(PP. 45-50) Literature Section III: Jordan Baker → Moral Hypocrisy in the Jazz Age (ACADEC '25-'26)

How does Nick describe Jordan Baker?

Fit, tan, attractive, and, most importantly, “incurably dishonest”

What does Jordan Baker represent to Nick?

Another example of the indecency of the wealthy

What is Jordan Baker an effort by Fitzgerald to do?

In some ways an effort by Fitzgerald to complicate the “flapper” character that he was so well-known for portraying

What describes Jordan Baker’s personality?

Liberated, autonomous, and bold, but also cruel, callous, and narcissistic

Like many of the Jazz Age’s most famous figures, and many of Fitzgerald’s characters, what is Jordan Baker?

Excessive in both her social charms and her self-obsession

Who played George Wilson in the 1926 silent film production of The Great Gatsby?

William Powell

What is the picture of George Wilson marked by?

904-85

What is Jordan Baker mostly interested in?

She doesn’t care who gets hurt around her and is mostly just interested in her own well-being

What is Jordan Baker not used to?

Being rejected or even questioned

What “threw” Jordan Baker “over”?

Nick’s terseness with her, and his gradual disinterest

What does Jordan represent?

The sort of thoughtless person who uses their looks, status, or wealth to simply pursue their own happiness without regard for others

What is Jordan Baker, less a person?

Less a person than a “good illustration,” a depthless individual that Nick distances himself from when he realizes he no longer desires to be around people like that

Who is not a hugely significant character in the novel’s plot, but their characterization helps reinforce some of the novel’s concerns regarding the cruelty that can emerge from self absorption?

Jordan Baker

What does Jordan Baker’s characterization help reinforce about the novel?

The novel’s concerns regarding the cruelty that can emerge from self absorption

How is Myrtle Wilson described, even though she’s not often portrayed in cinematic adaptations?

Having a “thickish figure” and not particularly attractive in a conventional sense

How is Myrtle Wilson described in the novel?

“Her face… contained no facet or gleam of beauty, but there was an immediately perceptible vitality about her”

What is Daisy’s beauty described as?

Ephemeral, almost immaterial beauty

Until what chapter does Myrtle Wilson remain absent?

Chapter 7

What is Myrtle at root?

A tragic figure: while her betrayal of her husband is callous, she is not presented as a fundamentally evil person

How does Myrtle often come off as?

Lonely and misguided

How is Myrtle treated by the men in her life?

Poorly: George becomes possessive and violently jealous with her right before her death, and Tom beats her when she annoys him

What does Myrtle represent, besides just a woman?

Not only a woman subject to the whims of men, but also a working-class person subject to the whims of the upper classes

Who are effectively just toys for Tom Buchanan?

Myrtle and George Wilson

What serves as one final humiliation?

Myrtle’s death, as her dead body is described in dehumanizing words, as if she were simply a slab of meat

How was Myrtle’s dead body described?

Her corpse lies broken on the road, with her breast hanging out “loose like a flap”

If Myrtle is vibrant and substantial, how is George?

Hollow and empty

What was Michaelis almost sure of?

That “Wilson had no friend: there was not enough of him for his wife”

What character is there really not much to?

George Wilson

What is all we’re told about George Wilson?

He’s a mechanic, his business inquiries are routinely rebuffed by Tom, and he is growing suspicious of his wife’s behavior

Who is the social opposite of Tom?

George Wilson: His work is physical and benefits many people, especially given the increasing number of cars on the road

What is Tom’s work like, in contrast to George Wilson?

It’s unconnected to the daily life of the average American, and his wealth is sustained only for his benefit

What does Fitzgerald frame George as?

A tragic figure, a “common” person undone by the cruelty of detached, wealthy people

What is George Wilson’s reaction to his wife’s death?

He’s emotionally destroyed

Whose actions are the actions of a broken man rather than a monster?

George Wilson

How are both George and Wilson ultimately portrayed?

