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2. Can The Great Gatsby be read and understood without knowledge of the era it is written
in; the end of the First World War, a time of class and race disparity?
3. If the Great War vanquished many ideas surrounding religious faith including faith itself
what do the haunting eyes of Dr T. J. Eckleburg represent? What kind of world is he looking out on? What might the ash heaps represent, and why is its position between New York City and West/East Egg significant?
4. There are many powerful, shaping forces that run through The Great Gatsby love, wealth,
self-regard, excess, longing. Which are the most powerful and how do they alter the course of events?
5. How sincere is Gatsbys love for Daisy? Why must it be complete, absolute? Is there
anything authentic about anyones love in the novel?
6. How do you feel about Daisy? Is she victim, fraud, manipulator, a product of her times . . ? 7. There are some absurdist situations in the book Owl Eyes in Gatsbys library, the car
accident in front of Gatsbys house, Myrtles dog. How are we meant to read these curious scenes, and how might they reflect the spirit of the Jazz Age?
8. We initially see Nick Carraway as the distant observer of the dramas surrounding Jay
Gatsby and the constellation of people surrounding him. How does his role evolve over the course of the novel? What are his stated and hidden agendas? How does Jordans comment at the end that she met another bad driver illustrate his evolution (or devolution)?
9. Each character in the novel is burdened by their past. How does this conception of who
they were impact on who they are and will be in the orgastic future? How does the malleable definition of the past prove problematic?
10. Toms attack on Gatsby includes the line, I suppose youve got to make your house into
a pigsty in order to have any friends in the modern world? What does Tom mean by modern, and how does it contrast to the world that preceded it? What shifts in morality, class and religion have taken place?
11. How inevitable is Gatsbys end, and what are we meant to take from his sparsely attended
funeral? What is behind Nicks loyalty to Gatsby, when everyone else deserts him?
12. Fitzgerald wrote, You dont write because you want to say something, you write because
you have something to say. What did he have to say in Gatsby?
13. Fitzgerald juxtaposes words in unusual ways. An expression definitely unfamiliar and
vaguely recognisable passes over Gatsbys face. Mr Wolfshiem ate with ferocious delicacy. Do these strange pairings upset your reading or perhaps place you more in Nick Carraways slowly unfurling world?
14. Can you repeat the past as Gatsby so desperately wants to do? 15. Who is the hero of the novel? Do novels need heroes and heroines? 16. Why does Daisy sob into the thick folds of Gatsbys shirts?
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2. Despite The Great Gatsby being the quintessential American novel, it was mostly written
while Fitzgerald was residing on the Riviera in the South of France and revisions were said to have taken place in Rome.
(Source: The Observer)
3. Celebrated author Hunter S. Thompson was apparently so inspired by The Great Gatsby
that he used to type it up on a typewriter to experience what it was like to write that way. Thompson also said the classic novel was top of mind when he wrote Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
(Source: The New Yorker)
5. The four-line poem entitled Then Wear the Gold Hat at the start of The Great Gatsby is
credited to Thomas Parke DInvilliers. In reality, DInvilliers doesnt exist he is in fact a character from Fitzgeralds first novel, This Side of Paradise.
(Source: Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald by Francis Scott Fitzgerald, Zelda Fitzgerald)
6. Fitzgerald had trouble naming The Great Gatsby, jumping from Trimalchio in West Egg;
Among Ash-Heaps and Millionaires; On the Road to West Egg; Under the Red, White and Blue; Gold-Hatted Gatsby; and The High-Bouncing Lover.
(Source: The Observer)
7. Since first published, The Great Gatsby has inspired five English-language film
adaptations, various stage productions including an opera, and has even been turned into a computer game, in which Carraway must dodge flappers and evil butlers in his quest to locate Jay Gatsby. The earliest adaptation of The Great Gatsby, filmed without sound in 1926, a year after the book was published, has been lost: only the trailer and publicity photos remain.
(Source: The Observer)
8. Fitzgerald met his wife Zelda Sayre in Alabama, where he was stationed during his army
years, and it was only after the success of his first novel that she agreed to marry him. Most of his flapper heroines were believed to be based on his striking young wife.
(Source: The American Midwest: An Interpretive Encyclopedia, edited by Andrew R. L. Cayton, Richard Sisson, Chris Zacher)
9. Fitzgerald was just shy of 30 years old when The Great Gatsby was published. 10. Fitzgerald died of a heart attack at 44, thinking of himself as a failure. Despite garnering
some modest achievement in his lifetime, he never witnessed the enormous commercial and critical success of his book The Great Gatsby.
(Source: Glittering Things: Flappers, Fantasies & Tales of the Jazz Age by F. Scott Fitzgerald, edited by Laura Bonds, Shawn Conners)
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Wilson Q10: d) North Dakota Q11: c) Valley of Ashes Q12: b) College, Oxford Q7: c) Old sport Q8: a) James Gatz Q9: b) Myrtle Q4: b) Long Island and New York City Q5: a) Green Q6: b) Trinity ANSWERS: Q1: c) Francis Q2: a) 1922 Q3: d) Robert Redford
1920S MAKE-UP
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