Gatsby Day 1 questions: American Dream
- Consider The Great Gatsby as a quintessentially American novel. What does it offer about the American identity and the American Dream?
- The Great Gatsby is a book about ______.
- Ch 2. : How does Daisy’s voice affect Nick?
- Ch. 2. : Make a list of everything that is artificial, fake, unreal or phony.
- Ch. 3. What is the tone of the first paragraph?
- Ch. 5. What is the effect of Gatsby’s clothing—a white flannel suit, silver shirt and gold-colored tie?
- Ch. 5: Why does Daisy cry, “They’re such beautiful shirts . . . “?
- Ch. 5.: Why does Nick describe Daisy’s voice as a “deathless song”?
- Ch. 6: What does Gatsby mean by the thought, “he could climb to it, if he climbed alone, and once there he could such on the pap of life, gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder”?
- Ch. 7:Trimalchio is the character in The Satyricon by the Roman writer Petronius, a man who gives lavish dinner parties and behaves as a vulgar, self-centered wealthy host. Why does Nick refer to Gatsby as Trimalchio?
- Ch. 9: What is the effect of the shift in time when Nick reflects on returning to the Midwest from prep school and college? How does Nick regard the Midwest in this chapter? How does he compare the East with the Midwest? What ‘quality of distortion’ and ‘haunted’ feel does the East have for Nick?
- In their search for their own versions of The American Dream, each major character in The Great Gatsby responds differently. Examine Nick, Tom and Daisy Buchanan, Jordan Baker, and Jay Gatsby with an eye to determining whether each character perverts, corrupts, or purifies the dream pursued through the action of the novel.
- Each character chooses to come east to seek fortune and success rather than take the traditional American route West. What does each character appear to be seeking and to what degree is that search successful by the novel's end?
Gatsby Day 2: Careless people
- Chapter 1: What is Nick’s impression of Tom on the porch in riding clothes?
- Ch. 1. How do Tom’s physical actions dominate Nick?
- Ch. 1. How does Daisy regard her husband’s physical strength? Why does Daisy choose to reveal the bruise?
- Ch. 1. What draws Tom to Goddard’s book, The Rise of the Colored Empires?
- Ch. 1. What does Daisy mean when she says, “And I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool”?
- Ch. 3: Why do people arrive at Gatsby’s parties uninvited, “conduct themselves according to the rules of behavior associated with amusement parks,” and come “with a simplicity of heart that was its own ticket of admission”?
- Ch. 3.: Why does Jordan Baker lie about leaving the top down on the car, and what does Nick realize about Jordan as a result of this incident?
- Ch. 3: Why does Jordan not consider Nick one of the “careless people” that she hates?
- Ch. 8: Why does Gatsby feel that “Jay Gatsby had broken up like glass against Tom’s hard malice”?
- Ch. 9: What is the reason for Fitzgerald’s focusing on Jordan’s and Nick’s “Bad driving”?
Gatsby Day 3: The Past and Identity
1. What is the role of the past? Can you repeat it? Should we try? Every 4 years politicians promise they will, “make a bridge to the 21st century.” Often they include a promise of a return to a better past. Notice the book’s obsession with Dutch sailors and the new world, Tom's irrecoverable football game and Daisy's white girlhood.
2. Norma Jean becomes Marilyn and Marion Morrison becomes the Duke! How do name changes reflect identity?
- Ch. 1: Why does Nick describe Gatsby as having “an extraordinary gift for hope”?
- Ch. 1: What does it show about Daisy that she refers to her three-year-old daughter as “the baby”?
- Ch. 3: Why do the partygoers tell stories about Gatsby—that he killed a man, that he was a German spy, that he was in the American army?
- Ch. 5: Why does Gatsby suddenly say, “Nobody’s coming to tea. It’s too late”?
- Ch. 5: Why does Fitzgerald include the clock in this scene?
- Ch. 5: The clock hasn’t broken. Why do Gatsby and Nick act as if it did?
- Ch. 6: “Platonic” means ideal, from Plato’s conception of reality. What “Platonic conception” does Gatsby have of himself?
- Ch. 6: What is the significance of Nick’s comment. “You can’t repeat the past,” and Gatsby’s response, “Why of course you can!”? Why does Gatsby want to defeat the power of time?
- Ch. 6: What does Gatsby mean by his comment to Nick, “I’m going to fix everything just the way it was before . . . She’ll see”?
- Ch. 7: Why does Gatsby look at Daisy’s daughter with surprise?
- Ch. 8: Why is following Daisy “the following of a grail” for Gatsby”?
- Ch. 8: Why does Nick describe Gatsby’s dream as “incorruptible”?
- Ch. 8: When Nick says, “I enjoyed breakfast, Gatsby,” it is the first time he calls him by his name. Why does he do this at this point in the book?