A victim in the novel, someone who ends up broken because of the carelessness of the wealthy

Who is explicitly based on Arnold Rothstein?

Meyer Wolfshiem

Who was Arnold Rothstein?

A real-life gangster who was in fact a powerful underworld criminal

How powerful was Arnold Rothstein?

Powerful enough to ultimately “fix” the 1919 World Series by enticing players on the Chicago Black Sox to purposely lose in order to win bets

What does the portrayal of Arnold Rothstein in the novel rely less on?

A precise recreation of Rothstein (other than fixing of the World Series) than on several Jewish stereotypes

How does Meyer Wolfshiem reflect anti-Semitic tropes that were quite prominent in the 1920s and, unfortunately, remain so today?

He looks, talks, and acts in ways

Where do we see many of the anti-Semitic stereotypes play out?

In the first meeting between Nick and Wolfshiem

Despite what does Nick immediately notice that Wolfshiem is a “flat-nosed Jew” with “two fine growths of hair which luxuriated in either nostril”?

Despite the room being dim and his vision being obscured by the rapid change from the brightness outside to the darkness inside

What does Nick immediately recognize about Wolfshiem?

He is a “flat-nosed Jew” with “two fine growths of hair which luxuriated in either nostril”

What is a constant focus for Nick on Meyer Wolfshiem?

His nose

What does Nick notice about Wolfshiem before he even looks in his eyes?

His nose

What are all of Wolfshiem’s actions linked to?

Some activity of his “tragic” nose, such as his nose “flashing” at Nick, or his nostrils “turned” toward him

What parts of Wolfshiem does Nick focus on that underscores his otherness?

His face is comically distorted, he speaks with a stereotypical Yiddish accent, and even wears cufflinks made out of human teeth

What accent does Wolfshiem have?

Yiddish

What words does Wolfshiem say differently because of his Yiddish accent?

"gonnegtion” and “Oggsford” instead of “connection” and “Oxford”

What tidbit about Wolfshiem ultimately helps give his character a “suggestion both of the exotic and the sinister”?

He wears cufflinks made out of human teeth

What famous Jewish gangsters are readers familiar with?

Arnold Rothstein, Bugsy Siegel, and Meyer Lansky

What is troubling about Wolfshiem?

Not that he’s a gangster, but rather Fitzgerald’s presentation of Wolfshiem as a person that veers frequently into caricature and stereotype

What does Wolfshiem serve as a reminder of?

Gatsby’s seedy past

What illegal activities would Wolfshiem likely be involved in?

Illegal gambling rings and protection rackets

What is Wolfshiem known as to characters in the novel?

A bootlegger

How do Gatsby and Wolfshiem become successful?

By selling alcohol through drugstores, which were often used as a location by illegal distributors while Prohibition was the law of the land from 1920-33

What does Wolfshiem say in his final meeting with Nick?

He claims to not simply have supported Gatsby but “made” him within the criminal underworld

What does Wolfshiem’s pursuit of his own goals lead to?

Him using other people and, when they’re no longer valuable, discard them and leave them behind

What leads to Wolfshiem, despite an allegedly close relationship with Gatsby, to refuse to attend the funeral or visit the cemetery?

His indifference to others

What is TGG preoccupied with from its first page?

Social class

What piece of advice did Nick’s father give him?

“‘Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,’ he told me, ‘just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.’”

What does the novel never stop being interested in the question of?

“advantages”: who has what, and how much, and why?

What does the interest in the question of “advantages” manifest in?

Subtle ways, such as the different types of people who live in West Egg and the East Egg neighborhood

Where do the “Stonewall Jackson Abrams” come from?

East Egg

Where do the “Corrigans and the Kellehers and the Dewers and the Scullys and S.W. Belcher and the Smirkes and the young Quinns” come from?

West Egg

What people come from West Egg?

“Corrigans and the Kellehers and the Dewers and the Scullys and S.W. Belcher and the Smirkes and the young Quinns”

What does “Stonewall Jackson Abrams” suggest?

