an essay of the great gatsby

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Essays on The Great Gatsby

The great gatsby essay topic examples.

Whether you want to analyze the American Dream, compare and contrast characters, vividly describe settings and characters, persuade readers with your viewpoints, or share personal experiences related to the story, these essay ideas provide a diverse perspective on the themes and complexities within the book.

Argumentative Essays

Argumentative essays require you to analyze and present arguments related to the novel. Here are some topic examples:

• 1. Argue whether the American Dream is achievable or illusory, as depicted in The Great Gatsby .
• 2. Analyze the moral ambiguity of Jay Gatsby and the consequences of his relentless pursuit of the American Dream.

Example Introduction Paragraph for an Argumentative Essay: F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is a tale of ambition, decadence, and the elusive American Dream. This essay delves into the complex theme of the American Dream, exploring whether it remains attainable or has transformed into a tantalizing illusion, luring individuals like Jay Gatsby into its enigmatic embrace.

Example Conclusion Paragraph for an Argumentative Essay: In conclusion, the analysis of the American Dream in The Great Gatsby invites us to reevaluate our perceptions of success and fulfillment. As we contemplate the fate of Jay Gatsby and the characters entangled in his world, we are challenged to define our own version of the American Dream and the sacrifices it may entail.

Compare and Contrast Essays

Compare and contrast essays enable you to examine similarities and differences within the novel or between it and other literary works. Consider these topics:

• 1. Compare and contrast the characters of Jay Gatsby and Tom Buchanan, exploring their contrasting worldviews and motivations.
• 2. Analyze the similarities and differences between the portrayal of the Jazz Age in The Great Gatsby and Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises .

Example Introduction Paragraph for a Compare and Contrast Essay: The characters and settings in The Great Gatsby and other literary works offer a rich tapestry for comparison and contrast. This essay embarks on a journey to compare and contrast the enigmatic Jay Gatsby and the brash Tom Buchanan, delving into their contrasting values, aspirations, and roles within the novel.

Example Conclusion Paragraph for a Compare and Contrast Essay: In conclusion, the comparison and contrast of Jay Gatsby and Tom Buchanan illuminate the divergent paths individuals can take in pursuit of their desires. As we consider the consequences of their choices, we are prompted to reflect on the complexities of ambition and morality.

Descriptive Essays

Descriptive essays allow you to vividly depict settings, characters, or events within the novel. Here are some topic ideas:

• 1. Describe the opulent parties at Gatsby's mansion, emphasizing the decadence and extravagance of the Jazz Age.
• 2. Paint a detailed portrait of Daisy Buchanan, focusing on her beauty, charm, and the allure she holds for Gatsby.

Example Introduction Paragraph for a Descriptive Essay: The Great Gatsby immerses readers in the lavish world of the Roaring Twenties. This essay embarks on a descriptive exploration of the extravagant parties at Gatsby's mansion, capturing the opulence and hedonism of the era, as well as the illusions they create.

Example Conclusion Paragraph for a Descriptive Essay: In conclusion, the descriptive portrayal of Gatsby's parties serves as a vivid snapshot of the Jazz Age's excesses and the fleeting nature of indulgence. Through this exploration, we are reminded of the allure and transience of the materialistic pursuits that captivated the characters of the novel.

Persuasive Essays

Persuasive essays involve arguing a point of view related to the novel. Consider these persuasive topics:

• 1. Persuade your readers that Nick Carraway is the moral compass of the story, serving as the voice of reason and morality.
• 2. Argue for or against the idea that Gatsby's love for Daisy is genuine and selfless, despite his questionable methods.

Example Introduction Paragraph for a Persuasive Essay: The Great Gatsby presents a tapestry of characters with complex moral dilemmas. This persuasive essay asserts that Nick Carraway emerges as the moral compass of the story, guiding readers through the labyrinth of decadence and disillusionment in the Jazz Age.

Example Conclusion Paragraph for a Persuasive Essay: In conclusion, the persuasive argument regarding Nick Carraway's role as the moral compass underscores the importance of ethical navigation in a world characterized by excess and moral ambiguity. As we reflect on his influence, we are compelled to consider the enduring value of integrity and virtue.

Narrative Essays

Narrative essays offer you the opportunity to tell a story or share personal experiences related to the themes of the novel. Explore these narrative essay topics:

• 1. Narrate a personal experience where you encountered the allure of materialism and extravagance, similar to the characters in The Great Gatsby .
• 2. Imagine yourself as a character in the Jazz Age and recount your interactions with Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan.

Example Introduction Paragraph for a Narrative Essay: The themes of The Great Gatsby resonate with the allure of a bygone era. This narrative essay delves into a personal encounter with the seductive pull of materialism and extravagance, drawing parallels to the characters' experiences in the novel.

Example Conclusion Paragraph for a Narrative Essay: In conclusion, the narrative of my personal encounter with the allure of materialism reminds us of the timeless nature of the themes in The Great Gatsby . As we navigate our own desires and ambitions, we are encouraged to contemplate the balance between aspiration and morality.

The Significance of Nick's Account in The Great Gatsby

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Corruption in The Great Gatsby Analysis

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"The Great Gatsby": Theme and Symbols

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The Portrayal of Female Characters in F.s. Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby

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April 10, 1925, F. Scott Fitzgerald

Novel; Fiction, Tragedy

Jay Gatsby , Nick Carraway, Daisy Buchanan, Tom Buchanan, Myrtle Wilson, Jordan Baker, Meyer Wolfsheim, George B. Wilson, Trimalchio, Mr. Gatz

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote "The Great Gatsby" with multiple motivations in mind. Firstly, he sought to critique the materialistic excesses and moral decay of the Roaring Twenties, a period of post-World War I prosperity. Fitzgerald aimed to expose the disillusionment and hollowness behind the glittering facade of the American Dream. Additionally, he drew inspiration from his own experiences and observations of the wealthy elite and their decadent lifestyles. Through the character of Jay Gatsby, Fitzgerald explored themes of unrequited love, longing, and the pursuit of an unattainable ideal. Ultimately, Fitzgerald's intent was to capture the essence of an era and offer a profound commentary on the human condition.

The story revolves around Jay Gatsby, a mysterious millionaire, and his pursuit of Daisy Buchanan, a married woman with whom he had a romantic past. Narrated by Nick Carraway, a young man from the Midwest, the novel delves into the opulent and extravagant lives of the wealthy elite in Long Island. As Gatsby throws lavish parties in the hope of rekindling his relationship with Daisy, the narrative explores themes of love, wealth, illusion, and the disillusionment that comes with the pursuit of the American Dream.

The American Dream , decadence, idealism, resistance to changes, social excess, caution.

The influence of "The Great Gatsby" extends far beyond its initial publication in 1925. F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel has become a literary classic, revered for its exploration of themes such as wealth, love, and the elusive American Dream. It remains relevant due to its timeless portrayal of human desires, societal decadence, and the consequences of relentless pursuit. The book's vivid characters and atmospheric prose have inspired countless writers and artists, shaping the landscape of American literature. With its commentary on the dark underbelly of the Jazz Age, "The Great Gatsby" continues to captivate readers, serving as a cautionary tale and a poignant reflection of the human condition.

1. During F. Scott Fitzgerald's lifetime, approximately 25,000 copies of the book were sold. However, since then, it has gained immense popularity, selling over 25 million copies and establishing itself as one of the most renowned American novels. 2. The Great Gatsby did not have its original title as the author considered various options, ranging from "Under the Red, White and Blue" to "The High-Bouncing Lover." These alternative titles were potentially revealing too much about the content prematurely. 3. In 1926, just a year after its publication, the book was adapted into a film, demonstrating its quick transition from page to screen. 4. Fitzgerald's cause of death is believed to have been tuberculosis rather than a heart attack. Sadly, he passed away at the age of 44. 5. The price of this famous novel at the time of its publication in 1925 was $2, representing its value in that era. 6. The Great Gatsby did not immediately receive critical acclaim upon release. However, it has since garnered recognition and praise, becoming a significant literary work.

"The Great Gatsby" has made a significant impact on various forms of media, captivating audiences across generations. The novel has been adapted into several films, with notable versions including the 1974 adaptation starring Robert Redford and the 2013 adaptation featuring Leonardo DiCaprio. These cinematic interpretations have brought the story to life visually, further immersing audiences in the opulent world of Jay Gatsby. Additionally, the novel has been referenced and alluded to in countless songs, television shows, and even video games, solidifying its cultural significance. Its themes of love, wealth, and the pursuit of the American Dream continue to resonate and inspire creative works in popular culture.

“In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. ‘Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,’ he told me, ‘just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.’” “I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.” “Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead.” “So we drove on toward death through the cooling twilight.” “I hope she'll be a fool -- that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”

Studying "The Great Gatsby" holds great importance due to its enduring relevance and literary significance. The novel offers profound insights into themes such as wealth, love, social class, and the corruption of the American Dream. Its exploration of the Jazz Age exposes the allure and emptiness of a materialistic society, making it a compelling study of human desires and societal decay. F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterful prose and symbolic imagery provide rich material for analyzing character development, narrative techniques, and social commentary. Moreover, delving into the novel's historical context allows for a deeper understanding of the cultural and societal shifts of the 1920s.

The inclusion of "The Great Gatsby" as an essay topic for college students stems from its exploration of themes like the American Dream, the juxtaposition of poverty and wealth, and the destructive allure of corruption. The character of Gatsby embodies the American spirit and can be paralleled to contemporary individuals fixated on materialism and fame as measures of romantic success. Furthermore, this literary masterpiece holds a significant place in American literature, as F. Scott Fitzgerald skillfully weaves socio-cultural elements into each sentence, providing a timeless portrayal of American life that resonates across generations. The choice to analyze and write about "The Great Gatsby" allows students to delve into these thought-provoking themes and examine their relevance to society.

1. Stallman, R. W. (1955). Conrad and The Great Gatsby. Twentieth Century Literature, 1(1), 5–12. (https://doi.org/10.2307/441023) 2. John Jerrim, Lindsey Macmillan, (2015). Income Inequality, Intergenerational Mobility, and the Great Gatsby Curve: Is Education the Key?, Social Forces, Volume 94, Issue 2. (https://academic.oup.com/sf/article/94/2/505/2583794) 3. Robert C. Hauhart (2013) Religious Language and Symbolism in The Great Gatsby’s Valley of Ashes, ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews, 26:3 (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0895769X.2013.798233) 4. Burnam, T. (1952). The Eyes of Dr. Eckleburg: A Re-Examination of “The Great Gatsby.” College English, 14(1), 7–12. (https://www.jstor.org/stable/371821) 5. Tom Phillips (2018) Passing for White in THE GREAT GATSBY: A Spectroscopic Analysis of Jordan Baker, The Explicator, 76:3. (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00144940.2018.1489769?scroll=top&needAccess=true&role=tab) 6. Matterson, S. (1990). The Great Gatsby and Social Class. In: The Great Gatsby. The Critics Debate. Palgrave, London. (https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-349-20768-8_9) 7. Licence, A. (2008). Jay Gatsby: martyr of a materialistic society: Amy Licence considers religious elements in The Great Gatsby. The English Review, 18(3), 24+. (https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA173676222&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=09558950&p=LitRC&sw=w&userGroupName=anon%7E5a84816e) 8. Khodamoradpour, Marjan and Anushiravani, Alireza, (2017) Playing the Old Tunes: A Fiskean Analysis of Baz Luhrmann's 2013 Cinematic Adaptation of the Great Gatsby. International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences, Volume 71. (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3020752) 9. Anderson, H. (1968). THE RICH BUNCH IN" THE GREAT GATSBY". Southern Quarterly, 6(2), 163. (https://www.proquest.com/openview/6a9e704a476d873aada2d2529821b95a/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=2029886)

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The Great Gatsby

F. scott fitzgerald, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby . Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

The Great Gatsby: Introduction

The great gatsby: plot summary, the great gatsby: detailed summary & analysis, the great gatsby: themes, the great gatsby: quotes, the great gatsby: characters, the great gatsby: symbols, the great gatsby: literary devices, the great gatsby: quizzes, the great gatsby: theme wheel, brief biography of f. scott fitzgerald.

Historical Context of The Great Gatsby

Other books related to the great gatsby.

• Full Title: The Great Gatsby
• Where Written: Paris and the US, in 1924
• When Published: 1925
• Literary Period: Modernism
• Genre: Novel
• Setting: Long Island, Queens, and Manhattan, New York in the summer of 1922
• Climax: The showdown between Gatsby and Tom over Daisy
• Point of View: First person

Extra Credit for The Great Gatsby

Puttin' on the Fitz. Fitzgerald spent most of his adult life in debt, often relying on loans from his publisher, and even his editor, Maxwell Perkins, in order to pay the bills. The money he made from his novels could not support the high-flying cosmopolitan life his wife desired, so Fitzgerald turned to more lucrative short story writing for magazines like Esquire. Fitzgerald spent his final three years writing screenplays in Hollywood.

Another Failed Screenwriter. Fitzgerald was an alcoholic and his wife Zelda suffered from serious mental illness. In the final years of their marriage as their debts piled up, Zelda stayed in a series of mental institutions on the East coast while Fitzgerald tried, and largely failed, to make money writing movie scripts in Hollywood.

The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

The Great Gatsby Material

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The Great Gatsby Essays

Foreshadowing destiny olivia verma, the great gatsby.

<blockquote>[G]audy ... primary colors, and hair shorn in strange new ways, and shawls beyond the dreams of Castile. ... [T]he air is alive with chatter and laughter, and casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot, and...

The Eulogy of a Dream James Boo

The central theme of <I>The Great Gatsby</I> is the decay of the American Dream. Through his incisive analysis and condemnation of 1920s high society, Fitzgerald (in the person of the novels narrator, Nick Carraway) argues that the...

Materialism Portrayed By Cars in The Great Gatsby Joanna Cruz

"But as I walked down the steps I saw that the evening was not quite over. Fifty feet from the door a dozen headlights illuminated a bizarre and tumultuous scene (58)."

After the first of Gatsby's parties that Nick attends, Fitzgerald dedicates two...

Role of Narration in The Great Gatsby Steven Rice

Renowned author F. Scott Fitzgerald became "the most famous chronicler of 1920s America, an era that he dubbed 'the Jazz Age.'" (Phillips 1). His fame grew in part from his widely published short stories, and also from the art of his novel, The...

A Great American Dream Jens Shroyer

The Great Gatsby and "Babylon Revisited," both by F. Scott Fitzgerald, are stories about the emptiness and recklessness of the 1920s. Each story has its distinctions, but Fitzgerald's condemnation of the decade reverberates through both....

Restless in West Egg Anonymous

To many Americans, wealth and happiness are inextricably intertwined. After all, the democratic ideals of our country are predicated on the notion of the âself-madeâ? man. Ironically, it is sometimes the striving for wealth or the striving for...

The Death of a Dream Martha E. Andrietti

F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is regarded as a brilliant piece of literature that offers a vivid peek into American life in the 1920's. The central characteristics of the "Lost Generation" of the 1920's society are shown through the decay...

The Fall of the American Dream Josh Weiss

The figurative as well as literal death of Jay Gatsby in the novel The Great Gatsby symbolizes a conclusion to the principal theme of the novel. With the end of the life of Jay Gatsby comes the end of what Fitzgerald views as the ultimate American...

Jay Gatsby's Representation of America Josh Weiss

It was literary critic Lionel Trilling who quite aptly described the collective entity Jay Gatsby when he wrote, "Jay Gatsby [stands] for America itself." Jay Gatsby lives his life entrenched in unfathomable wealth. His true roots are rather...

Decay of American Greatness Michael Jin

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a shining example of the principle that the most powerful messages are not told but rather shown. Although the novel is written in the form of largely impartial narration by Nick Carraway, Fitzgerald's...

