The+Great+Gatsby+Notes

We will discuss these concepts in class:

Fitzgerald: A chronicler of the rich; critiques the rich; impact of money; chronicler of the 1920s


 * The novel covers the following aspects/themes/symbols**


 * Splendor vs. Ash Heaps/Spiritualism vs. materialism: morality is a luxury that can no longer be afforded
 * Declining of our values/morals
 * "The Waste Land"
 * A modern world filled of material/mechanical wealth but bankrupt morally, spiritually, detached from God
 * Mythic construct to make points
 * Ancient King in land laid waste--a desert, no water, nothing will grow
 * Condition of modern humanity
 * allusions
 * comparisons to past/present
 * Present is inferior
 * Symbolic/parodoxical line: "April is the cruelest month"
 * April is symbolic of spring/time of rebirth and rejuvination
 * Constant reminder of the rebirth of the world that will never be
 * Twists The Cant. Tales first line
 * "When April with his showers sweet with fruit/ The drought of March has preceded unto the root"
 * Bleak, but powerful emptiness vision
 * Sex has eroded/morality has been eroded
 * Emptiness of "Tea girl's" being
 * Outwardly successful and glorious... but beneath the surface? Indeed, what lies beneath?
 * Impact of $ on values
 * Mass Urban Society
 * Fragmentation
 * Rootlessnes
 * Breakdown of family
 * Changes in ways of being/seeing of "self"
 * A symbolic story of the history of the US
 * A world where people are on the move (trains, cars, etc.) between lush green lawns and the suburban world
 * Alienation of the individual
 * conflict between individual and society
 * dramitization of matters in life which make finding self impossible
 * Problem of being/achieving individuals identity
 * To Have vs. To Be (Erich Fromm)
 * Idealism vs. Pragmatism
 * Idealism
 * Stresses values of the ways things //ought// to be (Imagine: You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one)
 * Pragmatism
 * American philosophy
 * Emphasis on the most efficient way of doing things ("What works"--William James)
 * What //needs to be done/will be done.//
 * Spirituality vs. Materialism
 * Spirituality
 * Spirituality = not religious necessarily.
 * Values of a person
 * What drives a person.
 * Does the //end// justify the //means?//
 * Materialism
 * Preoccoumpation with material objects, things of comfort, etc.
 * Rejects spiritual/cultural/intellectual pursuits etc.
 * New Morality
 * Wanting pleasures and diversions and willing to pay money to get them
 * Break down of the family
 * Time/history (from Fitzgerald/author perspective)
 * John Winthrop
 * city upon a hill/God's Chosen people (Idealism--note final page)
 * Puritans wanted wealth/spirituality: If all didn't help out out, all may perish; "United we stand, divided we fall"
 * Ben Franklin (time table reference)
 * Crucial thinkers
 * Indispensible
 * complex and deceptive thinker
 * master of invention
 * master of building a big city (lib, firehouse, etc)
 * arcchetype figure
 * WWI (US entered in 1917) (August 1914 - November 1918)
 * US becomes a world power
 * 1920s
 * time of tremendous wealth/change
 * Time of great "progress"
 * Time of great "regress" (conflict/uncertainty)
 * time of tremendous disillusionment (Lost Generation)
 * Auto begins to become //common// consumer good
 * Ties to independence
 * Sexual experimentation
 * Exploration
 * Frontier has closed already
 * Frederick Jackson Turner's "Frontier Thesis"
 * Signifies change in landscape/culture
 * Cinema/Hollywood
 * transforms America
 * Gives people access to perspectives, etc. not readily available
 * Access to dreams/aspirations
 * Sex/"immorality" becomes available for public consumption through cinema
 * Decline of the "Gentile" tradition
 * Tradition/morals/values were already eroding by the time the 1920s. Mostly gone by the 1960s
 * Automobile
 * Mobility/privacy for young adults/unchaperoned
 * In novel, the vehicle literally/symbolically destroys people (urbanization/mechanization)
 * Symbolizes status
 * Symbolic for life
 * "bad drivers"
 * Prohibition
 * 18th Admen
 * Temp. Movement
 * Noble experiment
 * New outlet for crime
 * In novel, the wealthy seem as if there is no ban on alcohol
 * 1919 Black Sox Scandal
 * White Sox vs. Reds
 * Shoeless Joe (Say it ain't so, Joe)
 * Wolfshire = Arnold Rothsteen
 * T.J. Eckleberg--among the Ash Heaps between East/West Egg (NY: beautiful, sophisticated, all that is possible)
 * TJ is an Advertisement
 * Advertising came more heavily onto the scene in the 1920s/became "God" in the 1920s
 * Public is hungry for entertainment, comfort, etc. Has more money to spend.
 * Blindness vs. sight
 * overlooks everything that is wrong
 * since the optmologist went out of business, people who need sight are blind and enver realize that they are not seeing correctly
 * God: Judges/turned his back on man/man turned back (forgot) God