Nick Carraway

Nick Carraway is the novel’s narrator. Nick is a young man from Minnesota who, after being educated at Yale and fighting in World War I, goes to New York City to learn the bond business. He lives in the West Egg district of Long Island, next door to Gatsby. Nick is also Daisy’s cousin, which enables him to observe and assist the resurgent love affair between Daisy and Gatsby. As a result of his relationship to these two characters, Nick is the perfect choice to narrate the novel. Nick is also well suited to narrating The Great Gatsby because of his temperament. He is tolerant, open-minded, quiet, and a good listener, and, as a result, others tend to talk to him and tell him their secrets. Gatsby, in particular, comes to trust him and treat him as a confidant. Nick generally assumes a secondary role throughout the novel, preferring to describe and comment on events rather than dominate the action. Nick evidences a strongly mixed reaction to life on the East Coast, one that creates a powerful internal conflict that he does not resolve until the end of the book. On the one hand, Nick is attracted to the fast-paced, fun-driven lifestyle of New York. On the other hand, he finds that lifestyle grotesque and damaging. This inner conflict is symbolized throughout the book by Nick’s romantic affair with Jordan Baker. He is attracted to her vivacity and her sophistication just as he is repelled by her dishonesty and her lack of consideration for other people. After witnessing the unraveling of Gatsby’s dream and presiding over the appalling spectacle of Gatsby’s funeral, Nick realizes that the fast life of revelry on the East Coast is a cover for the terrifying moral emptiness that the valley of ashes symbolizes. Having gained the maturity that this insight demonstrates, he returns to Minnesota in search of a quieter life structured by more traditional moral values.

Who is Nick Carraway?

Well, according to his bio, he grew up in family of "prominent, well-to-do people" in Chicago, and his family has a fun little tradition of calling themselves the decendents of the "Dukes of Buccleuch," even though they actually made their money two generations ago in the "wholesale hardware business" . He went Yale; he likes literature and considers himself one of those "limited" specialists known as a "well-rounded man"; he fought in World War I, which he found kind of exciting; and now he's moved East to work in the bond business (that is, finance) in New York City.

Those may be the facts, but they don't actually give us much insight into his personality. We learn more about him from the way he talks than what he says. Like this: we find out that he's connected to wealthy (as opposed to simply well-to-do) and important people, like his cousin Daisy and Tom, a college acquaintance, but he isn't one of them: his house is a "small eyesore," even though it offers him the "consoling proximity of millionaires" .

Check out that "consoling proximity": Nick is being a little self-deprecating, mocking himself for thinking that being near rich people makes up for the fact that his house is small and ugly. At the same time—doesn't he believe it, just a little? Doesn't he seem to enjoy being around the wealthy, careless people who party at Gatsby's house?

In the end, Nick Carraway's perch on the outside of these lofty social circles gives him a good view of what goes on inside; he has a particularly sharp and sometimes quite judgmental eye for character, and isn't afraid to use it.

No More Mr. Nice Guy

Nick calls himself "one of the few honest people that I have ever known" , but that doesn't mean he's very nice. Nick may be polite and easy to get along with on the outside, but he's not afraid to tell it like it is. Nick still seems to see himself as a good Midwestern boy with high standards for everyone he meets, including himself, and prides himself on maintaining his standards, even in the corrupt, fast-moving world of East coast high society.

And that actually brings us to our first "hey, wait a minute" moment.

Check out what Nick says at the beginning. He treats us to a little down-home wisdom that his own father passed along:

"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had."

He didn't say any more, but we've always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that. In consequence, I'm inclined to reserve all judgments […]. 

Nick has told us that he reserves judgment, and he's also told us that he's honest. So why does it seem that the entire book consists of him judging one person after another? Gatsby represents everything that makes Nick feel "unaffected scorn" ; Tom and Daisy are "careless people" ; Jordan is "incurably dishonest" .

If you ask us, sounds like someone might not be entirely honest about himself. In fact, it's dishonest Jordan who realizes it. During the course of the novel, Nick gradually gets sucked into the world he's observing, both through his friendships (if you can call them that) with Tom, Daisy, and Gatsby, and through his romantic relationship with Jordan. The deeper he's drawn into these relationships, the less honest he becomes – until at the end, Jordan rebukes him for being just as dishonest and careless as the rest of them:

"You said a bad driver was only safe until she met another bad driver? Well, I met another bad driver, didn't I? I mean it was careless of me to make such a wrong guess. I thought you were rather an honest, straightforward person. I thought it was your secret pride." 

Change of Heart

If you wanted to be charitable, you could say that Nick realizes he's being drawn into a dishonest lifestyle, and that's what makes him scurry back West. Right after Jordan calls him a "bad driver," he tells her, "I'm thirty … I'm five years too old to lie to myself and call it honor" . But what is Nick lying about? That he loves her? That he belongs in this world? That Tom and Daisy are living acceptable lives? It's not entirely clear. What is clear is that this crazy summer has jolted Nick back into real life. He's not cut out for a world of moral ambiguity.

But is that because he's got more than his share of the "fundamental decencies" , as he "snobbishly" says at the beginning of the book? Or is it because he, like Tom and Daisy, is careless, fleeing the mess he's made? Or because he finally realizes that there's no real difference between himself and Gatsby? Look at what he says about returning West:

When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction—Gatsby, who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. 