Through A Lens, Darkly: The Use of Eye Imagery to Illustrate the Theme of an Extinct God in The Great Gatsby Anonymous

Throughout history, the eye has always been an emblem of the deities. In the Egyptian pantheon, there is Horus, god of light, who is signified by his famous Eye; in the Roman pantheon, there is Juno, associated with the many-eyed peacock; and in...

Obsession Anonymous

In his book The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald explores the psychology of love's fantasies and realities through the character of Jay Gatsby. During their five-year separation, Gatsby pines for his love, Daisy Buchanan, rearranging his entire...

Daisy and Her Men: Analysis of Character in The Great Gatsby Ashley Smith

Throughout literature, there are countless characters whose only positive attributes seem to be the fact that they are utterly detestable - the reader loves to hate them. From Shakespeare's conniving Iago to Dickens' endlessly cruel Estella, these...

The African American Dream B. L. Fox

Social class plays a dominant role in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. In fact the title character is living proof that the American dream really exists. Readers recognize the importance Fitzgerald places on social class throughout the...

The Shift From Realism to Modernism Anonymous

During the modernist era, artists gradually moved away from realism towards themes of illusion, consciousness, and imagination. In the visual arts, realism evolved into cubism and expressionism. This movement is paralleled in literature, as...

Gatsby and Henry: Obsession Viewed in Two Different Lenses Ruth Tangonan

Ernest Hemingway's Farewell to Arms and F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby revolve around one primary character who serves as a vessel that reveals the major theme of the book. The Great Gatsby chronicles Jay Gatsby's pursuit of love, while...

Money! Money! Money! Christopher R. DeConinck

In F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, as Jay Gatsby delves into his pursuit of wealth and need for materialism, his hopes and aspirations become shattered in a world of unobtainable and unreachable possibilities. While Jay Gatsby confidently...

The Bildungsroman Form in The Great Gatsby Sagar Shah

Maturation and personal evolution of main characters typify the bildungsroman, a distinct novelistic form. The growth of characters Tom Buchanan, George Wilson, Jay Gatsby make F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and important example of the...

The significance of the end of Chapter 1 of "The Great Gatsby" Anonymous

Luminosity and spiritual longing for something that had vanished a long ago are probably the two main characteristics of the last two paragraphs in Chapter 1 of “The Great Gatsby”. The scene takes place shortly after Nick's return from dinner at...

The Great Gatsby and the Decline of the American Dream Anonymous

F. Scott Fitzgerald explores the decline of the American Dream in one of his most famous novels, The Great Gatsby. Although this book only takes place over a few months, it represents the entire time period of the 1920s, in which society, mainly...

Gatsby's Fall from Greatness Anonymous

In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby completes a decline from his carefully crafted image of greatness to his exposed, unsightly, and lonely death. The story of the novel is really the deconstruction of this image, and the...

Modernism and The Great Gatsby Bonnie Christine Smith

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby has been hailed as one of the greatest literary works of Modernism. The Great Gatsby set the tone for the movement that defined American literature in the early decades well into the present day. The...

Fitzgerald's Prediction and the Great Depression Anonymous

Famed American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald could not have anticipated what was on the horizon when he penned The Great Gatsby in 1925. Fitzgerald was no prophet, but he seemed to have an innate sensibility that allowed him to step outside of...

House Versus Home in The Great Gatsby and Death of a Salesman Anonymous

In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and the play Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, both authors use their characters’ living space, the house, as a metaphor for the attainability of the American Dream of security, wealth, and...

A Summary and Analysis of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

The Great Gatsby is the quintessential Jazz Age novel, capturing a mood and a moment in American history in the 1920s, after the end of the First World War. Rather surprisingly, The Great Gatsby sold no more than 25,000 copies in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s lifetime. It has now sold over 25 million copies.

If Fitzgerald had stuck with one of the numerous working titles he considered for the novel, it might have been published as Trimalchio in West Egg (a nod to a comic novel from ancient Rome about a wealthy man who throws lavish parties), Under the Red, White and Blue , or even The High-Bouncing Lover (yes, really).

How did this novel come to be so widely acclaimed and studied, and what does it all mean? Before we proceed to an analysis of Fitzgerald’s novel, here’s a quick summary of the plot.

The Great Gatsby : plot summary

Nick Carraway, the narrator of the novel, is a young man who has come to New York to work on the stock exchange. He lives on the island of West Egg, where his neighbour is the wealthy Jay Gatsby, who owns a mansion.

One evening, Nick is dining with his neighbours from East Egg, Tom and Daisy Buchanan. Tom is having an affair, and goes to answer the phone at one point; Daisy follows him out of the room, and their fellow guest, a woman named Jordan Baker, explains to Nick about Tom’s mistress.

A short while after this, Nick is with Tom when Tom sets up a meeting with his mistress, Myrtle, the wife of a garage mechanic named Wilson. Nick attends a party with Tom and Myrtle; Tom hits his mistress when she mentions Daisy’s name.

In the summer, Gatsby throws a number of lavish parties at his mansion. He meets Jordan Baker again and the two are drawn to each other. Nobody seems to know the real Gatsby, or to be able to offer much reliable information about his identity. Who is he?

Gatsby befriends Nick and drives him to New York. Gatsby explains that he wants Nick to do him a favour: Jordan Baker tells him that Daisy was Gatsby’s first love and he is still in love with her: it’s the whole reason Gatsby moved to West Egg, so he could be near Daisy, even though she’s married to Tom. Gatsby wants Nick to invite both him and Daisy round for tea.

When they have tea together, Gatsby feels hopeful that he can recover his past life with Daisy before she was married. However, he knows that Daisy is unlikely to leave Tom for him. When she expresses a dislike for his noisy parties, he scales down his serving staff at his house and tones down the partying.

When they are all at lunch together, Tom realises that Daisy still loves Gatsby. Tom goads Gatsby as he realises he’s losing his mistress and, now, his wife. While staying together in a suite at the Plaza Hotel, Daisy tells Tom that she loves both men.

On their way back home, Gatsby’s car accidentally hits and kills Myrtle Wilson, Tom’s mistress, who has rushed out into the road after her husband found out about her affair. Tom finds her body and is distraught. Nick learns that Daisy, not Gatsby, was driving the car when Myrtle was killed.

Gatsby also tells Nick that he had built himself up from nothing: he was a poor man named James Gatz who made himself rich through the help of a corrupt millionaire named Dan Cody.

The next day, Nick finds Gatsby dead in his own swimming pool: Wilson, after his wife was killed by Gatsby’s car, turned up at Gatsby’s mansion to exact his revenge. Wilson’s body is nearby in the grass. The novel ends with Nick winding up Gatsby’s affairs and estate, before learning that Tom told Wilson where he could find Gatsby so he could take revenge.

The Great Gatsby : analysis

The Great Gatsby is the best-known novel of the Jazz Age, that period in American history that had its heyday in the 1920s. Parties, bootleg cocktails (it’s worth remembering that alcohol was illegal in the US at this time, under Prohibition between 1920 and 1933), and jazz music (of course) all characterised a time when Americans were gradually recovering from the First World War and the Spanish flu pandemic (1918-20).

One reason The Great Gatsby continues to invite close analysis is the clever way Fitzgerald casts his novel as neither out-and-out criticism of Jazz Age ‘values’ nor as an unequivocal endorsement of them. Gatsby’s parties may be a mere front, a way of coping with Daisy’s previous rejection of him and of trying to win her back, but Fitzgerald – and his sympathetic narrator, Nick Carraway – do not ridicule Gatsby’s behaviour as wholly shallow or vacuous.

Fitzgerald’s choice to have a first-person narrator, rather than a more detached and impersonal ‘omniscient’ third-person narrator, is also significant. Nick Carraway is closer to Gatsby than an impersonal narrator would be, yet the fact that Nick narrates Gatsby’s story, rather than Gatsby telling his own story, nevertheless provides Nick with some detachment, as well as a degree of innocence and ignorance over Gatsby’s identity and past.

Nick Carraway is both part of Gatsby’s world and yet also, at the same time, an observer from the side-lines, someone who is not rich and extravagant as many in Gatsby’s circle are, yet someone who is ushered into that world by an enthusiastic Jay Gatsby, who sees in Carraway a man in whom he can confide.

Nevertheless, Fitzgerald deftly sets the world of West Egg, with Gatsby’s mock-chateau and swimming pool, against the rather grittier and grimier reality for most Americans at the time. If Gatsby himself symbolises the American dream – he has made himself a success, absurdly wealthy with a huge house and a whole retinue of servants, having started out in poverty – then there are plenty of reminders in The Great Gatsby that ‘the American dream’ remains just that, a dream, for the majority of Americans:

About half way between West Egg and New York the motor-road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from a certain desolate area of land. This is a valley of ashes – a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air.

This is the grey, bleak, industrial reality for millions of Americans: not for them is the world of parties, quasi-enchanted gardens full of cocktails and exotic foods, hydroplanes, and expensive motorcars.

Yet the two worlds are destined to meet on a personal level: the Valley of Ashes (believed to be modelled on Corona dump in Queens, New York, and inspired by T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land ) is where Wilson’s garage is located. The dual tragedy of Gatsby’s and Wilson’s deaths at the end of the novel symbolises the meeting of these two worlds.

The fact that Gatsby is innocent of the two crimes or sins which motivate Wilson – his wife’s adultery with Tom and Daisy’s killing of Myrtle with Gatsby’s car – hardly matters: it shows the subtle interconnectedness of these people’s lives, despite their socioeconomic differences.

What’s more, as Ian Ousby notes in his Introduction to Fifty American Novels (Reader’s Guides) , there is more than a touch of vulgarity about Gatsby’s lifestyle: his house is a poor imitation of a genuine French chateau, but he is no aristocrat; his car is ‘ridiculous’; and his very nickname, ‘the Great Gatsby’, makes him sound like a circus entertainer (perhaps a magician above all else, which is apt given the magical and enchanted way Carraway describes the atmosphere and detail at Gatsby’s parties).

And ultimately, Gatsby’s lavish lifestyle fails to deliver happiness to him, too: he doesn’t manage to win Daisy back to him, so at the same time Fitzgerald is not holding up Gatsby’s ‘success’ uncritically to us.

Is Gatsby black? Although he is known for having been played in film adaptations by Robert Redford and Leonardo DiCaprio, and the novel does not state that Gatsby is an African American, the scholar Carlyle V. Thompson has suggested that certain clues or codes in the novel strongly hint at Gatsby being a black American who has had to make his own way in the world, rising from a poor socio-economic background, and not fully accepted by other people in his social circle because of racial discrimination.

Whether we accept or reject this theory, it is an intriguing idea that, although Fitzgerald does not support this theory in the novel, that may have been deliberate: to conceal Gatsby’s blackness but, as it were, hide it in plain sight.

In the last analysis, The Great Gatsby sums up the Jazz Age, but through offering a tragedy, Fitzgerald shows that the American dream is founded on ashes – both the industrial dirt and toil of millions of Americans for whom the dream will never materialise, and the ashes of dead love affairs which Gatsby, for all of his quasi-magical properties, will never bring fully back to life.

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10 thoughts on “A Summary and Analysis of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby”

I regret the several hours wasted in slogging through this low-prole distraction.

You might want to start with something like Dick and Jane.

One of my favorite novels. I have always loved this book. No matter how may times I read it, more is revealed.

The Great Gatsby is one of my favorite novels. Thank you for the detailed analysis! I can also add that Fitzgerald includes lots of symbols in the novel. To my mind, one of the most vivid symbols is a giant billboard with the face of Doctor TJ Eckleburg which is towering over the Valley of Ashes. These eyes are watching the dismal grey scene of poverty and decay. I guess the billboard symbolizes the eyes of God staring at the Americans and judging them. In case seomeone is interested in symbols in The Great Gatsby, there is a nice article about it. Here: https://custom-writing.org/blog/symbols-in-the-great-gatsby

While I could imagine and accept a modern film version of Gatsby as black, I really can’t espouse the notion that Fitzgerald had that in mind. If you know anything about American society in the 1920s, you’d know that you didn’t have to be black or of some other minority to be outside the winner’s circle. US society may still have tons of problems accepting that all people are created equal, but back then, they weren’t even thinking about blacks et al very much. They were quite happy to ostracize Italians, Irish, Catholics, etc, without batting an eye.

This is such a widely misunderstood book, by scholars as well as regulars.

Daisy was the victim of love. She would’ve married Jay while he was in the army. Also, Jay’s so-called symbolic “reaching” is nothing more than him trying to understand self love, to attain it, to unravel the “mystery! ” of it. But he never realizes he’s totally in love with himself, which is his biggest issue other than preying on Daisy’s real love.

And Nick ” Carraway” …. Care-a-way, care-a-way… What self-appointed moral man witnesses nakedly two married plotters sceam against a neighbor they like, or any person in serious need of legal, emotion aid, AND DOES NOTHING. Yeah, care a way, Nick, just not your way! And Come On!! who the hell doesn’t judge others….that’s the ENTIRE POINT OF EVERY BOOK AND LIFE.

WHAT preyed on Gatsby preys upon every person everywhere. Influences of life and choices we make because if them. Gatsby’s such an interesting, centralized , beloved character because he represents everyone’s apparent embracement of the childhood notion, ” we can have it all and make our own consequences, and if not, let’s see if I can manipulate time successfully. Gatsby’s us the full human demonstration of self love at all costs and quite deliberately finding a way disguise and masquerade and mutate and thus deny this very fact while simultaneously trying to make it MAGICAL AND MYSTICAL.

ARTISTS, from geniuses to so-called laypeople, are all simple people with very basic emotions. That’s where ALL starts. They are not Gods, nor do they desire misunderstanding. Frankly, they just wanna see if you have any common sense. Once you get passed that, all literature resembles EVERY aspect of life.

A terrific novel and not bad adaptation as a movie by DiCaprio, I thought! While some of the comments on here are a little excessive, there is much to be said for the symbolism in the book. I rather like the fact that ‘West Egg’ and ‘East Egg’ surely hints at questioning who is the ‘good egg’ and who is ‘the bad egg’. The place names are so unusual that this must be deliberate (‘bad egg’ has been around since at least 1855) and we’re left to wonder just what is good and bad here. No character comes out smelling of roses in this story, which – for me – makes the novel utterly compelling.

Well said, Ken. It’s the subtlety of the characterisation which makes it for me – I know a lot of critics and readers praise the prose style, but I think it’s the way Fitzgerald uses Carraway’s narration to reveal the multifaceted (and complex) nature of Gatsby, Daisy, Tom, and even himself that is so masterly. I’ve just finished analysing the opening paragraphs of the novel and will post that up soon!

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The Great Gatsby

Introduction to the great gatsby.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, one of the greatest American writers, wrote The Great Gatsby. It was first published on 10th April 1925 and did not win instant applause. However, later it became the most read American novel , read by a diverse range of audiences. As time passed, it impacted the American generations, proving an all-time bestseller and a masterpiece. The novel shows the regions of West Egg and East Egg near Long Island known for its prosperity during the Jazz Era after World War 1. The story revolves around the obsession of the millionaire, Jay Gatsby for a fashionable woman, Daisy. She is very popular among the military officers for her parties. On account of the exploration of a host of themes, the novel has been termed Fitzgerald’s magnum opus.

Summary of The Great Gatsby

The story of the novel, The Great Gatsby , revolves around a young man, Nick Carraway, who comes from Minnesota to New York in 1922. He is also the narrator of the story. His main objective is to establish his career in the bonds. Nick rents a house in West Egg on Long Island, which is a fictional village of New York. He finds himself living amidst the huge mansions of the rich and famous . Right across the water, there is a refined village of East Egg. Nick’s cousin Daisy and her wealthy husband Tom Buchanan live in that part of the village. Tom is known to be cruel, absurdly rich as well. One day Nick goes to meet Daisy and Tom for dinner. There, he meets Jordan Baker, Daisy’s friend. Daisy is a well-known golf champion. She tells him about Tom’s affair. Apparently, Tom has a mistress in New York City. Daisy secretly confesses to Nick that she is not happy with Tom. Once Nick returns to his house in West Egg, he sees his neighbor, Jay Gatsby. Jay is standing alone in the dark calling out to a green light across the bay. The place points to Tom’s and Daisy’s place.