The family has a long history of American significance, as Stonewall Jackson was a famous Civil War general

In what war was Stonewall Jackson a general?

Civil War

What do Belcher and Smirke recall?

Belching and smirking

In contrast to East Egg names, how are West Egg names?

Less dignified and less “truly” American

What names of West Egg are less dignified?

Belcher and Smike

What names of West Egg are less “truly” American names?

Corrigan, Kelleher, Dewer, and Scully

What are Corrigan, Kelleher, Dewer, and Scully all coded as?

Foreign, specifically Irish

Who was there a considerable prejudice against in the early 20th century?

Irish, Italians, and Germans who immigrated to the U.S. but retained markers of their national heritage

Where do we see class differences manifest in TGG?

The condescension that the “old money” East Egg neighborhood shows toward the “new money” West Egg neighborhood

What’s an example of condescension that East Egg shows West Egg?

Daisy being “appalled by West Egg, this unprecedented ‘place’ that Broadway had begotten upon a Long Island fishing village—appalled by its raw vigor that chafed under the old euphemisms and by the too obtrusive fate that herded its inhabitants along a short-cut from nothing to nothing. She saw something awful in the very simplicity she failed to understand”

Why was Daisy appalled at West Egg?

Its raw vigor that chafed under the old euphemisms and by the too obtrusive fate that herded its inhabitants along a short-cut from nothing to nothing

What did Daisy see something awful in West Egg?

The very simplicity she failed to understand

What more dramatic way do the class differences appear in?

A clear visual and affective distinction between those two Egg neighborhoods and the working-class valley of ashes: they’re worlds apart from the dusty, depressing working-class area

Where do Fitzgerald’s interest in questions of class spring from?

His own personal experiences

What was Fitzgerald aware of in regards to class at a young age?

Not all status was the same; that some types of money are worth more than others; and that having money and being “monied” were not necessarily the same thing

Whose work was Fitzgerald drawn to?

Economist and sociologist Thornstein Veblen

What was Thornstein Veblen’s profession?

Economist and sociologist

What book did Thornstein Veblen write?

The Theory of the Leisure Class

What did Veblen coin in The Theory of the Leisure class?

“Pecuniary emulation,” “conspicuous leisure,” and “conspicuous consumption”

What is pecuniary emulation?

The desperate need to exceed the socioeconomic status of others

What is conspicuous leisure?

The habit of very publicly and obviously not working

What is conspicuous consumption?

The need to spend money on objects and experiences that are obvious, bold, and undeniable

Why did Veblen coin 3 terms?

To help explain the attitudes of emerging, new class of elite, wealthy individuals who, lacking the need to work, had to find other ways to pass their time

Where do we see the 3 behaviors Veblen coined in TGG?

Tom’s deep interest in the source of Gatsby’s wealth, to Nick’s awareness of the differences between the different mansions in the neighborhoods, to Daisy’s lack of a job or anything to do, to Gatsby’s obnoxiously large yellow car

Was Fitzgerald himself allergic to wealth?

No, he liked to spend money and live lavishly, but he was also deeply interested in exploring and critiquing the behavior of a new class of wealthy Americans

What is linked with Fitzgerald’s interest in different forms of wealth and status?

The role of geography and place in the novel

What is the consistent formula of TGG?

East always means morally inferior, while West always means morally superior

Where is the consistent formula of TGG shown?

When Nick encounters the characters and only respects Gatsby

What inspired the fictional valley of ashes in TGG?

The “valley of ashes,” a sprawling refuse dump located in NYC during the 1920s

How many stories does the Plaza Hotel have?

20

What does Nick glorify the Middle West as?

A place of moral certainty

What was Nick’s initial trip out East motivated by?

Restlessness after his return from the war

What did the Middle West seem like to Nick?

"Instead of being the warm center of the world, the Middle West now seemed like the ragged edge of the universe”

What did Nick think of the East after his time in NY?

“When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; i wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart”