The Great Gatsby Flashcards

F. Scott Fitzgerald Biography: Early Life and Education

• Scott Donaldson: F. Scott Fitzgerald used the "dirty little secret" of social class importance in American culture for literary material.
• Fitzgerald's upbringing exposed him to the contradictions of American social life.
• Born in 1896 in Minnesota to Edward Fitzgerald and Mary "Mollie" McQuillan.
• Father's family: old American lineage but lacked money/power.
• Mother's family: Irish immigrants; new to America but had money and power.
• McQuillans ran a successful grocery business that greatly supported the family.
• Fitzgerald was familiar with contradictions in American social life from a young age.
  • Rich in Family history ≠ Rich in wealth.
  • Rich in wealth ≠ Established social class.
• These contradictions appeared in his writing, notably The Great Gatsby.
• Edward Fitzgerald had to move for work due to lack of generational wealth.
• The family lived with the McQuillans in St. Paul, due to their successful grocery empire.
• Fitzgerald attended prestigious schools thanks to the McQuillans' wealth.
  • St. Paul Academy.
  • Newman School (New Jersey).
  • Princeton University.
• Access to elite institutions didn't eliminate class worries.
• Relationship with Ginevra King ended due to class differences.
  • King's father: successful stockbroker; told Fitzgerald, "poor boys shouldn’t think of marrying rich girls."
• Breakup with Ginevra was inspiration for Jay Gatsby's longing for Daisy Buchanan.

Princeton and Military Service

• Fitzgerald wrote frequently at Princeton, focusing on theater.
• He Associated with Edmund Wilson and John Peale Bishop, who were featured in Vanity Fair as "The New Generation in Literature."
• He was a terrible student.
• In 1917, he enlisted in the Army due to potential failure to graduate and the U.S. entering World War I.
• He Never saw war in Europe; stationed at Army bases in the U.S.
  • Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas (Dwight Eisenhower was his platoon captain).
  • Camp Sheridan, Alabama.

Meeting Zelda Sayre

• At Camp Sheridan, he met Zelda Sayre in 1918.
• Zelda was notorious in Montgomery for flouting social norms.
  • Sneaking out to meet bachelors for clandestine rendezvous.
• Fitzgerald was immediately infatuated with her.
• Their relationship became one of the most well known in American literary history.
• Zelda's popular image as a "ditzy Southern belle" is often inaccurate.
• Biographies and fictional works (e.g., Nancy Milford's Zelda: A Biography, Therese Anne Fowler’s Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald) aim to correct the record.
• Zelda was intelligent, complex, and had literary skill.
• She Influenced Fitzgerald's life and fiction; inspiration for fictional characters.
• Ginevra King and Zelda Sayre both inspired Daisy Buchanan.
• Fitzgerald: "I married the heroine of my stories."

Early Career and Marriage

• After Army discharge in 1919, Fitzgerald got a promise of marriage from Zelda.
• He Moved to Manhattan and worked in advertising (Barron Collier ad agency).
• The Work was boring and poorly paid.
• Zelda broke off the engagement after a disastrous meeting in Montgomery, Alabama.
• Fitzgerald was heartbroken and returned to St. Paul.
• He Worked on This Side of Paradise to gain literary acclaim and win back Zelda.

Publication of This Side of Paradise and The Beautiful and Damned

• This Side of Paradise was accepted by Charles Scribner’s Sons in 1919.
• Editor Max Perkins supported Fitzgerald's writing and novel.
• 1920 was a turning point: Novel published, married Zelda, became rich and famous.
• This Side of Paradise sold 40,000 copies in its first year, becoming a bestseller.
• Fitzgerald became a voice for youth culture, writing scandalous stories.
• He Secured a lucrative arrangement with The Saturday Evening Post.
• In 1920, he earned nearly $19,000 (≈ $300,000 in 2024 dollars) from royalties, short stories, and film rights.
  • \$19,000 \approx \$300,000
• Scott and Zelda spent lavishly on speakeasies, hotels, and parties.
• They gained a reputation as debaucherous partiers.
  • Driving wildly in Manhattan and childish antics.
• Excessive behavior led to problems with money and drinking.
• They were Evicted from hotels due to outrageous behavior.
• In the Summer of 1920, they Moved to Connecticut to focus on work after wild parties.
• There Fitzgerald began The Beautiful and Damned.
• He worked on it in Connecticut, New York, Europe (1921 trip), and St. Paul.
• The couple had a daughter, Scottie in October 1921.
• The Beautiful and Damned was released in 1922.

Critical Reception and The Great Gatsby

• The Beautiful and Damned sold well but didn't earn advanced artist status with Fitzgerald's peers.
• A New York Times review called it "well-written" but pseudo-realistic and lacking goodness in human nature.
• Critics felt Fitzgerald was simply selling salacious material.
• He wanted commercial success and critical acclaim.
• After its release in 1922, Fitzgerald moved to Great Neck, Long Island.
• Great Neck became the inspiration for East and West Egg in The Great Gatsby.
• Fitzgerald focused on writing plays, a passion since Princeton.
• His play The Vegetable flopped, forcing him to write short fiction to recover from debt.
• Failure increased his drinking and he took his family to France in 1924 for recentering.

Turmoil in France and The Great Gatsby

• In France, Zelda had a flirtatious relationship with Edouard Jozan.
• Debate exists over whether an affair happened, but the summer significantly strained their marriage.
• Possible causes:
  • Scott's jealousy, stress, and drinking.
  • Zelda's frustration with Scott using her life in his novels.
  • Zelda's erratic behavior due to mental health, motherhood, and her husband's alcoholism.
• Fitzgeralds entered a period of personal distress that influenced his next novel.
• Fitzgerald began working on The Great Gatsby during the trip to France.
• He wanted commercial success and to be seen as a serious novelist.
• He sought a cleaner, harder style and concentrated on form.
• Fitzgerald Chronicled the Jazz Age's excess in a sophisticated way.
• He Set out to write the Great American Novel.

Writing and Revising The Great Gatsby

• Fitzgerald wrote first drafts of The Great Gatsby in France in 1924.
  • Initially titled it Trimalchio in West Egg, Gold-hatted Gatsby, On the Road to West Egg, and Under the Red, White, and Blue.
• It was Revised it during a trip to Rome in 1924−25.
• He Wrote to Max Perkins about his creative goals:
  • He wanted to create a sincere, radiant world unlike “trashy imaginings."
  • He desired a “consciously artistic achievement.”
• He revised the novel to make it clear and effective.
• Perkins suggested revisions to an early draft.
• Perkins praised the narrative point of view and ability to convey human circumstance.
• Perkins felt: "Gatsby is somewhat vague. The reader’s eyes can never quite focus upon him, his outlines are dim.”
• Fitzgerald Submitted a final draft in early 1925.

Publication and Critical Reception of The Great Gatsby

• The novel was published in April 1925, while the Fitzgeralds traveled to Paris.
• The Critical reception was not universal.
• Many saw it as an improvement over previous novels.
• Edwin Clark in The New York Times cited proof that Fitzgerald could do more than observe youth (".
  • “It takes a deeper cut at life than hitherto has been enjoyed by Mr. Fitzgerald. He writes well—he always has—for he writes naturally, and his sense of form is becoming perfected.”
• Fitzgerald appreciated the novel's construction.
• Although Well-received, the novel was not a commercial success.
• It Sold worse than This Side of Paradise and The Beautiful and Damned.
• The success sold just well enough for the couple to remain in France through 1926.
• Fitzgerald met American expats in Paris, including Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein.
• He struggled to progress on a fourth novel.
• Zelda struggled with her mental health, experiencing depression and mood swings.
• The Fitzgeralds Moved back to the U.S. in 1927, settling in Delaware.
• The goal was to capitalize on The Great Gatsby's success and establish fame.
• Tragically, the years to come would bring about peace.

Later Career and Struggles

• Fitzgerald Never recaptured early financial success, nor Gatsby's level of acclaim.
• He Continued writing short fiction and screenplays.
• He Struggled with progressing on his novel.
• Zelda's mental health continued to decline.
• In 1928, The couple moved back to France, where Zelda concentrated on ballet
• Both were unsuccessful in their endeavors.
• In 1930, Zelda had her first acute mental breakdown, receiving treatment at a Swiss hospital in 1931.
• Treatments were expensive, so Fitzgerald churned out short fiction and screenplays.
• In the 1920s, their life was characterized by pursuing new forms of entertainment.
• In the 1930s, their life was characterized by Zelda seeking frequent hospitalizations.
• Zelda was treated at in-patient hospitals in Baltimore, Maryland, and Asheville, North Carolina.
• Fitzgerald rented homes in Montgomery, Los Angeles, Asheville, and Baltimore.
• He Completed his fourth novel, Tender Is the Night, in Baltimore published in 1934.
• The novel sold worse than The Great Gatsby.
• Reviews were polarizing.
• “No two reviews were alike.”
• A lack of critical consensus in the case of Tender Is the Night, the novel did not make an impact.

Declining Reputation

• In 1934, Fitzgerald's reputation declined.
• Other writers, like Ernest Hemingway, overshadowed him.
• Fitzgerald Frequently encouraged Hemingway, but was tough on him.
• General public views shifted from excessive partying being cute to now being seen as an embarrassment.
• Fitzgerald Published autobiographical essays in Esquire detailing his "crack-up" in 1936.
• The essays were later collected and edited by Edmund Wilson.
• Fitzgerald gave an interview to Michael Mok of the New York Post where he presented himself as a washed-up drunk trying to regain glory days.

Interview with Michael Mok

• Mok Presented Fitzgerald as an alcoholic trying to regain his glory days, which was cruel and unfair.
• Fitzgerald's career was over. He was estranged from Zelda, who resided in long-term care facilities.
• He was Viewed as a quaint artifact from a bygone era.
• In 1937, he Moved back to Hollywood and tried screenwriting.
• His only credited film was The Three Comrades (1938), which allowed him to live somewhat comfortably.
• Fitzgerald Met Sheila Graham, a journalist who he fell in love with and lived with during his final years.
• He Worked on an unfinished novel, The Last Tycoon, which became an incisive look at America's obsession with the movie industry.
• Fitzgerald Died of a heart attack in 1940. Edmund Wilson would then Posthumously published the half-finished draft in 1941.

Death and Literary Legacy

• Fitzgerald Died young at forty-four, due to excessive drinking and tuberculosis.
• He Left behind many short stories (approximately 180) and five novels.
• He was Seen as one of the most important American writers later on.
• During his life, he was not seen as the equal of writers such as Ernest Hemingway.
• Over time, he Steadily increased his reputations and writings, earning champions such as Max Perkins, Wilson Bruccoli,and Dorothy Parker.
• His writings were championed by friends and colleagues like Max Perkins, Edmund Wilson, and Dorothy Parker.
• Academic biographers such as Scott Donaldson, Arthur Mizener, and Matthew J. Bruccoli helped cultivate and preserve his reputation within the academic world.
• His Marriage to Zelda has been researched widely.
• Fitzgerald became one of the most recognizable names in American literature, while writers that shadowed him at the time of his death, such as Lewis and Dos Passos, have been largely forgotten by the average reader.

Key Themes in Fitzgerald's Work

• Critics argue that Fitzgerald possessed a unique ability to capture the feeling of longing and striving that exists at the heart of America’s ideas about itself.
• Lionel Trilling put it, Fitzgerald could create characters who represented the most important moral concerns of the nation:
  • “For Gatsby, divided between power and dream, comes inevitably to stand for America itself. Ours is the only nation that prides itself upon a dream and gives its name to one, ‘the American dream.’”
• There is something of Zelda in Daisy Buchanan and of Fitzgerald in Gatsby, as he was always transparent about mining his life for material.
• The Great Gatsby is a compelling fictional story and exploration of some of the most powerful and enduring themes of Fitzgerald’s own life.

Plot and Structure of The Great Gatsby

• The novel The Great Gatsby is Narrated by Nick Carraway, an affluent Midwesterner.
• He Served in World War I and sets out for the East Coast and a career in finance.
• The Novel is told through his perspective; interpretations are not necessarily Fitzgerald’s, but rather Nick’s, reflecting his subjectivity and personal values.
• Fitzgerald chose Nick as an Inspired Writer Joseph Conrad, and aesthetic revolutions of literary modernism.
• Carraway reminds readers that he is writing down his reflections as a book.
• Nick is thinking back about events that have already happened.
• The events are significant within the broader narrative.
• Nick is both reporting as well as choosing to include, as well as what he is choosing to ignore, minimize, or leave out these events.
• The Novel is broken down into nine chapters.
• Each relaying some significant event or set of events in Nick’s experiences on the East Coast.
• Each chapter contains a significant event and explores how that event reveals the intentions and values of the characters.
• Each of the chapter summaries will go into a fair amount of detail about the events that take place will help demonstrate why the events are significant within the broader narrative, and will also provide some brief interpretations in order to.
  Chapter 1
  Describes his own personality and temperament.
  *Reserves judgment.
  *Gives people the benefit of the doubt.
  *Becomes exhausted with people around him.
  Only one person managed to ultimately avoid this reaction: Gatsby, whom Nick describes in the early pages of the novel as someone who, though representing “everything for which I have an unaffected scorn,” still managed ultimately to be worthy of Nick’s tendency to hold out hope for people.48 This introduction to Nick tells us a lot about his character: he is more of an observer than a participant, but he also has strong opinions and sometimes will even believe the best in people when they don’t deserve it.
  In the first chapter, we also learn about Nick’s biography and how he came to know Gatsby.
  *The Carraways are a wealthy Midwestern family.
  *Nick graduated from Yale and served in World War I.
  *Feeling restless and no longer satisfied living in the Midwest.
  *Enters the bond business in New York City.
  *Father agrees to support him for a year.
  *Carraway moves to New York and lives in Long Island in a neighborhood called West Egg (modeled after Great Neck, the small Long Island town Scott and Zelda lived in during the early 1920s).
  *Rents a house that sits next to a massive house, a house that he eventually learns belongs to Gatsby. But before he meets Gatsby, he decides to visit the nicer part of the town, the East Egg neighborhood. which sits on the other side of a small bay and is home to Nick’s cousin Daisy Buchanan and her husband Tom, whom Nick knew during his time at Yale.
  *Nick arrives in East Egg and discovers it is more fashionable and elite than West Egg.
  *East Egg is home to old money.*
  *East Egg is where the taste that such money buys.
  *East Egg is revealed to be a poor imitation of the more elite neighborhood.
  *Nick meets Tom, Daisy, and a woman named Jordan Baker (who is revealed to be a popular golfer) at the Buchanan’s house.
  *Tom is from an “enormously wealthy” family, and he seems fully confident in his own brilliance even as his words and thoughts suggest someone of limited intelligence, as evidenced by an unprompted diatribe to Nick on racist theories of eugenics. Nick describes Daisy and Jordan as wistful and almost immaterial, with Daisy in particular possessing an irresistible kind of charm.
  *Nick tells them he lives in West Egg, which the Buchanans and Jordan clearly think is a lower-quality neighborhood.
  *Jordan asks Nick if he lives next to Gatsby’s mansion.
  *This question startles Daisy.
  Jordan reveals to Nick that Toms phone call, interrupted during dinner, is from his mistress in the city.
  Daisy gives Nick another example when she found/ wishes the girl would learn that women need to be “fools.”
  *Nick starts to sense that people like the Buchanans are being sincere, emotionally, and cunning at the same time.
  *Nick returns to West Egg and sees Gatsby standing and staring across the bay at the Buchanan’s house.
  *He stretched out his arms toward the dark water.
  It looks as though he was trembling.
  *This is the novel’s first portrayal of Gatsby.
  *reaching his arms out.
  *He's Reaching for what Nick describes as a “single green light. minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock.
  Chapter 2:
  They get off the Train near a valley of ashes.
  *A sparsely populated industrial region running along the railroad tracks.
  *A desolate area formed from gray land and spasams of bleak dust.
  *Corona neighborhood in Queens53
  *A space fully outside of the glamor of the city and the prestige of East Egg.
  *Watch over the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg.
  *The eyes of doctor T. J. Eckleburg represent a Neon Symbol of Marketing and Commerce.
  Tom is stopping in the valley of ashes because his mistress, Myrtle Wilson, lives there with her husband, George.
• Tom barley conceals it. (has a mistress insistently insisted wherever he was known.
  *George, however, appears unaware of the affair.
  *Myrtle meets Tom and Nick at an apartment that Tom keeps for Myrtle.
• Impulse puppy to arrive dog sells it man dogs. Catherine's Catherine Friends over Myrtle *Nick is deeply uncomfortable. *Catherine, the ingratiating Mr. McKee, and the obnoxious Mrs. McKee *They get drunk. *During a conversation about West Egg, Catherine mentions a rumor she heard about Gatsby: “Well, they say he’s a nephew or a cousin of Kaiser Wilhelm. That’s where all his money comes from. MysteriousRumors OriginsCathe. *Catherine also reveals to Nick that Tom hates Daisy, or at least can’t stand being married to her, while Myrtle resents having married a working-class man. *During the final hours of the evening, Myrtle and Tom get into a drunken argument.
  • Myurtle Resents Tom
    Murtle Taunts tom
    Murtle Shouts
    *Tom Breaks nose in
    ApartMent
    With
    MrMickee
    Gatsby.
    Chapter 3.
    *Nick attends wild, bombastic parties at Gatsby’s mansion and looks for Gatsby. Eventually finds Jordan Baker.
    *Guests share gatsby treat guest well avoids kill from law law law
    Find the library German Spy U. Army Nick. Comping smile to the exterior will but sincerity conthrivance conthrivance
    *Nick tries to pry more information about Gatsby from Jordan.
    OxfordUnivesitty OxfordUnivesitty overly overly overly Formal SPport Nick.
    Nick Nick at the end of the long night as he does. He noti the great of.
    Endowing windows
    *Nicks Ends. *Nicks Ends*. to his reader that, book he During the time profile entering to 1: actual actually
    Enters he
    *But does carry on a short affair with a young woman.
    *He spends the summer mostly alone.
• Nick frequently imagines himself entering the lives of strangers that exhibit be *duplicitousduplicitous1 is has honesty. *duplicitousduplicitous duplicitous
  knownKnown
  Known
  Gatsby
  Known known known
  nick
  KnownKnown
  HasverHe has Hasve I'veververI'mmyselfHonestI've EverEver.
  ChapterChapter Chapter4.
  *BeginsAnotherSpecuate
  *Nick Creates a list for his summers of all the guests who went to the party.
  *West Egg Old. MoneyMoney. Families EastEggBusinees. *EastsBEstsEggBusineesBusinees.
  WestwestwestMoneyMoneyMoney,
  Westwestwestwest FamilieswestFamilieswestFamilies Families. NewNewestEastwestwestEst.
  *Gatsby Houses insists city.
  *He is Driving his custom car with over and that and and and and
  Consumer and consumer close to symbol and Gatsbys consumption and and and and the it as “swollen” and .
  *City is Story in answer offers of like a Young chiefly Rubies, is is what story story I in is police commissioner back at,
  *German military leader and statesman Paul von Hindenburg, 1925.
  Gatsby takes Nick to visit for lunch in the city a Jewish gangster that who after Arnold Nick a, I am Gatsbys and fills some Past Louisville Day, and Gatsby has, for. Hasve, and , Gatsbys and has
  Gatsby
  Hasve.
  . and a day before room, but , and but the The has it, has. and the, Gatsby it a Nick’s
  And
  Are in. is
  Night
  And And Are .
  Chapter5.
  *Meets arrives tea schedule the, is at front
  Are has, the in isNick.
  A room,
  Are the aNick,
  *Nick eventually leaves the couple alone, and after spending a Nick a house a Nick, and clothing in.
  Pillows
  Chapter 6.
  *Nick’s house is at the front and on to if any About. He and not in up 3 3 from shore.
  Not True history a had a that for things drums of with it
  Chapter 7.
  P
  *Daisy even tells Gatsby that she loves him as they lounge around in the heat. Tom begins to realize what is happening between Gatsby and Daisy but manages to maintain his composure just enough to agree with Daisy’s suggestion that they all spend the day in New York City. The suggestion is clearly. trip beginning initiate the
  Trip. A
  Gatsbyscar
  Pivot oxford. Is, TheSelfNobody’sSWith
  Are deathdeath.