After a few months, Tom introduces Nick to his mistress, Myrtle Wilson. Myrtle is married George Wilson, who is not as lively or joyful as Tom. According to Nick, George is “a valley of ashes”. He also compares George to an industrial wasteland supervised by Doctor T.J. Eckleburg. They meet her at the garage where George works as a repairman. Tom, Nick, and Myrtle go to her apartment in Manhattan. Myrtle’s sister and some other friends join them. As they are heavily drunk, they fall into an argument . Tom punches Myrtle in the nose when she talks about Daisy and insults her. Nick also wakes up in a train station.

A few months pass, Nick grows comfortable with the noises and lights of dazzling parties held at his neighbor Jay Gatsby’s house. Jay always has the famous and rich people gather on Saturday nights . There all the rich and famous enjoy Gatsby’s extravagant bar and enjoy listening to jazz orchestra. One day, Nick receives an invitation from Gatsby to one of these parties. There he meets Jordan and spends most of the evening. Nick notices that Jay is mostly absent during his parties. He overhears the guests talking about Gatsby’s dark past. Later, Nick meets him at the end of the party. While at first, he doesn’t know who Jay Gatsby was. Nick is properly introduced to Gatsby asking Jordan to speak privately. When Jordan returns she doesn’t share any details of the conversation between her and Jay Gatsby.

Nick becomes even more suspicious about this mystery character and decides to learn more about him through Jordan.  Nick continues to see Jordan Baker. He also gets acquainted with Jay Gatsby at the same time. During one of the drives for lunch in Manhattan, Gatsby tries to dismiss the rumors that has been reaching Nick. Jay tells Nick that his parents were very wealthy people and were dead. He studied in Oxford and discharged as a war hero after World War 1. Nick doesn’t believe Jay at this point. At lunch, Nick is introduced to Gatsby’s business partner, Meyer Wolfsheim. Meyer is known to fix the World Series in 1919. (This character was based on a real person and a real event from the author’s time). Nick meets Jordan Baker. She reveals Nick about her conversation with Gatsby. Gatsby knew Daisy, Nick’s cousin five years before. While he lived in Louisville, Jay and Daisy were in love. When Jay left to fight in the war, Daisy married Tom Buchanan. Gatsby bought his current mansion on West Egg to be across the water to see Daisy from distance.

Gatsby request Nick to invite Daisy to his house so that he can meet her. After a few days Jay Gatsby, invited by Nick, meets Daisy over tea. Daisy is surprised to see Gatsby after five years gap. Initially, they are quiet and hesitant, making the meeting extremely awkward. Nick observes this and leaves them alone for some time. He believes that by giving them a little privacy, they might talk and sort things out. Surprisingly, when Nick returns, Jay and Daisy speak without any uneasiness in the environment. Jay Gatsby is beaming with happiness; and Daisy is crying happy tears. Later, they head to Jay Gatsby’s mansion. Gatsby begins to show all his rooms and artifacts to her.

Few days pass, with Daisy and Jay Gatsby meeting frequently, Tom comes to know about Daisy’s meeting with Gatsby. He doesn’t like it. One day, Tom unwillingly attends Jay Gatsby’s party with Daisy. Daisy feels uncomfortable at the party. She is disgusted by the bad behavior of the rich crowd at West Egg. Tom assumes that Gatsby has a business of selling goods illegally. He accuses Jay Gatsby at the party and also shares his frustration with Nick after the party. Gatsby tries to ignore all the fight and asks Daisy to leave Tom. He begs her to tell the truth to Tom that she does not love him. Gatsby asks Daisy to marry him after they separate. He confesses that he had never stopped loving Daisy.

Right after that incident, Jay Gatsby stops throwing his wild parties. Daisy visits him almost every afternoon. One day, Nick is invited for lunch by the Buchanans. Jay Gatsby and Jordan are also invited. During the lunch, Daisy compliments Gatsby in front of everyone. This also proves as a declaration of her love for Jay Gatsby. Tom also notices Daisy but chooses not to react. He requests them to come to the town. Daisy and Jat Gatsby go to Tom’s car. However, Tom takes Jay Gatsby’s car with Jordan and Nick. Tom stops for the fuel at George Wilson’s garage in the valley of ashes. Wilson breaks the news to Tom that he had been planning to go west of the city with his wife Myrtle to raise more money.

Hearing the news Tom is visibly mad and speeds towards Manhattan. He catches up with Daisy and Gatsby. They go to a parlor at the Plaza Hotel, while Tom is still disturbed by hearing George’s and Myrtle’s moving news. While having a drink Tom confronts Gatsby about his and Daisy’s relationship. Daisy tries her best to calm them down. However, Gatsby begs Daisy to reveal the truth of their love. When Tom continues to threaten Jay Gatsy, Daisy threatens to leave Tom. Out of prejudice, Tom tells them that he had been investigating Gatsby. He concludes that Jay Gatsby was selling illegal alcohol at drugstores in Chicago with Wolfsheim. Gatsby denies the allegations and tries to diffuse the situation. However, Daisy loses hope. They leave the Plaza, just as Nick turns 30, without celebrating his birthday.

While returning, Daisy drives Gatsby’s car. On the way they accidentally hit Myrtle. Just before the accident Myrtle and George had a severe argument. She runs toward the street thinking Tom is still driving Gatsby’s car. While Jay Gatsby and Daisy see Myrtle they don’t stop. Daisy is afraid to stop and is caught by a couple of witnesses. Tom who is following them from Plaza stops his car after seeing the accident scene and the crowd on the road. Tom is shocked and heartbroken after seeing Myrtle’s dead body in Wilson’s garage. Wilson reveals to Tom that a yellow car was responsible for the accident. Tom tells that the car was not his and leaves to East Egg while mourning. When Nick sees Jay Gatsby at the Buchanans’ mansion he comes to know that Daisy caused the accident. However, Gatsby tells him that he will take the blame if his car is found. Jay also decides to be at Daisy’s house as a guard to protect her from Tom.

The next day, Nick asks Gatsby to disappear, as his car will eventually be traced. Gatsby refuses to leave. He reveals the truth of his past to Nick. Jay Gatsby was from a poor farming family and met Daisy while serving in the army in Louisville. As he was too poor to marry, he did use illegal methods to gain his wealth after the war. Proving that Tom was correct.

Nick returns for work unwillingly. Gatsby desperately waits for Daisy’s call. After a few days, George Wilson visits Tom at the East Egg. He tells him that Gatsby killed Myrtle. After revealing the new George barges into Gatsby’s mansion. Gatsby is relaxing by his pool when George shoots him and then turns the gun on himself. Nick is shocked and arranges Jay Gatsby’s funeral. Nick and Jay Gatsby’s father is the only audience at the funeral. Eventually, Daisy and Tom leave Long Island without revealing their new address. Nick returns to the Midwest and realizes that his life in the East was never good.

Major Themes in The Great Gatsby

• The American Dream: The novel, Great Gatsby , presents the theme of the American Dream through its character of Jay Gatsby. When Nick meets him, he overemphasizes his lifestyle. He even desires to be in his parties and introduces him to Daisy when a chance arises. Therefore, Gatsby meets Daisy and tries to revive his past love, seeing that he has achieved fame through his riches and would get her now . However, Daisy disappears from his life after the accident. Nick with his American dream is the only friend in the end who arranges his funeral. The frequent uses of business and business jargon show the theme of the American Dream.
• Home: The novel shows its theme of home through different characters. Nick leaves home and returns when he learns about the importance of home distinctively different from the mansions of East Egg and West Egg. Jay Gatsby, too, learns that mansions do not become home of a person. That is why he reverts to Daisy to set up a home but fails in his attempts.
• Money: Money is not only an important theme but also a theme in the novel. Money brings a few characters close to each other. The discussion of places like East Egg and West Egg and new and old money shows that money makes the mare go for Nick, Tom, Daisy as well as Gatsby. However, by the end, Nick comes to know that money is not everything as he performs funeral rites of Gatsby alone with nobody else besides his dead body.
• Materialism: Materialism is another significant theme of The Great Gatsby in that it shows its ravages and destruction where it is desired to be the most important value. The lush and extravagant parties, the mysterious and rich lifestyles, and extravagant shows of wealth do not go side by the side the sincerity of relations in the human world. Gatsby’s lifestyle attracts others, but nobody knows his mental condition, though, he fails to win Daisy by the end of the novel when meets his end, as she is already married.
• Past: Past is a constant theme in the novel that Gatsby, Tom, and Daisy want to leave their past but it constantly haunts them. Gatsby has made remarkable progress in his life. Daisy and Tom have caused quite a scandal in their previous city of Chicago, the reason that they are running away from it. Jordan Baker also tries to bury her past life. Nick then clearly explains it to Daisy that he cannot bring back the past.
• The hollowness of Upper Class: The novel shows the hollowness of the elite class or upper strata of the American society through the characters of Jay Gatsby as well as the region of East Egg as corrupt and devoid of the moral and ethical framework but West Egg as the social fabric tied in a morality. When Nick learns about Gatsby and Daisy, he reaches the conclusion by the end that all is rotten to the core.
• Life and Death: Fitzgerald has presented the theme of life and death through the parties that are being thrown in the West Egg region in New York and through the character of Nick and Gatsby. However, it is Owl Eyes that shows the looming shadow of death amid life. Death is shown to end Jay Gatsby’s life of extravagance.
• Love and Marriage: The novel shows two strained marriages of Tom with Daisy and Myrtle Wilson with George Wilson as bad examples of marriages. Although Nick and Gatsby are in search of love and they find it to some extent, this is not the real love but just a type of tender curiosity in Nick’s words.
• Class: The novel shows the class system through different characters such as Gatsby represents the upper strata, for Nick is seeking to join this class despite his being form the middle class. The incompatibility of the marriage of Myrtle with George shows this class difference.

Major Characters in The Great Gatsby

• Jay Gatsby: James Gatz or Jay Gatsby is the main protagonist , known for his mysterious past and extravagant lifestyle. His parties and mansion located in West Egg make other characters seek his attention and be invited to his parties. Later, he reveals the truth to Nick that he was a young man from a poor family and lived in Dakota. He made fortune after serving in WWI in the army and knew Daisy then. His love, though, stays unrequited until the end as Daisy gave importance to money. Though he amasses a vast fortune. George Wilson kills him by the end of having an affair with his wife. Though in reality, Daisy commits the crime and kills Myrtle, but Jay takes the blame upon himself.
• Nick Carraway: Nick is the narrator of the story. He is from a rich family from Minnesota and wants to join the upper class of the society by joining the bond business in New York. Hence, he moves to the city. Nick is seen as an honest and responsible man. He joins Gatsby and Buchanan’s just to experience the East Egg society. Once, Nick gets close to Gatsby, he comes to know the truth and stands by him. When Gatsby is killed by George, he arranges his funeral and leaves East Egg for good.
• Daisy Buchanan: Daisy Buchanan is Tom’s wife. In the past, she was with Gatsby while he was serving in World War 1. She leaves Jay Gatsby because of his financial status. Through her cousin Nick, she meets Jay Gatsby after five years. She kills Myrtle in an accident. She leaves Gatsby when takes the blame on himself to protect her. She is quite selfish and immature.
• Tom Buchanan: Tom is a former soccer player from Yale and comes from an elite family. However, the brutal and deeply insecure, the reason that he often displays racism. He is dominating over his wife, Daisy, and condemns her for meeting Gatsby. While he disapproves, Daisy’s choice, he has a mistress, Myrtle. Tom is also a bully and a narcissist.
• Jordan Baker: Jordan is a strong woman and Daisy’s old friend who once won golf tournament through deceit. However, unlike her friend, she is quite cold in manners and does not respond to Nick’s advances.
• Myrtle Wilson: Myrtle is Tom’s mistress and promiscuous woman. She crosses social boundaries if she finds a chance. In her desperation, she marries George, the owner of a garage, but continues her affair with Tom. When she picks up a fight with her husband over the move, she runs to the street where speeding Daisy accidentally kills her. though Gatsby takes the blame.
• George Wilson: A poor and lazy garage owner, George Wilson. He married ambitious Myrtle but faces agony and mental torture over her affair with Tom. He later murders Gatsby assuming Gatsby had killed Myrtle by accident.
• Meyer Wolfsheim: Meyer is Gatsby’s colleague and famous for his involvement in the world of crime and fixing series. He is a mixture of morality and the criminal world and offers condolence on the death of Gatsby.
• Dan Cody: Dan is one of those men who exploited the Gold Rush and won riches. Gatsby became his disciple and learned the art of making money but didn’t receive anything else. Though he left some fortune for Gatsby, it was taken away by his previous wife.

 Writing Style of The Great Gatsby ‎

Fitzgerald applies wry and elegiac which also includes sophisticated style in The Great Gatsby . The language, though, creates a sense of loss and nostalgia , becomes poetic, at times, loaded with figurative images. In one way, it seems to be an extended elegy that laments the corruption of a whole class merely for the abstract concept of a dream which is rotten to the core on account of greed, avariciousness, and lasciviousness that it breeds. However, when the novel shows metaphorical language and elaborate images, it seems highly sophisticated. Fitzgerald is an expert writer and knows where to apply what type of language.

Analysis of Literary Devices in The Great Gatsby

• Action: The main action of the novel comprises Jay Gatsby yearning for Daisy’s affection. He took the blame for the accident and faced sequences as George Wilson kills him. The rising action comprises the reunion of Daisy and Gatsby, while the falling action is the death of Gatsby or maybe his final funeral rites.
• Allegory : The Great Gatsby shows some strands of allegory in the character of Gatsby who is a symbol of something to be re-created through dreams . However, as a representative figure of every common American, Gatsby seems to have made it an allegory, for his dream of winning his love after having won a Gothic mansion and name in the parties proves a miserable failure.
• Antagonist : Tom Buchanan is the antagonist of the novel, The Great Gatsby . He is not only an imposing figure but also a dominating man who represents obstacles that stand between a man’s desire and his attempts to reach his goal. He does not let Daisy and Gatsby meet to fulfill their desire of marriage after loving each other.
• Allusion : Some of the allusions used in The Great Gatsby are such as a reference to Midas, a Greek legend , another to Morgan, an American financier, to Maecenas, an art patron of Rome, to Oxford, a university in England and to Rockefeller, a self-styled billionaire of the 19 th century.
• Conflict : There are two types of conflicts in the novel, The Great Gatsby . The first one is the external conflict going on between Jay Gatsby and Tom Buchanan, the husband of Daisy how to dodge him to win his wife. The internal conflict goes in the mind of Gatsby about himself, about his love and renewal of relationship with Daisy.
• Characters: The Great Gatsby presents both static as well as dynamic characters. The young man, Nick Carraway, the narrator is a dynamic character . He not only sees the entire situation but also sees his friends and near and dear ones in a wider perspective . His opinion also changes from good to bad by the end of the novel about different characters such as Tome, Jordan, and Daisy. However, Gatsby and Tom stays the same and does not show any change. Therefore, they are static characters .
• Climax : The climax in The Great Gatsby takes place when the group of all of them is coming back from New York and Myrtle is killed by Gatsby. Then Gatsby shows greatness by taking the blame and getting killed by George.
• Foreshadowing : The novel, The Great Gatsby , shows several examples of foreshadowing . Its fourth chapter shows the first such example when Nick sees that the gambler Wolfsheim is the friend of Gatsby which points to the means of his riches. The second example occurs when Jordan asks Nick that Gatsby wants to meet Daisy which clearly shows that he is going to rekindle his old love.
• I’m p-paralysed with happiness.’ (Chapter-1)
• The Flowers were unnecessary, for at two o’clock a greenhouse arrived from Gatsby’s, with innumerable receptacles to contain it. (Chapter-5)
• ‘FIer family is one aunt about a thousand years old. (Chapter-1) All these three examples show good use of the literary device of hyperbole .
• If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away. (Chapter-1)
• He wouldn’t say another word. His correctness grew on him as we neared the city. We passed Port Roosevelt, where there was a glimpse of red-belted ocean-going ships, and sped along a cobbled slum lined with the dark, undeserted saloons of the faded-gilt nineteen-hundreds.” (Chapter-4)

In the first example, the passage shows the description of a person while the second presents the description of Port Roosevelt. In both descriptions, Fitzgerald has used senses of sound, sight, and hearing extensively.

• Metaphor : The Great Gatsby shows various metaphors throughout the novel. For example, 1. The lawn started at the beach and ran towards the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over sundials and brick walks and burning gardens. 2. Twenty miles from the city a pair of enormous eggs, identical in contour and separated only by a courtesy bay, jut out into the most domesticated body of saltwater in the Western hemisphere, the great wet barnyard of Long Island Sound. 3. “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” The first metaphor compares the law to an animal , the second the places to eggs, and the last compares life to a voyage.
• Mood : The novel, The Great Gatsby, shows a very serious mood that depicts pessimism and vapidity along with uselessness of the riches. It also becomes somber at the ugliness of the Valley of Ashes and the sad at the death of Gatsby.
• Motif : The most important motifs of the novel, The Great Gatsby, are judgment, infidelity, and wealth which occur recurrently in the storyline.
• Narrator : The novel, The Great Gatsby , has been narrated in a first-person narrative by Nick Carraway. It presents impressions of the place, society, and events from his personal point of view .
• Half a dozen fingers pointed at the amputated wheel. (Chapter-3)
• Blinded by the glare of the headlights and confused by the incessant groaning of the horns , the apparition stood swaying for a moment before he perceived the man in the duster. (Chapter-3)
• The Dead dream fought on as the afternoon slipped away trying to touch what was no longer tangible. (Chapter-7) The first example shows fingers, second apparition, and the third dead dream as if they have lives of their own.
• Protagonist : Although it seems that Nick Carraway is the protagonist, yet he is not. He is only the narrator. It is Jay Gatsby who is the real protagonist of the novel. It is because he demonstrates greatness by the end by telling truth to Nick, taking the blame on himself, and getting killed.
• Paradox : The Great Gatsby, at the deep level, shows that Gatsby is a person of many paradoxes. He idealizes the American Dream and has become a gentleman to be liked. However, he has left this world with a single friend at his funeral.  
• Rhetorical Questions: The novel shows the use of rhetorical questions in several places. For example, 1. What could you make of that, except to suspect some intensity in his conception of the affair that couldn’t be measured? 2. Who wants to go to town?’ demanded Daisy insistently. The first example shows the use of a rhetorical question posed by Nick that he does not want an answer. The second shows the same used by Daisy.
• Theme : A theme is a central idea that the novelist or the writer wants to stress upon. The novel, The Great Gatsby , not only shows class, society, American Dream, and mortality but also demonstrates loneliness and the impacts of riches or wealth.
• Setting : The setting of the novel, The Great Gatsby , is the city of New York and its Long Island with two fictional towns East Egg and West Egg.
• Simile : The novel shows good use of various similes. For example, 1. Instead of being the warm center of the world, the Middle West now seemed like the ragged edge of the universe. (Chapter-1) 2. They (bonds) stood on my shelf in red and gold like new money from the mint. (Chapter-1)
• The first simile compares the Middle West to a ragged edge, while the second compares the gold to new money.
• Symbol: The Great Gatsby shows various symbols such as the green light, the clothes of Gatsby, and the Valley of Ashes as well as his car which shows that it is due to the new money that he has earned. Even the East Egg and West Egg or symbols of capitalism and materialism.
• Irony : The novel shows irony in that, though, Gatsby is the center of attention of the parties, nobody shows up at his funeral except one person. The second irony is that Gatsby shows shyness when meeting Daisy despite his mundane success. The third example of irony is that Myrtle wants to die at the hands of Tom but it is Daisy who becomes her killer, for she was driving the car.

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89 The Great Gatsby : Best Topics and Examples

Looking for some creative titles for The Great Gatsby essay? There are many themes to explore about this novel. We offer you The Great Gatsby essay examples about symbolism, character analysis, the style of the novel, and many other topics.

📙 The Great Gatsby – Essay Writing Tips

🏆 the great gatsby essay titles – top 15, 🍸 catchy essay topics for the great gatsby, ❓ great gatsby essay questions, 🎁 other the great gatsby essay titles.

The Great Gatsby, the masterpiece written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, will help you dive into the Roaring Twenties’ wealth atmosphere. This is a story of a millionaire Jay Gatsby and his passion for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan

Your professor may ask you to analyze topics such as decadence, money, American Dream, or symbolism in your The Great Gatsby Essay. But what if you have no idea what to write? Well, below, you can find some tips and essay samples that you may use to compose your papers

Tip #1. Analyze symbolism in The Great Gatsby

First, let’s define what symbolism is. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, symbolism is “practice of using symbols, especially by investing things with a symbolic meaning or by expressing the invisible or intangible using visible or sensuous representations.” The Great Gatsby story is full of symbols. And here are just two examples of them:

• The eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg painted on a billboard in the Valley of Ashes. You can find a lot of The Great Gatsby essay samples that draw the conclusion that Eckleburg represents God. However, let’s ask a few more questions. Why do these eyes have no mouth or arms, or legs? Does this mean that Eckleburg can only watch people transgressions without any ability to punish them as a God-like entity? Does this billboard mean anything?
• Use of color in Fitzgerald’s story. If you carefully read the novel, you might notice the use of a few colors throughout the book. They are green, gray, gold, and yellow. Think, what do these colors can symbolize and represent these ideas in your paper.

Tip #2. Think about point of view in The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby is written in the first-person point of view. Nick Carraway, one of the main characters, tells us about the life and thoughts of Gatsby. In your writing, you can imagine how different the novel would be if it were told in the third-person point of view.

You also can provide some examples if the story was told from Gatsby’s perspective.

Tip #3. Assess how the book relates to the American Dream

If you look through the vast majority The Great Gatsby essay titles, you can find out plenty of samples that address the validity of high society or the social class divide. Gatsby had achieved the American Dream by building his wealth. However, he’s still not satisfied with the shallowness of the upper class and wants something more.

In your paper, you can argue why does one can never attain the American Dream, and why dreamers always want more.

Tip #4. Analyze the characters and their relations

Fitzgerald put each character into the novel for a particular reason. And your job is to analyze what they represent and why they are in the story. For example, Tom represents evil, while Daisy represents innocence. Another aspect you should examine is relationships between Daisy and Gatsby, Tom and Daisy, Nick and Gatsby.

Tip #5. Examine the tone of the novel

When we talk about the tone of the story, we mean how the author describes the events and characters. In your paper, decide what the tone of the novel is and analyze how it affects the readers’ attitude to characters and events.

Now, check The Great Gatsby essay examples below and use the acquired ideas to write your own paper!

• Tom and Gatsby: Compare and Contrast Essay In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald pays attention to the relationships between both Jay Gatsby and Tom Buchanan and Daisy Buchanan. Scott Fitzgerald’s book is mainly focused on the relationship of Daisy with Gatsby and Tom, […]
• Daisy Buchanan: “I Did Love Him Once, but I Loved You, Too” Another scene shows Daisy’s immoral behavior when she is in the room with Gatsby, Jordan, and Nick. This view shows Daisy’s lustful side in that she pushes Jordan to do the same and is out […]
• The Clock as a Symbol in “The Great Gatsby” By incorporating metaphorical elements that allude to the fleeting nature of time, “the Great Gatsby” emphasizes the idea of the futility of life and the inescapability of the past and its mistakes.
• Analysis of the Shirt Scene in “The Great Gatsby” Film Although the shirts mean nothing to Gatsby without Daisy, the audience watches Gatsby’s facial expression display a great deal of empathy and love whenever Daisy seems distressed, especially in this scene when she begins to […]
• Nick as the Narrator in The Great Gatsby Therefore, his connection with the Gatsby’s story is that he is depended upon to serve as the mouthpiece of the older generation as he metaphorically transcends through time to retell the Great Gatsby tale accurately […]
• Silver & Gold: Color Symbolism in The Great Gatsby Although the color palette presented in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is rich, the problem of differing social status is most vividly described in the novel through the use of golden and silver colors that stand […]
• The Great Gatsby Reflection Paper Throughout the novel the major character Nick who was the narrator managed to bring out the main themes of the novel as well as developing other characters.
• The Great Gatsby: Analysis and Feminist Critique The feminist critique is an aspect that seeks to explore the topic of men domination in the social, economic, and political sectors.
• American Culture in the Novel “The Great Gatsby” In The Great Gatsby, Scott Fitzgerald documents these changes through an in-depth exploration of cultural changes such as the rise in consumerism, materialism, greed for wealth, and the culture of loosening morals in the 1920s […]
• Daisy’s Character Study in “The Great Gatsby” The argument is that the author attempts to describe her as a pure and innocent female to ensure that the reader understands the perspective of Jay, but particular aspects of her true identity are revealed […]
• The Great Gatsby and Winter Dreams by Scott Fitzgerald In this analysis, the researcher will try to confirm the argument that the Great Gatsby was a continuation of the Winter Dreams.
• Gatsby & Nick in The Great Gatsby The Great Gatsby is a novel of vibrant characters, and paradox is one of the main themes of the book. Even though Daisy and Tom are married, Nick agrees to help Gatsby be with the […]
• The American Dream in The Great Gatsby After spending some time in this neighborhood, Nick finally attends Gatsby’s exuberant parties only to realize that Gatsby organizes these parties to impress Daisy, Nick’s cousin, and wife to Tom.
• The Great Gatsby All these characteristics of America during 1920 are evident and inherent in the main character, Jay Gatsby, in the novel The Great Gatsby. This is one of the themes in the novel The Great Gatsby.
• Autobiographical Elements in “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The story is set during the roaring twenties, a period of significant social and cultural change, and it incorporates many of the author’s personal experiences, feelings, and perceptions of the time.
• Why is Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby a Satire? Another aspect of satire in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is the wealth associated with Gatsby, as the reader observes in chapter two.
• “The Great Gatsby” Film by Baz Luhrmann The Great Gatsby is a film that stars Jay Gatsby, Nick Carraway, Tom Buchanan, and the Southern Belle Daisy. The influence of the past comes out throughout the course of the film.
• Female Characters in A Streetcar Named Desire & The Great Gatsby: Comparative It can be seen in the case of Stella and Daisy wherein in their pursuit of what they think is their “ideal” love, they are, in fact, pursuing nothing more than a false ideal that […]
• “The Great Gatsby” by Scott Fitzgerald Who will take care of the dead creatures seems not to be in Tom’s order of what to bother him and together with the wife is comfortable enjoying their wealth while the creatures are rotting […]
• Time as a Theme in The Great Gatsby The embodiment of these negative aspects comes in the form of Gatsby and his life, which in the end is seen as hollow and empty, just as the morals and values of the characters seen […]
• “The Great Gatsby” by Baz Luhrmann The filmmakers never stop depicting Gatsby’s wealth and his otherness. He throws money around and he is a topic of heated debates in the society.
• Fairy Tale Traits in The Great Gatsby Basing on the several evident parameters, for instance, the character traits, the behavior of prince and princess, and gender distinctions amongst others, Fitzgerald’s masterwork stands out as a variation and sophisticated version of the fairy […]
• Architecture in “The Great Gatsby” by Fitzgerald From this perspective, the case of Gatsby’s mansion is a symbolic call for leaving behind the anachronistic ideas of aristocracy and embracing American ideals.
• “The Great Gatsby”: The American Dream in the Jazz Age The Jazz Age is a period in the history of the United States of America from the end of World War I to the beginning of the Great Depression due to the remarkable popularity of […]
• Women’s Role in “The Great Gatsby” by Fitzgerald Though the women in the novel are depicted as careless, treacherous, and selfish, the author uses them to underscore the power of the will to rebel against societal norms in pursuit of happiness.
• The Corrupted American Dream and Its Significance in “The Great Gatsby” The development of the American dream and its impact on the society of the United States is a pertinent topic of discussion for various authors.
• “The Great Gatsby” Novel by Francis Scott Fitzgerald However, what the reader should acknowledge is that the author manages to present a wholesome and clear image of the issues and occurrences that defined the United States throughout the 1920s.
• The Dilemmas of the American Dream in The Great Gatsby The Great Gatsby is a story of a young man in the early twentieth century who seems to know what he wants in the way of that dream and what to do to achieve it.
• The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald Review Gatsby’s dream to become wealthy to gain Daisy’s attention “is simply believable and is still a common dream of the current time”. However, Gatsby is the story’s main character and is a “personification” of the […]
• Fertile Questions: “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald The two fertile questions arising from the novel are: what are political and economic impacts of the World War I? and what are the challenges faced by American students born from poor families post-World War […]
• Impressions of “The Great Gatsby” by Fitzgerald The contact between Gatsby and Nick is unique and consequently flavors the narrative. Global controversies such as depression are excluded from the narrative of hedonistic affluence and moral bankruptcy.
• Tom and George in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby At the same time, the motives of Tom and George’s behavior differ due to their backgrounds, origins, and belonging to different social classes.
• “The Great Gatsby Directed” by Baz Luhrmann This is due to the fact that the film is an indirect adaptation of Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald’s book “The Great Gatsby”.
• Jay Gatsby: The Great Fool or the Unfortunate Genius The main idea of the work is to show the unfairness of the fate of a poor young man who cannot marry the girl he loves.
• Novel Analysis: The Great Gatsby and Siddhartha Hesse’s Siddhartha seems complementary to The Great Gatsby as Brahman, the main role in Siddhartha, finds contentment in self-realization and not in money, sensuality, and love.
• Fitzgerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby’, Steinbeck’s ‘Of Mice and Men’ and the American Dream “The America Dream’ is a longstanding common belief of the American population that in the United States, people are free to realize the full potential of their labor and their talents and every person in […]
• Characters in Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” and Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” The author presents challenges faced in the society as a result of the mixture racial and gender discrimination that a young black girl goes through in search of her dream and personal identity.
• Greene’s “Our Man in Havana” and “The Great Gatsby” by Fitzgerald It is imperative to realize that the purpose of the paper is not to carry out a critical analysis of the plays but to carry out a comparison of the attributes in which they relate […]
• What Money Cannot Buy: ‘The Great Gatsby’ Book by F. S. Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby is a book that unveils the instrumental role of the social aspect of life among people; which not only concentrates on the economic part of it.
• First-Person Narrative in Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby,” Joyce’s “The Boarding House,” Bowen’s “The Demon Lover” In Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Joyce’s short story “The Boarding House,” and the Scottish poem The Demon Lover, the first-person narrative is used differently to achieve the authors’ objectives and create a comprehensive picture of […]
• First-Person Narrative in Bowen’s ”The Demon Lover,” Updike’s ”A&P,” Fitzgerald’s ”The Great Gatsby” In this work, the unworked, repressed experience of the First World War is personified and embodied in the image of the ghost of a person who died in this war.
• “The Great Gatsby” by Fitzgerald: Betrayal, Romance, Social Politics and Feminism This work seeks to outline the role of women in the development of the plot of the book and in relation to the social issues affecting women in contemporary society.
• Jay Gatsby, Jean Valjean and Henry Fleming: The Compare and Contrast Analyses of the Characters The way the characters of the main protagonists are revealed in the novel is one of the most important things in every piece of literature.
• Alvarez’ “In the Time of the Butterflies” & Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” The shallowness, the injustice, the strive for wealth and power, brutality, and greed are the common themes, developed and explored in the books by Julia Alvarez “In the Time of The Butterflies” and by F.
• Luhrmann’s “The Great Gatsby” Jay Gatsby’s tragic flaw is related to his na ve way of thinking that implies his belief in the ability to buy true feelings.
• ‘The Great Gatsby’ and ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ Literature Comparison Stella is a devoted wife struggling to make her marriage work, even though her husband Stanley, subjects her to a lot of pain and suffering.
• The Great Gatsby’ by Scott Fitzgerald Literature Analysis This is one of the details that can be identified. This is one of the issues that can be singled out.
• Political Satire in American Literature Scott Fitzgerald was one of the more famous satirists of the time, particularly in his production of the work The Great Gatsby.
• The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald In the novel, the fictional village of West Egg is perhaps one of the key items that symbolize the life of the new millionaires in the city.
• ‘The Great Gatsby’: Tom and Blanche Like Tom, Blanche in the book of Street Car Named Desire, is loyal to her sister who is the only member of her family that we come across.
• Gatsby & Jean Valjean He is a mysterious person, and no one exactly knows his origins and the ways he used to acquire his fortune.
• The Ethicality of an Action Jay Gatsby As well, an action is “wrong” if it results in the opposite of happiness to the people. Mill’s utilitarian theory can be used to assess the ethically of Jay Gatsby’s action, as presented in the […]
• Babylon Revisited & The Great Gatsby: Motifs & Themes When he pleads his case to the guardians of Honoria, his sister-in-law Marion, and her husband, he continually evades his escapades of the past and recounts his hard work and sincerity of the present.
• Francis Scott Fitzgerald & His American Dream In the novel “Tender is the Night,” Fitzgerald describes the society in Riviera where he and his family had moved to live after his misfortune of late inheritance.
• Jay Gatsby & Eponine From Les Miserables: Compare & Contrast Gatsby is the main character in the book “The Great Gatsby,” while Eponine is one of the characters in the book “Les Miserables”.
• Jay Gatsby & Gean Valjean: Characters Comparison This essay compares and contrasts the characters of Gatsby and Jean Valjean in the Les Miserable novels and films. Gatsby strikes the readers as a na ve and lovesick individual though his character is negative.
• Jay Gatsby and Valjean in ‘Les Miserables’: Comparative Valjean’s life contains a series of misfortunes in the sense that he has to hide his true identity. Most of the people in his life were there just for convenience and for the fact that […]
• The Idea of Love in The Great Gatsby and the Parallels or Contrasts That Can Be Drawn With the Presentation of Love in The Catcher in the Rye Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Jerome Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, it is possible to state that the notion of love is presented there similarly even though the texts are absolutely different and […]
• Fitzgerald’s American Dream in The Great Gatsby & Winter Dreams To my mind, Winter Dream is a perfect example of the American Dream, since the main hero, Dexter, implemented each point of it, he was persistent and very hard-working, he was a very sensible and […]
• What Destroyed Gatsby’s Dreams in “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald?
• How Far Does “The Great Gatsby” Demonstrate a View of the American Dream?
• What Is a Good Thesis Statement for“The Great Gatsby”?
• What Is “The Great Gatsby” Main Message?
• Is “The Great Gatsby” a Real Story?
• How “The Great Gatsby” Is a Replica of America?
• Why Is “The Great Gatsby” So Famous?
• What Are the Four Major Themes in “The Great Gatsby”?
• How Does “The Great Gatsby” Explore the Ideas of Illusion Versus Reality?
• How Does “The Great Gatsby” Compare to the Life of Fitzgerald?
• What Going From West to East Meant for the Characters in “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald?
• How Does “The Great Gatsby” Portray the Death of the American Dream?
• How Does Tom Buchanan Represent 1920’s Society in “The Great Gatsby”?
• How and Why Does F. Scott Fitzgerald Use Nick Carraway as His Narrator of “The Great Gatsby”?
• How New Money and Women Are Marginalized in “The Great Gatsby”?
• What Part Does Social Class Play in “The Great Gatsby”?
• What Makes “The Great Gatsby” a Classic?
• Does Fitzgerald Condemn the American Dream in “The Great Gatsby”?
• What Does the Green Light Symbolize in “The Great Gatsby”?
• How Women Are Portrayed in “The Great Gatsby”?
• What Techniques Does Fitzgerald Use to Convey the Main Themes in “The Great Gatsby”?
• Why Did Fitzgerald Write “The Great Gatsby”?
• How Does Nick Carraway Narrate “The Great Gatsby”?
• What Is “The Great Gatsby” Actually About?
• What Social Problems Are Exposed in “The Great Gatsby”?
• How Multiple Incidents Develop the Plot Line in “The Great Gatsby”?
• Does Money Buy Love in “The Great Gatsby”?
• How Has Fitzgerald Used Cars as a Motif in “The Great Gatsby”?
• Is “The Great Gatsby” Still Relevant Today?
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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Book Guides

The Great Gatsby is a tragic love story on the surface, but it's most commonly understood as a pessimistic critique of the American Dream. In the novel, Jay Gatsby overcomes his poor past to gain an incredible amount of money and a limited amount of social cache in 1920s NYC, only to be rejected by the "old money" crowd. He then gets killed after being tangled up with them.

Through Gatsby's life, as well as that of the Wilsons', Fitzgerald critiques the idea that America is a meritocracy where anyone can rise to the top with enough hard work. We will explore how this theme plays out in the plot, briefly analyze some key quotes about it, as well as do some character analysis and broader analysis of topics surrounding the American Dream in The Great Gatsby .

What is the American Dream? The American Dream in the Great Gatsby plot Key American Dream quotes Analyzing characters via the American Dream Common discussion and essay topics

Quick Note on Our Citations

Our citation format in this guide is (chapter.paragraph). We're using this system since there are many editions of Gatsby, so using page numbers would only work for students with our copy of the book.

To find a quotation we cite via chapter and paragraph in your book, you can either eyeball it (Paragraph 1-50: beginning of chapter; 50-100: middle of chapter; 100-on: end of chapter), or use the search function if you're using an online or eReader version of the text.

What Exactly Is "The American Dream"?

The American Dream is the belief that anyone, regardless of race, class, gender, or nationality, can be successful in America (read: rich) if they just work hard enough. The American Dream thus presents a pretty rosy view of American society that ignores problems like systemic racism and misogyny, xenophobia, tax evasion or state tax avoidance, and income inequality. It also presumes a myth of class equality, when the reality is America has a pretty well-developed class hierarchy.

The 1920s in particular was a pretty tumultuous time due to increased immigration (and the accompanying xenophobia), changing women's roles (spurred by the right to vote, which was won in 1919), and extraordinary income inequality.

The country was also in the midst of an economic boom, which fueled the belief that anyone could "strike it rich" on Wall Street. However, this rapid economic growth was built on a bubble which popped in 1929. The Great Gatsby was published in 1925, well before the crash, but through its wry descriptions of the ultra-wealthy, it seems to somehow predict that the fantastic wealth on display in 1920s New York was just as ephemeral as one of Gatsby's parties.

In any case, the novel, just by being set in the 1920s, is unlikely to present an optimistic view of the American Dream, or at least a version of the dream that's inclusive to all genders, ethnicities, and incomes. With that background in mind, let's jump into the plot!

The American Dream in The Great Gatsby

Chapter 1 places us in a particular year—1922—and gives us some background about WWI.  This is relevant, since the 1920s is presented as a time of hollow decadence among the wealthy, as evidenced especially by the parties in Chapters 2 and 3. And as we mentioned above, the 1920s were a particularly tense time in America.

We also meet George and Myrtle Wilson in Chapter 2 , both working class people who are working to improve their lot in life, George through his work, and Myrtle through her affair with Tom Buchanan.

We learn about Gatsby's goal in Chapter 4 : to win Daisy back. Despite everything he owns, including fantastic amounts of money and an over-the-top mansion, for Gatsby, Daisy is the ultimate status symbol. So in Chapter 5 , when Daisy and Gatsby reunite and begin an affair, it seems like Gatsby could, in fact, achieve his goal.

In Chapter 6 , we learn about Gatsby's less-than-wealthy past, which not only makes him look like the star of a rags-to-riches story, it makes Gatsby himself seem like someone in pursuit of the American Dream, and for him the personification of that dream is Daisy.

However, in Chapters 7 and 8 , everything comes crashing down: Daisy refuses to leave Tom, Myrtle is killed, and George breaks down and kills Gatsby and then himself, leaving all of the "strivers" dead and the old money crowd safe. Furthermore, we learn in those last chapters that Gatsby didn't even achieve all his wealth through hard work, like the American Dream would stipulate—instead, he earned his money through crime. (He did work hard and honestly under Dan Cody, but lost Dan Cody's inheritance to his ex-wife.)

In short, things do not turn out well for our dreamers in the novel! Thus, the novel ends with Nick's sad meditation on the lost promise of the American Dream. You can read a detailed analysis of these last lines in our summary of the novel's ending .

Key American Dream Quotes

In this section we analyze some of the most important quotes that relate to the American Dream in the book.

But I didn't call to him for he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to be alone--he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and far as I was from him I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward--and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock. (1.152)

In our first glimpse of Jay Gatsby, we see him reaching towards something far off, something in sight but definitely out of reach. This famous image of the green light is often understood as part of The Great Gatsby 's meditation on The American Dream—the idea that people are always reaching towards something greater than themselves that is just out of reach . You can read more about this in our post all about the green light .

The fact that this yearning image is our introduction to Gatsby foreshadows his unhappy end and also marks him as a dreamer, rather than people like Tom or Daisy who were born with money and don't need to strive for anything so far off.

Over the great bridge, with the sunlight through the girders making a constant flicker upon the moving cars, with the city rising up across the river in white heaps and sugar lumps all built with a wish out of non-olfactory money. The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world.

A dead man passed us in a hearse heaped with blooms, followed by two carriages with drawn blinds and by more cheerful carriages for friends. The friends looked out at us with the tragic eyes and short upper lips of south-eastern Europe, and I was glad that the sight of Gatsby's splendid car was included in their somber holiday. As we crossed Blackwell's Island a limousine passed us, driven by a white chauffeur, in which sat three modish Negroes, two bucks and a girl. I laughed aloud as the yolks of their eyeballs rolled toward us in haughty rivalry.

"Anything can happen now that we've slid over this bridge," I thought; "anything at all. . . ."

Even Gatsby could happen, without any particular wonder. (4.55-8)

Early in the novel, we get this mostly optimistic illustration of the American Dream—we see people of different races and nationalities racing towards NYC, a city of unfathomable possibility. This moment has all the classic elements of the American Dream—economic possibility, racial and religious diversity, a carefree attitude. At this moment, it does feel like "anything can happen," even a happy ending.

However, this rosy view eventually gets undermined by the tragic events later in the novel. And even at this point, Nick's condescension towards the people in the other cars reinforces America's racial hierarchy that disrupts the idea of the American Dream. There is even a little competition at play, a "haughty rivalry" at play between Gatsby's car and the one bearing the "modish Negroes."

Nick "laughs aloud" at this moment, suggesting he thinks it's amusing that the passengers in this other car see them as equals, or even rivals to be bested. In other words, he seems to firmly believe in the racial hierarchy Tom defends in Chapter 1, even if it doesn't admit it honestly.

His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy's white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips' touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete. (6.134)

This moment explicitly ties Daisy to all of Gatsby's larger dreams for a better life —to his American Dream. This sets the stage for the novel's tragic ending, since Daisy cannot hold up under the weight of the dream Gatsby projects onto her. Instead, she stays with Tom Buchanan, despite her feelings for Gatsby. Thus when Gatsby fails to win over Daisy, he also fails to achieve his version of the American Dream. This is why so many people read the novel as a somber or pessimistic take on the American Dream, rather than an optimistic one.  

...as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors' eyes--a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby's house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.

And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night." (9.151-152)

The closing pages of the novel reflect at length on the American Dream, in an attitude that seems simultaneously mournful, appreciative, and pessimistic. It also ties back to our first glimpse of Gatsby, reaching out over the water towards the Buchanan's green light. Nick notes that Gatsby's dream was "already behind him" then (or in other words, it was impossible to attain). But still, he finds something to admire in how Gatsby still hoped for a better life, and constantly reached out toward that brighter future.

For a full consideration of these last lines and what they could mean, see our analysis of the novel's ending .

Analyzing Characters Through the American Dream

An analysis of the characters in terms of the American Dream usually leads to a pretty cynical take on the American Dream.

Most character analysis centered on the American Dream will necessarily focus on Gatsby, George, or Myrtle (the true strivers in the novel), though as we'll discuss below, the Buchanans can also provide some interesting layers of discussion. For character analysis that incorporates the American Dream, carefully consider your chosen character's motivations and desires, and how the novel does (or doesn't!) provide glimpses of the dream's fulfillment for them.

Gatsby himself is obviously the best candidate for writing about the American Dream—he comes from humble roots (he's the son of poor farmers from North Dakota) and rises to be notoriously wealthy, only for everything to slip away from him in the end. Many people also incorporate Daisy into their analyses as the physical representation of Gatsby's dream.

However, definitely consider the fact that in the traditional American Dream, people achieve their goals through honest hard work, but in Gatsby's case, he very quickly acquires a large amount of money through crime . Gatsby does attempt the hard work approach, through his years of service to Dan Cody, but that doesn't work out since Cody's ex-wife ends up with the entire inheritance. So instead he turns to crime, and only then does he manage to achieve his desired wealth.

So while Gatsby's story arc resembles a traditional rags-to-riches tale, the fact that he gained his money immorally complicates the idea that he is a perfect avatar for the American Dream . Furthermore, his success obviously doesn't last—he still pines for Daisy and loses everything in his attempt to get her back. In other words, Gatsby's huge dreams, all precariously wedded to Daisy  ("He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God" (6.134)) are as flimsy and flight as Daisy herself.

George and Myrtle Wilson

This couple also represents people aiming at the dream— George owns his own shop and is doing his best to get business, though is increasingly worn down by the harsh demands of his life, while Myrtle chases after wealth and status through an affair with Tom.

Both are disempowered due to the lack of money at their own disposal —Myrtle certainly has access to some of the "finer things" through Tom but has to deal with his abuse, while George is unable to leave his current life and move West since he doesn't have the funds available. He even has to make himself servile to Tom in an attempt to get Tom to sell his car, a fact that could even cause him to overlook the evidence of his wife's affair. So neither character is on the upward trajectory that the American Dream promises, at least during the novel.

In the end, everything goes horribly wrong for both George and Myrtle, suggesting that in this world, it's dangerous to strive for more than you're given.

George and Myrtle's deadly fates, along with Gatsby's, help illustrate the novel's pessimistic attitude toward the American Dream. After all, how unfair is it that the couple working to improve their position in society (George and Myrtle) both end up dead, while Tom, who dragged Myrtle into an increasingly dangerous situation, and Daisy, who killed her, don't face any consequences? And on top of that they are fabulously wealthy? The American Dream certainly is not alive and well for the poor Wilsons.

Tom and Daisy as Antagonists to the American Dream

We've talked quite a bit already about Gatsby, George, and Myrtle—the three characters who come from humble roots and try to climb the ranks in 1920s New York. But what about the other major characters, especially the ones born with money? What is their relationship to the American Dream?

Specifically, Tom and Daisy have old money, and thus they don't need the American Dream, since they were born with America already at their feet.

Perhaps because of this, they seem to directly antagonize the dream—Daisy by refusing Gatsby, and Tom by helping to drag the Wilsons into tragedy .

This is especially interesting because unlike Gatsby, Myrtle, and George, who actively hope and dream of a better life, Daisy and Tom are described as bored and "careless," and end up instigating a large amount of tragedy through their own recklessness.

In other words, income inequality and the vastly different starts in life the characters have strongly affected their outcomes. The way they choose to live their lives, their morality (or lack thereof), and how much they dream doesn't seem to matter. This, of course, is tragic and antithetical to the idea of the American Dream, which claims that class should be irrelevant and anyone can rise to the top.

Daisy as a Personification of the American Dream

As we discuss in our post on money and materialism in The Great Gatsby , Daisy's voice is explicitly tied to money by Gatsby:

"Her voice is full of money," he said suddenly.

That was it. I'd never understood before. It was full of money--that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals' song of it. . . . High in a white palace the king's daughter, the golden girl. . . . (7.105-6)

If Daisy's voice promises money, and the American Dream is explicitly linked to wealth, it's not hard to argue that Daisy herself—along with the green light at the end of her dock —stands in for the American Dream. In fact, as Nick goes on to describe Daisy as "High in a white palace the king's daughter, the golden girl," he also seems to literally describe Daisy as a prize, much like the princess at the end of a fairy tale (or even Princess Peach at the end of a Mario game!).

But Daisy, of course, is only human—flawed, flighty, and ultimately unable to embody the huge fantasy Gatsby projects onto her. So this, in turn, means that the American Dream itself is just a fantasy, a concept too flimsy to actually hold weight, especially in the fast-paced, dog-eat-dog world of 1920s America.

Furthermore, you should definitely consider the tension between the fact that Daisy represents Gatsby's ultimate goal, but at the same time (as we discussed above), her actual life is the opposite of the American Dream : she is born with money and privilege, likely dies with it all intact, and there are no consequences to how she chooses to live her life in between.

Can Female Characters Achieve the American Dream?

Finally, it's interesting to compare and contrast some of the female characters using the lens of the American Dream.

Let's start with Daisy, who is unhappy in her marriage and, despite a brief attempt to leave it, remains with Tom, unwilling to give up the status and security their marriage provides. At first, it may seem like Daisy doesn't dream at all, so of course she ends up unhappy. But consider the fact that Daisy was already born into the highest level of American society. The expectation placed on her, as a wealthy woman, was never to pursue something greater, but simply to maintain her status. She did that by marrying Tom, and it's understandable why she wouldn't risk the uncertainty and loss of status that would come through divorce and marriage to a bootlegger. Again, Daisy seems to typify the "anti-American" dream, in that she was born into a kind of aristocracy and simply has to maintain her position, not fight for something better.

In contrast, Myrtle, aside from Gatsby, seems to be the most ambitiously in pursuit of getting more than she was given in life. She parlays her affair with Tom into an apartment, nice clothes, and parties, and seems to revel in her newfound status. But of course, she is knocked down the hardest, killed for her involvement with the Buchanans, and specifically for wrongfully assuming she had value to them. Considering that Gatsby did have a chance to leave New York and distance himself from the unfolding tragedy, but Myrtle was the first to be killed, you could argue the novel presents an even bleaker view of the American Dream where women are concerned.

Even Jordan Baker , who seems to be living out a kind of dream by playing golf and being relatively independent, is tied to her family's money and insulated from consequences by it , making her a pretty poor representation of the dream. And of course, since her end game also seems to be marriage, she doesn't push the boundaries of women's roles as far as she might wish.

So while the women all push the boundaries of society's expectations of them in certain ways, they either fall in line or are killed, which definitely undermines the rosy of idea that anyone, regardless of gender, can make it in America. The American Dream as shown in Gatsby becomes even more pessimistic through the lens of the female characters.  

Common Essay Questions/Discussion Topics

Now let's work through some of the more frequently brought up subjects for discussion.

#1: Was Gatsby's dream worth it? Was all the work, time, and patience worth it for him?

Like me, you might immediately think "of course it wasn't worth it! Gatsby lost everything, not to mention the Wilsons got caught up in the tragedy and ended up dead!" So if you want to make the more obvious "the dream wasn't worth it" argument, you could point to the unraveling that happens at the end of the novel (including the deaths of Myrtle, Gatsby and George) and how all Gatsby's achievements are for nothing, as evidenced by the sparse attendance of his funeral.

However, you could definitely take the less obvious route and argue that Gatsby's dream was worth it, despite the tragic end . First of all, consider Jay's unique characterization in the story: "He was a son of God--a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that--and he must be about His Father's Business, the service of a vast, vulgar and meretricious beauty" (6.7). In other words, Gatsby has a larger-than-life persona and he never would have been content to remain in North Dakota to be poor farmers like his parents.

Even if he ends up living a shorter life, he certainly lived a full one full of adventure. His dreams of wealth and status took him all over the world on Dan Cody's yacht, to Louisville where he met and fell in love with Daisy, to the battlefields of WWI, to the halls of Oxford University, and then to the fast-paced world of Manhattan in the early 1920s, when he earned a fortune as a bootlegger. In fact, it seems Jay lived several lives in the space of just half a normal lifespan. In short, to argue that Gatsby's dream was worth it, you should point to his larger-than-life conception of himself and the fact that he could have only sought happiness through striving for something greater than himself, even if that ended up being deadly in the end.

#2: In the Langston Hughes poem "A Dream Deferred," Hughes asks questions about what happens to postponed dreams. How does Fitzgerald examine this issue of deferred dreams? What do you think are the effects of postponing our dreams? How can you apply this lesson to your own life?

If you're thinking about "deferred dreams" in The Great Gatsby , the big one is obviously Gatsby's deferred dream for Daisy—nearly five years pass between his initial infatuation and his attempt in the novel to win her back, an attempt that obviously backfires. You can examine various aspects of Gatsby's dream—the flashbacks to his first memories of Daisy in Chapter 8 , the moment when they reunite in Chapter 5 , or the disastrous consequences of the confrontation of Chapter 7 —to illustrate Gatsby's deferred dream.

You could also look at George Wilson's postponed dream of going West, or Myrtle's dream of marrying a wealthy man of "breeding"—George never gets the funds to go West, and is instead mired in the Valley of Ashes, while Myrtle's attempt to achieve her dream after 12 years of marriage through an affair ends in tragedy. Apparently, dreams deferred are dreams doomed to fail.

As Nick Carraway says, "you can't repeat the past"—the novel seems to imply there is a small window for certain dreams, and when the window closes, they can no longer be attained. This is pretty pessimistic, and for the prompt's personal reflection aspect, I wouldn't say you should necessarily "apply this lesson to your own life" straightforwardly. But it is worth noting that certain opportunities are fleeting, and perhaps it's wiser to seek out newer and/or more attainable ones, rather than pining over a lost chance.

Any prompt like this one which has a section of more personal reflection gives you freedom to tie in your own experiences and point of view, so be thoughtful and think of good examples from your own life!

#3: Explain how the novel does or does not demonstrate the death of the American Dream. Is the main theme of Gatsby indeed "the withering American Dream"? What does the novel offer about American identity?

In this prompt, another one that zeroes in on the dead or dying American Dream, you could discuss how the destruction of three lives (Gatsby, George, Myrtle) and the cynical portrayal of the old money crowd illustrates a dead, or dying American Dream . After all, if the characters who dream end up dead, and the ones who were born into life with money and privilege get to keep it without consequence, is there any room at all for the idea that less-privileged people can work their way up?

In terms of what the novel says about American identity, there are a few threads you could pick up—one is Nick's comment in Chapter 9 about the novel really being a story about (mid)westerners trying (and failing) to go East : "I see now that this has been a story of the West, after all--Tom and Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan and I, were all Westerners, and perhaps we possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life" (9.125). This observation suggests an American identity that is determined by birthplace, and that within the American identity there are smaller, inescapable points of identification.

Furthermore, for those in the novel not born into money, the American identity seems to be about striving to end up with more wealth and status. But in terms of the portrayal of the old money set, particularly Daisy, Tom, and Jordan, the novel presents a segment of American society that is essentially aristocratic—you have to be born into it. In that regard, too, the novel presents a fractured American identity, with different lives possible based on how much money you are born with.

In short, I think the novel disrupts the idea of a unified American identity or American dream, by instead presenting a tragic, fractured, and rigid American society, one that is divided based on both geographic location and social class.

#4: Most would consider dreams to be positive motivators to achieve success, but the characters in the novel often take their dreams of ideal lives too far. Explain how characters' American Dreams cause them to have pain when they could have been content with more modest ambitions.

Gatsby is an obvious choice here—his pursuit of money and status, particularly through Daisy, leads him to ruin. There were many points when perhaps Gatsby ;could have been happy with what he achieved (especially after his apparently successful endeavors in the war, if he had remained at Oxford, or even after amassing a great amount of wealth as a bootlegger) but instead he kept striving upward, which ultimately lead to his downfall. You can flesh this argument out with the quotations in Chapters 6 and 8 about Gatsby's past, along with his tragic death.

Myrtle would be another good choice for this type of prompt. In a sense, she seems to be living her ideal life in her affair with Tom—she has a fancy NYC apartment, hosts parties, and gets to act sophisticated—but these pleasures end up gravely hurting George, and of course her association with Tom Buchanan gets her killed.

Nick, too, if he had been happy with his family's respectable fortune and his girlfriend out west, might have avoided the pain of knowing Gatsby and the general sense of despair he was left with.

You might be wondering about George—after all, isn't he someone also dreaming of a better life? However, there aren't many instances of George taking his dreams of an ideal life "too far." In fact, he struggles just to make one car sale so that he can finally move out West with Myrtle. Also, given that his current situation in the Valley of Ashes is quite bleak, it's hard to say that striving upward gave him pain.

#5: The Great Gatsby is, among other things, a sobering and even ominous commentary on the dark side of the American dream. Discuss this theme, incorporating the conflicts of East Egg vs. West Egg and old money vs. new money. What does the American dream mean to Gatsby? What did the American Dream mean to Fitzgerald? How does morality fit into achieving the American dream?

This prompt allows you to consider pretty broadly the novel's attitude toward the American Dream, with emphasis on "sobering and even ominous" commentary. Note that Fitzgerald seems to be specifically mocking the stereotypical rags to riches story here—;especially since he draws the Dan Cody narrative almost note for note from the work of someone like Horatio Alger, whose books were almost universally about rich men schooling young, entrepreneurial boys in the ways of the world. In other words, you should discuss how the Great Gatsby seems to turn the idea of the American Dream as described in the quote on its head: Gatsby does achieve a rags-to-riches rise, but it doesn't last.

All of Gatsby's hard work for Dan Cody, after all, didn't pay off since he lost the inheritance. So instead, Gatsby turned to crime after the war to quickly gain a ton of money. Especially since Gatsby finally achieves his great wealth through dubious means, the novel further undermines the classic image of someone working hard and honestly to go from rags to riches.

If you're addressing this prompt or a similar one, make sure to focus on the darker aspects of the American Dream, including the dark conclusion to the novel and Daisy and Tom's protection from any real consequences . (This would also allow you to considering morality, and how morally bankrupt the characters are.)

#6: What is the current state of the American Dream?

This is a more outward-looking prompt, that allows you to consider current events today to either be generally optimistic (the American dream is alive and well) or pessimistic (it's as dead as it is in The Great Gatsby).

You have dozens of potential current events to use as evidence for either argument, but consider especially immigration and immigration reform, mass incarceration, income inequality, education, and health care in America as good potential examples to use as you argue about the current state of the American Dream. Your writing will be especially powerful if you can point to some specific current events to support your argument.

What's Next?

In this post, we discussed how important money is to the novel's version of the American Dream. You can read even more about money and materialism in The Great Gatsby right here .

Want to indulge in a little materialism of your own? Take a look through these 15 must-have items for any Great Gatsby fan .

Get complete guides to Jay Gatsby , George Wilson and Myrtle Wilson to get even more background on the "dreamers" in the novel.

Like we discussed above, the green light is often seen as a stand-in for the idea of the American Dream. Read more about this crucial symbol here .

Need help getting to grips with other literary works? Take a spin through our analyses of The Crucible , The Cask of Amontillado , and " Do not go gentle into this good night " to see analysis in action. You might also find our explanations of point of view , rhetorical devices , imagery , and literary elements and devices helpful.

Anna scored in the 99th percentile on her SATs in high school, and went on to major in English at Princeton and to get her doctorate in English Literature at Columbia. She is passionate about improving student access to higher education.

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Review: A New ‘Great Gatsby’ Leads With Comedy and Romance

This musical adaptation, now on Broadway, is a lot of Jazz Age fun. But it forgot that Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel endures because it is a tragedy.

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By Laura Collins-Hughes

Jay Gatsby — self-made enigma, party host extraordinaire and talk of the summer season in West Egg, Long Island — doesn’t carry his insecurities lightly. The facade of his wealth-drenched life is a grand and precarious creation, and propping it up requires constant vigilance.

His is new money, so he has to prove his worth to the snobberati. Thus his pathetic habit of showing that photo of himself in his Oxford days to people he has barely met. Or, more endearingly, his over-the-top insistence on glamming up the humble cottage of his neighbor, Nick Carraway, when the lost love of Gatsby’s life, the fabled Daisy Fay Buchanan, is coming over for tea.

In the new musical “ The Great Gatsby ,” which opened on Thursday night at the Broadway Theater, the grass outside the cottage is groomed, flowers are everywhere, and a fleet of servants is ferrying food. And Jeremy Jordan’s Gatsby is an adorably panicked basket case, second-guessing in charming comic song his plan to ambush Eva Noblezada’s Daisy with a reunion.

“She is late, so I’m off to go scream in a jar,” he sings, but Daisy arrives before he can flee. Unsuavely, he topples into some greenery.

It’s a perfectly winsome scene, and a highlight of this ultimately underwhelming new adaptation, which has a book by Kait Kerrigan (making her Broadway debut), music by Jason Howland (“Paradise Square”) and lyrics by Nathan Tysen (also “Paradise Square”). Comedy and romance are strong suits of this production by Marc Bruni (“Beautiful: The Carole King Musical”), which ran in the fall at the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey.

There are plenty of big dance numbers, too (by Dominique Kelley), with some standout tap. The 1920s costumes (by Linda Cho) are fun to look at, Daisy’s in particular: all those handkerchief hemlines, wafting on air. Gatsby’s yellow Rolls-Royce and Tom’s blue coupe drive onstage, extravagantly. And while the fireworks we see in the distance are projections, other sparkling pyrotechnics are delightfully real.

The darker elements of “The Great Gatsby” prove more elusive, which blunts the impact overall. So does the show’s anodyne Broadway sound, which is poppy and pleasant without being memorable. It summons neither the Jazz Age, like the soundtrack to Jack Clayton’s 1974 movie adaptation did, nor a spirit of wild abandon, like the soundtrack to Baz Luhrmann’s 2013 take. The score to this “Great Gatsby” is missing a vital urgency.

This is not, by the way, the other high-profile musical adaptation you may have heard about since F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel entered the public domain in 2021. Next month, the Tony Award winner Rachel Chavkin directs “ Gatsby ,” with a book by the Pulitzer Prize winner Martyna Majok and a score by Florence Welch and Thomas Bartlett, in Cambridge, Mass.

Bruni’s Broadway production has the tremendous asset of a terrific core cast, including Noah J. Ricketts as the decent, disillusioned narrator, Nick, who, in this telling, is for some unnecessary reason Gatsby’s tenant; Samantha Pauly as Jordan Baker, a famous golfer and anti-marriage New Woman who enjoys a screwball romance with Nick; and John Zdrojeski as Tom Buchanan, Daisy’s pampered, polo-playing bully of a husband.

She should of course be rid of him. Still, they are a handsome pair; their clothes, screaming silently of luxury, hang elegantly on them both. Their infant daughter, Pammy, wears less flattering clouds of lace. When Jordan objects to such little-girl outfits on principle, Daisy replies with absolute nonchalance: “But there’s nothing to be done about that. It’s how babies dress.”

Noblezada and Pauly are easy with humor, and Kerrigan has taken care to deepen Daisy and Jordan, who, with their talk of the limitations of life for women, sound practically “ Suffs ”-adjacent. Noblezada gives Daisy steel at her center that further ensures she isn’t a manic pixie dream girl, even if the incurably dreamy Gatsby perceives her through gauze.

As for theatrical illusion, it, too, is precarious; at Saturday’s matinee, technical glitches shattered it repeatedly in Act I. Projections, integral to Paul Tate dePoo III’s set design, would blink out and disappear, leaving vast expanses of matte black screen where a vision of splendor had been.

And so it was for Gatsby’s and Daisy’s reunion. There they stood in front of the cottage, laying eyes on each other for the first time in years, when much of the little house and its surrounding copse — the parts that aren’t three-dimensional scenery — abruptly vanished, along with the ambience. A bit on the nose for a show with mirages as a theme, and more than a bit distracting.

Even with flawless tech, the projections have a hyper-vividness reminiscent of video games. If that’s a deliberate attempt to question the solidity of all the sumptuousness — like the sozzled party guest in Fitzgerald’s novel who, wandering into Gatsby’s library, is astonished to find that the books are real — the aesthetic is nonetheless jarring, particularly for a show set a century ago.

The musical’s truly unbalancing trouble, though, is its rendering of Tom’s affair with the working-class Myrtle Wilson (Sara Chase), the one character the show doesn’t take seriously or treat with dignity. Even when tragedy befalls her, there’s a laugh line in the immediate aftermath. We know more about Myrtle’s husband, George (Paul Whitty), the gas station owner, than we do about her. And what we do know is so one-note tawdry that it’s difficult to believe Tom would set up an entire down-low life with her.

The implosion of the summer hinges not only on Daisy and Tom’s notorious, soul-corrupted carelessness, but also on the Wilsons. No matter how much this adaptation wants to riff on other elements, it needs to set up their part of the story so that the wider devastation lands.

But this “Great Gatsby,” which is not terribly bothered, either, with the moral shadings of its title character’s rise and fall, is principally interested in a good time. When Nick utters the novel’s sober final line, about “boats against the current,” the words have no heft. An ensemble of dancers is upstaging him anyway, wanting to give the audience one last moment at the party.

The Great Gatsby

At the Broadway Theater, Manhattan; broadwaygatsby.com . Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes.

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The Great Gatsby review – a literary classic becomes a Broadway dud

The Broadway Theatre, New York

F Scott Fitzgerald’s novel makes an underwhelming transfer to the stage in a bombastic yet misfiring new production

The musical currently playing at the Broadway Theatre, twirling drunkenly in 1920s opulence, is The Great Gatsby.

Though, perhaps, the latest revival of F Scott Fitzgerald’s novel should be renamed The Gimmicky Gatsby. An attempt to evoke awe through hyper-extended dance intervals and flaccid sets, this remount prioritizes a good time over any purposeful recreation of the American classic.

This Gatsby, directed by Marc Bruni, still follows veteran Nick Carraway (Noah J Ricketts) as he moves near Long Island, New York, to chase the post-Great War high. It’s a chance to “misbehave” as the musical’s punchy opening number lays bare with music by Jason Howland.

Nick happens upon the Gatsby (a talented Jeremy Jordan), who has his sights set on Daisy (Eva Noblezada), his unrequited love. But Daisy is already married to Tom (John Zdrojeski), a hot-tempered brute drowning in old money.

The production splashes in excess, but of the Las Vegas residency kind. Golden-lacquered set pieces and a dizzying projection screen recreate the Gatsby mansion (and a bevy of other locations). The “nouveau riche” mansion isn’t as opulent or lush as one might imagine, feeling closer in spirit to a mega-church.

The book by Kait Kerrigan swings for laughs, which begin to thin by the musical’s second act. “Who knew Manhattan was so expensive,” Carraway says, slapstick-style. Kerrigan is also more interested in the Gatsby-Daisy love story than any rigorous analysis of class or the American dream, with songs bookending the colliding romances.

Nathan Tysen’s lyrics are mostly expositional, trying to fill gaps in the story. Gatsby’s ballad For Her about building his wealth to inevitably net Daisy doesn’t evoke love so much as justification.

All of Howland’s songs, a cascading list featuring the brassy fixtures of 20s jazz, are sung beautifully by Gatsby’s talented cast. Noblezada, fresh off a starring role in Hadestown, is a delicate Daisy, bringing powerhouse vocals when describing her commitment to marriage in For Better or Worse. But ultimately, much of Howland’s music melts together, not quite framing emotional hilltops.

Choreography by Dominique Kelley is apt, capturing the era’s giddy nature with the occasional Charleston. Missteps in story and direction would be more or less fine if the show itself was entertaining. But it’s only tepidly so.

Kerrigan’s book tries to capture all of Gatsby with a thudding recall. There’s the billboard featuring spectacles, the infamous Green Light, and, of course, the old v new money divide. There’s also a pointed underlining of Gatsby’s tango with the black market, set to a matrix-style, trench coat dance number titled Shady. But it all never quite blends together.

Under Bruni’s direction, Kerrigan jerks us through a rotary of locations and corresponding plot events, often leaving dead air as characters zoom away in their on-stage sports cars.

Hyper-fixation on the love story also doesn’t work in a world where Gatsby’s central characters are underdeveloped and rife with cliches. Kerrigan’s Gatsby punctuates every sentence with an “old sport”, a grating tagline.

Tom is an abusive antagonist through and through. But moments of his physical violence toward Daisy and his mistress Myrtle (Sara Chase) are sped through due to issues in Bruni’s pacing. When Myrtle’s nose is broken by Tom in a seedy uptown apartment, humor immediately plops in, a tonal bust.

Of course, the flatness of these characters could signal towards their glibness in Scott’s original text. They are vapidly bourgeois after all. But this revival doesn’t seem to be in on the joke, attempting to carve out a genuine spark and interest in Nick and Jordan (Samantha Pauly plays an old money golfer who waves off marriage). We know so little about either of them, it’s hard to truly care when their relationship veers off-course.

As the musical wraps with a flurry of the novel’s best quotes and the inevitable lesson that the rich are callous and horrible, it’s clear this Gatsby attempts to throw it all at the wall, indulge in more of everything.

Too bad none of it quite sticks.

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The Great Gatsby review: A glitzy take on F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel that values spectacle over substance

Eva Noblezada and Jeremy Jordan delight as Daisy Buchanan and Jay Gatsby, star-crossed lovers who spark up a secret romance years after they first met.

Emlyn Travis is a news writer at  Entertainment Weekly  with over five years of experience covering the latest in entertainment. A proud Kingston University alum, Emlyn has written about music, fandom, film, television, and awards for multiple outlets including MTV News,  Teen Vogue , Bustle, BuzzFeed,  Paper Magazine , Dazed, and NME. She joined EW in August 2022.

If this Broadway season has taught us anything, it’s that the book-to-film-to-musical adaptation pipeline is not only alive, but it’s thriving . In the last two months alone, Water For Elephants , The Notebook , and The Outsiders have all been transformed into productions that have reignited interest in their original texts — or, at least, inspired theatergoers to rent their film versions when they get home. Now, The Great Gatsby is the latest to throw its boater hat into the ring in a lavish new production that, sadly, values spectacle over substance. 

Based on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel, The Great Gatsby , which opened at the Broadway Theatre on Thursday, follows bondsman Nick Carraway (Noah J. Ricketts) as he moves to West Egg and becomes neighbors-turned-unexpected-pals with self-made millionaire and resident party god Jay Gatsby (Jeremy Jordan). Plunged headfirst into an ongoing war between new and old money, Nick finds himself joining a plan to help Gatsby reunite with his old flame Daisy Buchanan (Eva Noblezada). The only problem? Daisy is married to the abusive “brute” Tom Buchanan (the stellar John Zdrojeski), setting the pair’s romance on a crash course for disaster. 

Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman

Despite having a heavily-dissected novel to rely upon, The Great Gatsby ’s book, written by Kait Kerrigan, doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be. Its tone swings wildly back and forth between a dramatic, straight-laced romance between Gatsby and Daisy one moment, and then a wacky comedy peppered with overly raunchy punchlines about testicles, orgies, and characters having loud, bed-squeaking sex behind a wall the next. It eventually finds its footing in the second act as it explores some of the book’s larger themes, but the significant delay causes the musical’s biggest gut-punches to fall flat because most of its characters — aside from Daisy — still remain underdeveloped sketches of themselves. 

Its music, written by Jason Howland with lyrics by Nathan Tysen, is similarly a mixed bag. While some songs come off a bit heavy-handed with their references to the text like Daisy and Gatsby’s duet “My Green Light,” there are a handful of solid tracks that offer a fresh and fun spin on the material, like mobster Wolfsheim’s (Eric Anderson) wickedly good “Shady” and Daisy’s poignant rumination on her loveless marriage, “For Better or Worse.” It also certainly helps that Gatsby has some of the best voices on Broadway performing these tracks every evening too — its soaring ballads “For Her” and “Beautiful Little Fool” might not be the strongest songs lyrically, but explode with emotion thanks to Jordan and Noblezada’s incredible vocal performances. 

Gatsby ’s Tony-nominated leads, Jordan and Noblezada, revel in the whimsical naivety and rampant toxicity that Gatsby and Daisy possess, portraying the couple as obsessed lovers caught within one another’s vortex. Pauly’s Jordan is a feminist firecracker that feels like a breath of fresh air amongst her haughty peers and, despite having his role being heavily stripped back, Rickett still manages to make Nick a witty, steadfast friend that is too pure for this world. When they’re all together onstage, Gatsby explodes with life and energy that can’t be replicated. Seriously, you know a cast is crushing it when their complicated performances make Tom seem like the most understandable guy in the room. 

Further adding to the magic is designer Linda Cho’s dazzling period costumes that, in tandem with Paul Tate DePoo III’s beautiful scenic and projection design, make Gatsby a true visual feast — complete with crackling fireworks, bedazzled flapper 'fits, and cars that frequently go for a spin across its stage. Everything comes together in sparkling detail during Gatsby’s decadent parties, where the musical’s powerful ensemble leaps, sways, and tap dances their way through Dominique Kelley’s energetic choreography. Like Kerrigan, director Marc Bruni struggles with pacing during the first act, but gets into the groove by its second as reality steps in to ruin the group's revelry.

Those attending Great Gatsby expecting nothing more than a glitzy, glamorous romp through the Roaring Twenties will find themselves satisfied, but others hoping to find a deeper take on the novel's exploration of the American dream, old money versus new money, and love will find themselves feeling adrift. The Great Gatsby is a great big Broadway extravaganza that may dazzle viewers at first but, much like the green light, perfection remains close, yet just out of reach.  C+

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Can You Teach an Old Sport New Tricks? The Great Gatsby on Broadway.

Here’s a low-level cosmic injustice: Fifteen years ago, Elevator Repair Service had to pay royalties to create its unforgettable opus Gatz out of (every word of) F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby , but thanks to the novel’s entry into the public domain in 2021, the two Broadway Gatsby s that we’ll see this year got it for free. I’m all for the commons, but the point — as Fitzgerald knew and his narrator Nick Carraway learns to his cost — is that the high rollers never have to pay. Nick says as much to his cousin, the languid, sparkling, willingly caged bird Daisy Buchanan, as 2024’s first new musical of The Great Gatsby (with music by Jason Howland, lyrics by Nathan Tysen, and book by Kait Kerrigan) draws to a close. “​​You and Tom smash up things and creatures,” he tells her, angry tears in his eyes, “and then — you retreat back into your money or carelessness or whatever it is that keeps you two together.” Here and throughout, Kerrigan’s book sticks close to Fitzgerald’s — but sentences are one thing. Spirit is another.

Under Marc Bruni’s jazz-hands-happy direction, this Gatsby feels like it belongs on a cruise or in a theme park. It would make a good fit if Epcot’s pavilions expanded to include time periods as well as countries. Poor James Gatz, victim of his own disguise. A century on, retellers of his story, like his hordes of party guests, remain distracted by the spectacle. Here, Bruni and his designers lean into the roaring garishness almost to the point of cartoon. Linda Cho’s costumes for the ensemble — all Technicolor sequins and swishy, modern prom-dress fabrics — look like what would happen if you took the prepackaged flapper getups at Party City and injected lots of money. And Paul Tate dePoo III’s set and projections are a Deco-meets-digital monstrosity. Heavy gilded panels never stop sliding back and forth and up and down (pieces were still clunking into place as the show’s leads, Jeremy Jordan and Eva Noblezada as Gatsby and Daisy, started into the delicate opening of their big first-act closer), and the glut of overwrought background video quickly becomes absurd. Broadway producers, please, this video thing is out of control. It’s the theatrical equivalent of motion smoothing — a novelty and a technological deadener. Yes, you can , but should you? As Nick (Noah J. Ricketts) sat center stage in one of the production’s two huge cars, driving from Long Island into the city with the Ivy League “brute” Tom Buchanan (John Zdrojeski, absolutely walking away with the show) and his peroxide-blonde mistress, Myrtle Wilson (Sara Chase), I watched dePoo’s enormous screensaver roll by in the background, and I suffered for the actors. So much bling to disguise the fundamentally static, silly picture in which they were trapped.

It’s wild to think which stories we keep telling purely because they are — or have become, via however circuitous a path — famous. This Gatsby got started at Paper Mill Playhouse and made more money there than any show in the venue’s history — but if, in a parallel Fitzgerald-less universe, a young, unknown writer pitched a story with a similar arc for a new musical today, how far would it get? “Multiple people die, including the hero, the heroine flees back to her horrible husband, the narrator stumbles away to nurse his rude awakening. It’s about America.” It’s that last bit that too often gets lost. Ricketts (who’s game throughout the show) does a solid enough job of winding things up here — as a narrator with some of the world’s most well-known closing lines, he’s got to. But the tragedy that Bruni and his writing team focus on is personal and romantic, not national and allegorical. The lush, doomed love of it all is the selling point. In that vein, Noblezada genuinely sounds like a Disney princess, and Jordan does his best to plant his feet, face us, and nobly empty his heart from moment one. His voice is 100 percent golden leading man — from soap-bubble-light upper register to clamorous belt — but there’s something strange about meeting the enigmatic Gatsby and immediately listening to him launch into a lilting, swelling confession: “I’ve done it all for her / Put up each wall for her / All the plans I laid / All the options weighed / Every price I paid for her … / Daisy. ” Fitzgerald’s novel is immaculately concise, and part of the terrible pathos of its title character is just how long he remains a mysterious, smooth surface. Eventually, of course, all surfaces are cracked and eviscerated, but some essential part of Gatsby is lost in the character’s collision with musical theater’s tradition of earnestly laying out what you feel in song from the jump.

Perhaps that’s part of why Zdrojeski’s Tom Buchanan stands out in this production like, to quote Daisy, “an absolute rose” among plastic flowers. He does very little of the show’s demonstrative singing, and when he does break out in a withering dismissal of Gatsby in the shared having-it-all-out number “Made to Last,” he sings as an extension of his acting. The performance remains specific and fierce, sent toward a living target and not toward some fuzzy space above the balcony. The character might be despicable (“If I wondered whether Tom’s an asshole,” Nick sings to us in a wide detour from Fitzgerald, “Tom’s an asshole”), but Zdrojeski is turning in a mesmerizing performance — menacing, vain, subtle when it needs to be, its contours defined by precisely the right kind of insidious class snobbery. For a tall, distinctive actor, he transforms remarkably: In Heroes of the Fourth Turning , he was a cringing disaster, eaten from the inside out with doubt and lust. In this season’s Jonah , he was sweet and self-effacing, a nerdy type who ended up having real compassion and integrity. Here, he’s a kind of cruel Jimmy Stewart — lanky and unconventionally charismatic, with vowels that belong to another time and a core of childish selfishness beneath all that alpha disdain.

