerald decided to turn his passion for writing into a lucrative career. When his novel This Side of Paradise gained him great fame and wealth, he was able to marry Zelda. She became a template for many of the female characters of Fitzgerald’s novels, including the basis for the character of Daisy Buchanan.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Berman, Ronald, The Great Gatsby and Fitzgerald’s World of Ideas, Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1997.

Bruccoli, Matthew J., Apparatus for F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby; (Under the Red, White, and Blue), Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1974.

Bryer, Jackson R. and VanArsdale Nancy P., editors, Approaches to Teaching Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2009.

Churchwell, Sarah, Careless People: Murder, Mayhem, and the Invention of The Great Gatsby, London & New York: Penguin, 2014.

Hoffman, Frederick John, The Great Gatsby: a Study, New York: Scribner, 1962.

Lehan, Richard, The Great Gatsby: The Limits of Wonder, New York: Twayne Publishers, 1995.

THE GREAT GATSBY AS FITZGERALD


Fitzgerald wanted to create a character who was larger than life. As one scholar, Richard Lehan, said, “Gatsby is the last of the romantic heroes, whose energy and sense of commitment take him in search of a personal grail.” Just like the many whose dream of America was to find a home and prosperous life for themselves and their offspring, Gatsby pursued his version of an American dream. But Gatsby wanted to buy his dream. In this Gatsby mirrored the materialism and frenetic desperation of American society during the 1920s, which all came crashing down with the Wall Street crash of 1929 and the ensuing great Depression.

THE GREAT GATSBY AS AN EMBODIMENT OF AMERICA

F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1921.THE WORLD’S WORK / JUNE 1921 ISSUE


NOTES:

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