The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Answer each question completely. Give reasons, examples, and/or quotes to justify your answers.

1.  What is the meaning of the epigraph by Thomas Parke D’Invilliers? How does it relate to the major themes of this book?

2.  In the very last line of Chapter Three, Nick Carraway claims: "I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known." By the end of the book, Jordan Baker decides that this statement itself a lie. Is Nick Carraway honest or dishonest?

3.  Is Nick Carraway a necessary character in this story? If we were not given the story mediated through his perspective, what would we gain? What would we lose?

4.  According to the novel, what is it about the past that draws us both forward and leaves us stuck where we are? How are we to be set free from this constant revision of the past, which clouds the future?

5.  Religion is notoriously absent until the very end, when Myrtle Wilson’s husband claims that he told his wife that she couldn’t fool God. Why is this the first mention of God? How does this sudden invoking of religious morals function within the rest of the story and why?

6.  Could this story have taken place in other parts of the United States – for example, Chicago – or were Long Island and New York City the necessary setting?

7.  Are Nick and Gatsby more similar than Nick would like to admit?

8.  What might be the "something" that Nick is reminded of, yet cannot recall, at the end of Chapter Six?

9.  What is the effect of us getting the information out of order? We don’t know the truth about Gatsby until Chapter Six, and we don’t know the rest of the truth until Chapter Eight. We get even more information when Jay’s father shows up; what’s the deal?

10.  Is Gatsby great? In what way? How might he not be great? Does his greatness evolve over the course of the novel? What is the difference, in this text, between perceived greatness and actual greatness?

11.  How does the character of Nick (inside the story, not the voice telling it) change over the course of the novel? What about the narrative voice? Although the entire story is told in retrospect, does the act of telling it create changes in his narrative style? Could it be that both character-Nick and narrator-Nick are changed?

12.  Who really was driving when Myrtle was struck and killed? Can Nick be sure? Can we? If Nick insists that a person shouldn’t criticize others, then why does it matter who killed her?

13.  Take a look at Nick’s opening lines. If this advice is the lens through which we read The Great Gatsby, how does it affect our view of the events that transpire? Does refraining from criticism promote compassion, or amorality?