It’s not that the rest of the cast isn’t showing up. They’re just all in a vapid musical-shaped-musical while Zdrojeski is in The Great Gatsby. As the fixer Meyer Wolfsheim, Eric Anderson has to open Act Two with “Shady,” a song that winks at Wolfsheim and Gatsby’s illegal business dealings, and the various affairs going on in the plot, by having the chorus join him in a kickline of black trench coats and fedoras. It’s the silhouette you’d get if you were to search for clip art for “spy.” Meanwhile, Nick’s fling with the aloof golfer Jordan Baker (Samantha Pauly) feels like the cute, straightforward romance of two smart outsider types — complete with playful duets and kisses that get applause. When it falls apart, it does so because of Nick’s clear moral repulsion. He’s been a good guy throughout, lacking the novel’s feeling of spellbound irresolution (Fitzgerald’s Nick is morally repulsed but rarely clear about it), and the dense, cool complexity of currents that run between him and Jordan is here streamlined into something simple and singable. Somewhere, Scott must be cackling. How fitting that we should remain obsessed with the glamour of his great book; how perfect that we should still avoid encountering its grieving, ambivalent soul.

The Great Gatsby is at the Broadway Theatre.

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THE GREAT GATSBY

Two hours and 30 minutes, with one intermission. At the Broadway Theatre, 53rd Street and Broadway.

Forget East Egg and West Egg. The creators of the new musical “The Great Gatsby,” which opened Thursday night on Broadway, have laid an egg.

This song-and-dance version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s enduring 1925 novel about, among other things, American excess in the aftermath of World War I is excessive all right. 

The gaudy barrage of clone ballads by composer Jason Howland and lyricist Nathan Tysen (“Paradise Square”), indiscriminately handed out to any character who wants one, blare like a foghorn on the Long Island Sound.

And the attractive art deco sets by Paul Tate dePoo III are so opulent and oversize that I had a flashback to watching “King Kong” in the very same theater six years ago.

But now, a monkey isn’t captive — your favorite novel is.

Inferior “Gatsby,” directed bigly by Marc Bruni, is a hodgepodge of many other shows that came before it.

During an impressive all-company tap number called “La Dee Dah With You,” the show briefly ventures into “Anything Goes” Land. Many other bombastic songs have the volume, if not the tunefulness, of gothic musicals like “The Secret Garden” or “Jekyll & Hyde.”

What “The Great Gatsby” almost never brings to mind, though, is “The Great Gatsby.” 

The musical, a patchwork quilt of discordant styles that belongs in a box, becomes the latest in a long line of adaptations of this beloved novel to mess up a story that’s far more satisfying to read and imagine. It completely misses its intoxicating atmosphere, meaning and layered characters.

One of the rare smart decisions of the night is the casting of Noah J. Ricketts as our man Nick Carraway, a modest Midwesterner who moves to a Long Island cottage in “new money” West Egg. 

The actor has a pretty voice and a naturally easygoing persona that contrasts with the cartoonish East Coast impressions on display that are akin to what Katharine Hepburn might have behaved like as a chauffeur.

Nick’s cousin Daisy (power-singer Eva Noblezada) is married to Tom Buchanan (John Zdrojeski), and they live, in artificial bliss, across the water in upper-crust East Egg. 

Awful Tom is having an indiscreet affair with Myrtle (Sara Chase), the wife of garage owner George Wilson (Paul Whitty). A knowing Daisy sings a lilting number in the garden about her rocky marriage called “For Better or Worse.” 

“Worse?!” I thought.

Nick’s greatest object of fascination is the mysterious, loud-party-throwing inhabitant of the mansion next door to his house. That’s Jay Gatsby, who just so happens to be Daisy’s old flame that still longs for her.

As the enigmatic title character, Jeremy Jordan, when in song, sounds like a million bucks, even in walloping numbers such as “For Her” and “Past Is Catching Up to Me.” 

When he speaks, however, one must adjust for inflation. The actor cakes on an ill-advised mid-Atlantic accent that boggles the ears. Rather than contribute magnetism and mystique, the shaky brogue turns a literary icon into a weirdo.

During a scene in which he reunites with Daisy, a dumb ditty called “Only Tea,” the musical suddenly about-faces into a cheesy farce. 

An army of servants arrive with trays and floral arrangements as though they’re about to start singing “Be Our Guest.” Nick and Daisy’s acidic pal Jordan Baker (a detached Samantha Pauly) do cute bits in unison. Gatsby attempts to hide from Daisy behind a small tree branch to get a laugh.

The multiple personalties pile on a song later when we’re suddenly tossed into an absurdly passionate love story as the pair sings a drippy duet called, oy, “My Green Light.”

The second act, thankfully, finds a more consistent and appropriate tone. One would hope so, as there are several deaths in quick succession.

Early on, that aforementioned tap dancing, choreographed by Dominique Kelley, is thrilling, even if it’s a short-lived distraction from the many, many head-scratchers.

For instance, an inordinate amount of time and music are given to Myrtle and George, who are turned into a much sadder Adelaide and Nathan Detroit. Expensively staged, Myrtle’s fate is unintentionally funny.

There’s also too much of sleazy criminal Meyer Wolfsheim (Eric Anderson), who gets a jazzy back-from-intermission song called “Shady” that could have been cut. Why not focus on enriching the main characters before giving everybody else their five throwaway minutes?

Theater and film rarely know what to do with “Gatsby.” They often decide, as this musical sometimes does, to focus on the escape to sexy speakeasies with flappers.

But the best version I’ve seen was Elevator Repair Service’s “Gatz” downtown. Every single word of the novel was read out loud over several breezy hours by actors wearing nothing more than office garb. Audiences were entranced, not by schlocky love songs but the unadorned words of a great American novel.

Last year, New York got an immersive “Gatsby” experience that quickly closed. This summer, another musical take by Florence Welch will premiere at the American Repertory Theater in Massachusetts. 

The quality of the Florence & the Machine singer’s adaptation remains to be seen. But, even though Fitzgerald’s book is in the public domain, let’s cool it on giving so many “Gatsby’s” the green light.

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‘The Great Gatsby’ Review: Broadway Musical Has Glamour but Little Grit

By Christian Lewis

Christian Lewis

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F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel “ The Great Gatsby ,” which captured the roaring twenties with shocking clarity, is a staple of high school curricula and has been immortalized in two famous film adaptations ( in 1974 by Richard Clayton and in 2013 by Baz Lurhman ). It’s most remembered for the titular character’s lavish parties, though as any good reader of the novel will tell you, the party’s are all razzle dazzle — what really matters is what’s underneath. The pain, the social climbing, the lack of ethics, and the post-war, orgiastic egoism are what the work is really about. 

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In doing so, they’ve made a devilish bargain, trading the novel’s soul for flashy visuals — and it almost even works. The design team here has pulled out all the stops and achieved something nearly unprecedented in terms of scale and quality. The parties are undeniably flashy, bordering on overstimulating to the senses. An ensemble two or three times the size (easy for film, impossible for Broadway) would’ve filled out the stage more effectively; that said, Dominique Kelley’s lively choreography mostly covers this up. 

The costumes by Linda Cho are mostly accurate to the period, full of rhinestones and sparkles. Yet they sometimes have the appearance of generic rental 1920s costumes, and lean too heavily on black and gold art deco patterns — which at this point conjure as many memories of Forever 21 as they do of 1921. 

As our elusive — and illusive — party host, Jeremy Jordan makes a dashing Jay Gatsby. He successfully differentiates himself from his predecessors, finding a softer dialect and leaning into Gatsby’s humorous nervousness and sometimes alarming intensity. He proves himself a top-notch leading man, a feat made more laudable by the fact that he’s surrounded by sub-par performances.

John Zdrojeski as Tom Buchanan, Sara Chase as Myrtle, and Paul Whitty as Wilson are perfectly capable, if somewhat unoriginal. The real issue lies in three of the show’s leads. Noah J. Ricketts, our Nick Carraway, is less a voyeur and more a nonentity, overshadowed by the musical’s grandeur. Samantha Pauly (as Jordan Baker) gives a solid effort, but seems lost in a poorly-written rewrite of her character and trapped in a Barbra Streisand bob wig. As Daisy, Eva Noblezada ’s casting goes against type, and though this could have been an exciting change, Noblezada misses the mark entirely. Instead of playing the character’s allure, fragility, and unscrupulousness, she comes off as a fairly generic, slightly bitter ingénue. 

However, the show boasts a robust musical theater score (a rarity this season). Lyrically there are some witty gems, like “When your money makes you money what are the well to do to do? / But buy another pony with the interest they accrue. / While right across the bay they’re making fortunes on the go, / over there the rich are riche and the money is nouveau. ” But many lyrics tend toward the over-earnest and unsubtle. Gatsby and Daisy get two duets and a pair of solos; Daisy’s are droll and Noblezada sings them with out-of-place pop riffs, whereas Gatsby’s are full of powerful yearning, and Jordan’s booming belt transforms them into the strongest moments in the show.      

Part of the issue, both lyrically and in the book, comes from intermittent quotations from the novel. Fitzgerald’s prose is beautifully poetic, but Kerrigan and Howland’s phrasing sounds nothing like his, so when the characters occasionally slip into quotes they sound unnatural, like forced recitations. 

By missing some crucial nuances of the novel, this musical risks becoming yet another adaptation of an existing, popular novel/film, of which there have been many this season (“Back to the Future,” “The Outsiders,” “The Notebook,” “Water for Elephants”). Like “Gatsby,” all of these include a cross-class romance where a poor boy falls for a rich girl, and in several instances his letters get waylaid. Weirdly enough, quite a few musicals this season even heavily feature cars onstage (“Back to the Future,” “The Outsiders,” “Lempicka,” and now “Gatsby”). The Venn diagram memes almost make themselves, and it’s not unreasonable to say that critics and audiences alike are fatigued and desperate for some originality.

This “Gatsby” dares to ask the question: If our Gatsby is first-rate, and his soirees are stunning, is that enough? Does a good host and a fun party make a great “Great Gatsby”? Maybe not entirely, but it does make for a great time. It’s nearly impossible not to be taken in and enjoy the shimmering, sparkling spectacle before you.

For any fan of “The Great Gatsby,” though , it’s likely you’ll have moments of wanting more, of missing out on all the subtext, grit, and suffering beneath the sequins. Right as you have that pang, you’ll probably get distracted by another sweeping set change or production number, and as the opening and closing song playfully depict, the party will just keep rolling on and on and on, so you might as well join in and enjoy the ride.

Broadway Theatre; 1761 seat; $268 top. Opened April 25, 2024. Reviewed April 20. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.

• Production: A presentation by Chunsoo Shin, OD Company, The Nederlander Organization, The Shubert Organization, Joe Quenqua, Candy Spelling, Mark Shacket in association with Paper Mill Playhouse of a musical in 2 acts with book by Kait Kerrigan, music by Jason Howland, and lyrics by Nathan Tysen. 
• Crew: Directed by Marc Bruni. Choreographed by Dominique Kelley. Sets and projections, Paul Tate dePoo III; costumes, Linda Cho; lights, Cory Pattak; sound, Brian Ronan; hair, Charles G LaPointe and Rachel Geier; makeup, Ashley Ryan; orchestrations, Jason Howland and Kim Scharnberg; production stage manager, Brian Bogin. 
• Cast: Jeremy Jordan, Eva Noblezada, Noah J. Ricketts, Samantha Pauly, Sara Chase, John Zdrojeski, Paul Whitty, Eric Anderson, Raymond Edward Baynard, Austin Colby, Curtis Holland, Traci Elaine Lee, Dariana Mullen, Ryah Nixon, Pascal Pastrana, Kayla Pecchioni, Mariah Resheg Reives, Dan Rosales, Dave Schoonover, Derek Jordan Taylor, Tanairi Sade Vazquez, Katie Webber,  Kurt Csolak, Carissa Gaughran, Samantha Pollino, Alex Prakken, Jake Trammel, and Jasmine Pearl Villaroel.

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Your English teacher would hate this ‘Great Gatsby’

A new broadway musical is all about jay gatsby’s decadence.

NEW YORK — The orgiastic delights of Jay Gatsby’s parties mostly lurk between the lines of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s clipped prose. But there is nothing coy about the extravagant stage musical that opened Thursday at the Broadway Theatre, where a cascade of visual splendors showers the eye like a fire hose. When actual sparks rain down on the first soiree, toss any hankering for subtlety out the window.

Directed by Marc Bruni with the broadness of a 10-lane highway, “The Great Gatsby” is a grand, crowd-pleasing spectacle: Tourists, Jazz Age enthusiasts and fans of its vocal-powerhouse stars Eva Noblezada and Jeremy Jordan are already lining up outside the stage door. And there is something to be said for a splashy night out, even if it casts off the author’s intended message.

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To the likely dismay of your high school English teacher, any critique of material excess, social disparities or the American Dream that has made the book a classroom staple gets stripped here in deference to a swoony and ill-fated love story. This isn’t a high-society tragedy set against the dawn of modernity but a rom-com that nose-dives into overwrought melodrama.

Midwestern fish-out-of-water Nick Carraway is a clear-eyed audience surrogate: Amid an assembly of mild caricatures, Noah J. Ricketts gives an admirable and firm-footed performance. The subjects of his narration, prose mostly lifted from Fitzgerald, all seem to know they are part of a Great Big Story, even as they appear to be plucked from a hodgepodge of genres.

His cousin Daisy (Noblezada) is fluttering and giggly but vaguely unhappy when we meet her in a lofty drawing room with windows overlooking Long Island Sound (the elaborate, projection-enhanced Art Deco set is by Paul Tate dePoo III). “God, I’ve made it,” Daisy sings, draped in a cropped and diaphanous cotton-candy dress, “I’m so sophisticated.” (The lavish costumes are by Linda Cho.) The lyrics by Nathan Tysen generally relay backstory and circumstance, whether or not they’re tinged with emotion.

Daisy’s husband Tom (John Zdrojeski), her ticket to this fabulous life, is the philandering brute she knows him to be. But the couple’s durable if brittle bond, forged in old-money breeding — so integral to the narrative’s structure — is imperceptible from the start. The audience is clearly meant to ask, “Why is she with this guy?” as a precursor to, “Now look at this dreamboat!”

That would be the debonair Gatsby (Jordan), sapped of mystery and crooning in wistful high registers about the one who slipped through his fingers but is now within reach. Jason Howland’s music, serviceable Broadway pop without much distinct flavor (not even jazz, that low-hanging fruit), excels at soaring ballads, allowing both Jordan and Noblezada to demonstrate considerable vocal gymnastics.

Book writer Kait Kerrigan exalts the central romance into a reunion of true loves torn apart by wartime, like something out of “ The Notebook .” Characters and their motivations are fleshed out for the purpose of moralizing infidelities and making their tragic ends feel less random. Gatsby is so smitten he can hardly stand upright; Daisy has a song about longing to remain faithful until she’s drawn over the edge.

Tom’s mistress Myrtle (Sara Chase) and her aggrieved husband George (Paul Whitty) are figured as cartoonish avatars of the working class with thick New Yawk accents whose fates are intertwined with the wealthy set by both love and money. There is even a juiced-up romantic plot between Nick and the steely Jordan Baker, played by Samantha Pauly (like Ricketts, another grounding presence). The two skeptics, vaguely queer-coded as in the novel, also can’t help but fall for each other.

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This revisionary attempt to turn “The Great Gatsby” into a clown car of passionate entanglements skids off the road when calamity is meant to strike. The second-act twists play out with the frenzy of a nighttime soap by Aaron Spelling, without any of the campy self-awareness. There is no ghastly reckoning with the follies of hedonism, just a rapid succession of abrupt ends.

Fitzgerald’s chic but sobering cautionary tale has been bubbling up frequently onstage since entering the public domain in 2021: There was an immersive take in a Manhattan hotel last year, and a pre-Broadway tryout of “ Gatsby ,” with music by Florence Welch, begins performances in Boston next month. There’s never been a bad time for the author’s sidelong glance at capitalism and the single-minded pursuit of pleasure — provided one isn’t already blinded by them.

The Great Gatsby , ongoing at the Broadway Theatre in New York. 2 hours, 30 minutes. broadwaygatsby.com .

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