盖茨比 人物分析详解

Study Questions

1.

Discuss Gatsby’s character as Nick perceives him throughout the

novel. What makes Gatsby “great”?

In one sense, the title of the novel is ironic; the title character

is neither “great” nor named Gatsby. He is a criminal whose real

name is James Gatz, and the life he has created for himself is an

illusion. By the same token, the title of the novel refers to the

theatrical skill with which Gatsby makes this illusion seem real: the

moniker “the Great Gatsby” suggests the sort of vaudeville billing

that would have been given to an acrobat, an escape artist, or a

magician.

Nick is particularly taken with Gatsby and considers him a great

figure. He sees both the extraordinary quality of hope that Gatsby

possesses and his idealistic dream of loving Daisy in a perfect world.

Though Nick recognizes Gatsby’s flaws the first time he meets him,

he cannot help but admire Gatsby’s brilliant smile, his romantic

idealization of Daisy, and his yearning for the future. The private

Gatsby who stretches his arms out toward the green light on Daisy’s

dock seems somehow more real than the vulgar, social Gatsby who wears

a pink suit to his party and calls everyone “old sport.” Nick alone

among the novel’s characters recognizes that Gatsby’s love for

Daisy has less to do with Daisy’s inner qualities than with

Gatsby’s own. That is, Gatsby makes Daisy his dream because his

heart demands a dream, not because Daisy truly deserves the passion

that Gatsby feels for her. Further, Gatsby impresses Nick with his

power to make his dreams come true—as a child he dreamed of wealth

and luxury, and he has attained them, albeit through criminal means.

As a man, he dreams of Daisy, and for a while he wins her, too. In a

world without a moral center, in which attempting to fulfill one’s

dreams is like rowing a boat against the current, Gatsby’s power to

dream lifts him above the meaningless and amoral pleasure-seeking of

New York society. In Nick’s view, Gatsby’s capacity to dream makes

him “great” despite his flaws and eventual undoing.

2.

What is Nick like as a narrator? Is he a reliable storyteller, or

does his version of events seem suspect? How do his qualities as a

character affect his narration?

Nick’s description of himself in the opening chapter holds true

throughout the novel: he is tolerant and slow to judge, someone with

whom people feel comfortable sharing their secrets. His willingness

to describe himself and the contours of his thoughts even when they

are inconsistent or incomplete—his conflicted feelings about Gatsby,

for instance, or the long musing at the end of the novel—makes him

seem trustworthy and thoughtful. His position in relation to the

other characters gives him a perfect vantage point from which to tell

the story—he is Daisy’s cousin, Tom’s old college friend, and

Gatsby’s neighbor, and all three trust and rely on him. Though Nick

participates in this story and its events certainly affect him,

The

Great Gatsby is not really his story in the sense of being about him.

However, it is his story in the sense that it is of crucial

importance to him: he defines himself in the process of writing it.

Indeed, he struggles with the story’s meaning even as he tells it.

Though Nick professes to admire Gatsby’s passion as a lover and a

dreamer, Nick’s own actions in his relationship with Jordan Baker

cast an ironic pall over his admiration: with Jordan, Nick is guarded,

cautious, and skeptical. Overall, Nick suggests that Gatsby is an

exception to his usual ways of understanding and judging the world,

and that his attraction to Gatsby creates a conflict within himself.

3.

What are some of

The Great Gatsby’s most important symbols? What

does the novel have to say about the role of symbols in life?

Apart from geographic locations, the two most important symbols in

the novel are the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock and the

eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. The first is a perfect example of the

manner in which characters in

The Great Gatsby infuse symbols with

meaning—the green light is only a green light, but to Gatsby it

becomes the embodiment of his dream for the future, and it beckons to

him in the night like a vision of the fulfillment of his desires. The

eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg work in the same fashion, although

their meaning is less fixed. Until George Wilson decides that they

are the eyes of God, representing a moral imperative on which he must

act, the eyes are simply an unsettling, unexplained image, as they

stare down over the valley of ashes. The eyes of Doctor T. J.

Eckleburg thus emphasize the lack of a fixed relationship between

symbols and what they symbolize: the eyes could mean anything to any

observer, but they tend to make observers feel as though they are the

ones being scrutinized. They seem to stare down at the world blankly,

without the need for meaning that drives the human characters of the

novel.

In general, symbols in the novel are intimately connected to dreams:

Gatsby’s dream of Daisy causes him to associate her image with

everything he values, just as he associates the green light with his

dream for the future. In reading and interpreting

The Great Gatsby,

it is at least as important to consider how characters think about

symbols as it is to consider the qualities of the symbols themselves.

4.

How does the geography of the novel dictate its themes and characters?

What role does setting play in

The Great Gatsby?

Each of the four important geographical locations in the novel—West

Egg, East Egg, the valley of ashes, and New York City—corresponds to

a particular theme or type of character encountered in the story.

West Egg is like Gatsby, full of garish extravagance, symbolizing the

emergence of the new rich alongside the established aristocracy of

the 1920s. East Egg is like the Buchanans, wealthy, possessing high

social status, and powerful, symbolizing the old upper class that

continued to dominate the American social landscape. The valley of

ashes is like George Wilson, desolate, desperate, and utterly without

hope, symbolizing the moral decay of American society hidden by the

glittering surface of upper-class extravagance. New York City is

simply chaos, an abundant swell of variety and life, associated with

the “quality of distortion” that Nick perceives in the East.

Setting is extremely important to

The Great Gatsby, as it reinforces

the themes and character traits that drive the novel’s critical

events. Even the weather matches the flow of the plot. Gatsby’s

reunion with Daisy begins in a ferocious thunderstorm and reaches its

happiest moment just as the sun comes out. Tom’s confrontation with

Gatsby occurs on the hottest day of the summer. Finally, Gatsby’s

death occurs just as autumn creeps into the air. The specificity of

the settings in

The Great Gatsby contributes greatly to the creation

of distinct zones in which the conflicting values of various

characters are forced to confront each other.

Suggested Essay Topics

1. In what sense is

The Great Gatsby an autobiographical novel? Does

Fitzgerald write more of himself into the character of Nick or the

character of Gatsby, or are the author’s qualities found in both

characters?

2. How does Gatsby represent the American dream? What does the novel

have to say about the condition of the American dream in the 1920s?

In what ways do the themes of dreams, wealth, and time relate to each

other in the novel’s exploration of the idea of America?

3. Compare and contrast Gatsby and Tom. How are they alike? How are

they different? Given the extremely negative light in which Tom is

portrayed throughout the novel, why might Daisy choose to remain with

him instead of leaving him for Gatsby?

Analysis of Major Characters

→

Themes, Motifs & Symbols

Jay Gatsby

The title character of

The Great Gatsby is a young man, around thirty

years old, who rose from an impoverished childhood in rural North

Dakota to become fabulously wealthy. However, he achieved this lofty

goal by participating in organized crime, including distributing

illegal alcohol and trading in stolen securities. From his early

youth, Gatsby despised poverty and longed for wealth and

sophistication—he dropped out of St. Olaf’s College after only two

weeks because he could not bear the janitorial job with which he was

paying his tuition. Though Gatsby has always wanted to be rich, his

main motivation in acquiring his fortune was his love for Daisy

Buchanan, whom he met as a young military officer in Louisville

before leaving to fight in World War I in 1917. Gatsby immediately

fell in love with Daisy’s aura of luxury, grace, and charm, and lied

to her about his own background in order to convince her that he was

good enough for her. Daisy promised to wait for him when he left for

the war, but married Tom Buchanan in 1919, while Gatsby was studying

at Oxford after the war in an attempt to gain an education. From that

moment on, Gatsby dedicated himself to winning Daisy back, and his

acquisition of millions of dollars, his purchase of a gaudy mansion

on West Egg, and his lavish weekly parties are all merely means to

that end.

Fitzgerald delays the introduction of most of this information until

fairly late in the novel. Gatsby’s reputation precedes him—Gatsby

himself does not appear in a speaking role until Chapter 3.

Fitzgerald initially presents Gatsby as the aloof, enigmatic host of

the unbelievably opulent parties thrown every week at his mansion. He

appears surrounded by spectacular luxury, courted by powerful men and

beautiful women. He is the subject of a whirlwind of gossip

throughout New York and is already a kind of legendary celebrity

before he is ever introduced to the reader. Fitzgerald propels the

novel forward through the early chapters by shrouding Gatsby’s

background and the source of his wealth in mystery (the reader learns

about Gatsby’s childhood in Chapter 6 and receives definitive proof

of his criminal dealings in Chapter 7). As a result, the reader’s

first, distant impressions of Gatsby strike quite a different note

from that of the lovesick, naive young man who emerges during the

later part of the novel.

Fitzgerald uses this technique of delayed character revelation to

emphasize the theatrical quality of Gatsby’s approach to life, which

is an important part of his personality. Gatsby has literally created

his own character, even changing his name from James Gatz to Jay

Gatsby to represent his reinvention of himself. As his relentless

quest for Daisy demonstrates, Gatsby has an extraordinary ability to

transform his hopes and dreams into reality; at the beginning of the

novel, he appears to the reader just as he desires to appear to the

world. This talent for self-invention is what gives Gatsby his

quality of “greatness”: indeed, the title “The Great Gatsby” is

reminiscent of billings for such vaudeville magicians as “The Great

Houdini” and “The Great Blackstone,” suggesting that the persona

of Jay Gatsby is a masterful illusion.

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by

year recedes before us.

(See Important Quotations Explained)

As the novel progresses and Fitzgerald deconstructs Gatsby’s self-presentation, Gatsby reveals himself to be an innocent, hopeful young

man who stakes everything on his dreams, not realizing that his

dreams are unworthy of him. Gatsby invests Daisy with an idealistic

perfection that she cannot possibly attain in reality and pursues her

with a passionate zeal that blinds him to her limitations. His dream

of her disintegrates, revealing the corruption that wealth causes and

the unworthiness of the goal, much in the way Fitzgerald sees the

American dream crumbling in the 1920s, as America’s powerful

optimism, vitality, and individualism become subordinated to the

amoral pursuit of wealth.

Gatsby is contrasted most consistently with Nick. Critics point out

that the former, passionate and active, and the latter, sober and

reflective, seem to represent two sides of Fitzgerald’s personality.

Additionally, whereas Tom is a cold-hearted, aristocratic bully,

Gatsby is a loyal and good-hearted man. Though his lifestyle and

attitude differ greatly from those of George Wilson, Gatsby and

Wilson share the fact that they both lose their love interest to Tom.

Nick Carraway

If Gatsby represents one part of Fitzgerald’s personality, the

flashy celebrity who pursued and glorified wealth in order to impress

the woman he loved, then Nick represents another part: the quiet,

reflective Midwesterner adrift in the lurid East. A young man (he

turns thirty during the course of the novel) from Minnesota, Nick

travels to New York in 1922 to learn the bond business. He lives in

the West Egg district of Long Island, next door to Gatsby. Nick is

also Daisy’s cousin, which enables him to observe and assist the

resurgent love affair between Daisy and Gatsby. As a result of his

relationship to these two characters, Nick is the perfect choice to

narrate the novel, which functions as a personal memoir of his

experiences with Gatsby in the summer of 1922.

Nick is also well suited to narrating

The Great Gatsby because of his

temperament. As he tells the reader in Chapter 1, he is tolerant,

open-minded, quiet, and a good listener, and, as a result, others

tend to talk to him and tell him their secrets. Gatsby, in particular,

comes to trust him and treat him as a confidant. Nick generally

assumes a secondary role throughout the novel, preferring to describe

and comment on events rather than dominate the action. Often, however,

he functions as Fitzgerald’s voice, as in his extended meditation on

time and the American dream at the end of Chapter 9.

Insofar as Nick plays a role inside the narrative, he evidences a

strongly mixed reaction to life on the East Coast, one that creates a

powerful internal conflict that he does not resolve until the end of

the book. On the one hand, Nick is attracted to the fast-paced, fun-driven lifestyle of New York. On the other hand, he finds that

lifestyle grotesque and damaging. This inner conflict is symbolized

throughout the book by Nick’s romantic affair with Jordan Baker. He

is attracted to her vivacity and her sophistication just as he is

repelled by her dishonesty and her lack of consideration for other

people.

Nick states that there is a “quality of distortion” to life in New

York, and this lifestyle makes him lose his equilibrium, especially

early in the novel, as when he gets drunk at Gatsby’s party in

Chapter 2. After witnessing the unraveling of Gatsby’s dream and

presiding over the appalling spectacle of Gatsby’s funeral, Nick

realizes that the fast life of revelry on the East Coast is a cover

for the terrifying moral emptiness that the valley of ashes

symbolizes. Having gained the maturity that this insight demonstrates,

he returns to Minnesota in search of a quieter life structured by

more traditional moral values.

Daisy Buchanan

Partially based on Fitzgerald’s wife, Zelda, Daisy is a beautiful

young woman from Louisville, Kentucky. She is Nick’s cousin and the

object of Gatsby’s love. As a young debutante in Louisville, Daisy

was extremely popular among the military officers stationed near her

home, including Jay Gatsby. Gatsby lied about his background to Daisy,

claiming to be from a wealthy family in order to convince her that he

was worthy of her. Eventually, Gatsby won Daisy’s heart, and they

made love before Gatsby left to fight in the war. Daisy promised to

wait for Gatsby, but in 1919 she chose instead to marry Tom Buchanan,

a young man from a solid, aristocratic family who could promise her a

wealthy lifestyle and who had the support of her parents.

After 1919, Gatsby dedicated himself to winning Daisy back, making

her the single goal of all of his dreams and the main motivation

behind his acquisition of immense wealth through criminal activity.

To Gatsby, Daisy represents the paragon of perfection—she has the

aura of charm, wealth, sophistication, grace, and aristocracy that he

longed for as a child in North Dakota and that first attracted him to

her. In reality, however, Daisy falls far short of Gatsby’s ideals.

She is beautiful and charming, but also fickle, shallow, bored, and

sardonic. Nick characterizes her as a careless person who smashes

things up and then retreats behind her money. Daisy proves her real

nature when she chooses Tom over Gatsby in Chapter 7, then allows

Gatsby to take the blame for killing Myrtle Wilson even though she

herself was driving the car. Finally, rather than attend Gatsby’s

funeral, Daisy and Tom move away, leaving no forwarding address.

Like Zelda Fitzgerald, Daisy is in love with money, ease, and

material luxury. She is capable of affection (she seems genuinely

fond of Nick and occasionally seems to love Gatsby sincerely), but

not of sustained loyalty or care. She is indifferent even to her own

infant daughter, never discussing her and treating her as an

afterthought when she is introduced in Chapter 7. In Fitzgerald’s

conception of America in the 1920s, Daisy represents the amoral

values of the aristocratic East Egg set.