Nick is saying that he doesn't want to deal with the immorality of the high society kids he's been hanging around with. But he excludes Gatsby from that scorn. Why?

Well, maybe Nick and Gatsby aren't all that different. Both of them want access to a world that they weren't born to; both of them came by their wealth in slightly déclassé ways. Sure, Gatsby was a bootlegger—but Nick's family came by their money selling hardware and then invented a fake story about having ducal blood. If there's a difference (okay, besides the fact that bootlegging is illegal), we're not sure what it is.

No, Really, Who Is Nick?

Is he a morally upright honest narrator, giving us an unflinching look at the consequences of unbridled wealth? Or is he fundamentally untrustworthy, blinded by his admiration of wealth and glamor, and his own failed attempts to access the world of the rich and famous? And has he really learned anything from his experience?

We're not sure about the first question, but we think we might have some clues to the last. Nick exposes Gatsby's obsession with a fantasy. The Daisy he loves no longer exists, and trying to reach five years back in time ends up killing him.

You'd think that this lesson would make Nick wary of continually returning to the past. Instead, what has he done? Written an entire book about it. He may want to return to the West, to the way things were before he went East. Unfortunately for Nick, it looks like he may not be able to go home again.

Jordan Baker

Daisy’s friend, a woman with whom Nick becomes romantically involved during the course of the novel. A competitive golfer, Jordan represents one of the “new women” of the 1920s—cynical, boyish, and self-centered. Jordan is beautiful, but also dishonest: she cheated in order to win her first golf tournament and continually bends the truth.

Jordan is possibly the least important of all the major characters in the book, yet she provides an important contrast to Daisy Buchanan. She appears first in the Buchanan’s home, a young woman with too much time on her hands. In some ways, she epitomizes the concept of "ennui" – she is bored to tears, except for her active sports career in golf. Cynical and hard, she cheated to win her first golf tournament. This in itself is evidence of her practicality. Ultimately, she and Nick end up "together" (in a fashion) and Nick mentions how grateful he is that she is not like Daisy. That is, she is not the kind of girl who holds onto the past, a girl "too wise ever to carry well-forgotten dreams from age to age."

But Daisy and Jordan aren’t quite polar opposites after all, and it is Jordan’s place in that "rotten crowd" that drives a wedge between her and Nick. Well, maybe. We offer a different explanation in Nick’s analysis, so take your pick. But you can’t really argue about the fact that Jordan is just as careless as Daisy. Daisy "smash[es] things up" and then "retreat[s] […] into […] vast carelessness." Does that last word look familiar? Nick tells Jordan she is "careless," and after a brief attempt at denying it, she pretty much gives him a "whatever" in return. She callously says that other people have to stay out of her way. This might be the reason Nick comes to dislike her, but the reason he is taken in at first is her following line: "I hate careless people." Looks like they have something in common, after all.

Tom Buchanan

Daisy’s immensely wealthy husband, once a member of Nick’s social club at Yale. Powerfully built and hailing from a socially solid old family, Tom is an arrogant, hypocritical bully. His social attitudes are laced with racism and sexism, and he never even considers trying to live up to the moral standard he demands from those around him.
Being born into a family that is wealthy has made Tom a spoiled man. He hasn't really worked his entire life and instead spends his days in indulgence and ease. This is what motivates Tom; gratification. He has a shameless affair with Myrtle because it satisfies his needs. He flaunts their relationship in public because he does not concern himself with the consequences of his actions, he's never had to. This is also why he and Daisy escape in the end of the book. There was a situation they would have to face and they didn't want to. So they ran to their money and fled the situation, leaving it to be dealt with by others. Tom will spend his whole life doing things like that because that is who he is: A careless man who won't be bothered by the suffering he causes.

sturdy, straw-haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner. Two shining, arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face, and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward … you could see a great pack of muscle shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat. It was a body capable of enormous leverage—a cruel body. 

If you're getting the picture that our narrator doesn't much like Tom. But Nick is also fascinated with Tom. He probably can't help it; like Daisy, Tom is a fascinating kind of guy. Like Daisy, he's got something that everyone else wants: he's got power.

Maybe He's Born With It

Tom's family is rich. Really rich. Not well-to-do like Nick's family, and notnouveau riche like Gatsby, but staggeringly wealthy, with money going way back. (Or as far back as any money in America goes, anyway.) And he does extravagant, crazy things with it, like bringing "a string of polo ponies for Lake Forest" (1).

Okay, yeah, that doesn't mean much to us, either. It's probably something along the lines of buying a private jet: you know people can do it, but it's a pretty flashy move. Especially because he's so (relatively) young: "It was hard to realize that a man in my own generation was wealthy enough to do that."

In his own way, Tom is just as flashy as Gatsby. But everyone somehow knows that Gatsby's a newcomer. Tom, on the other hand, has something you can't buy. You might call it "breeding," but that sounds weird and a little racist, or even eugenicist. So, we're going to call it "arrogance": the absolute conviction that, thanks to money and family, he was born to inhabit a certain world; to marry a certain type of woman; and to receive homage from, well, pretty much every other man he encounters.

Although, come to think of it, eugenics is a good touch point here: Tom has been doing some light reading, and he's obsessed with the idea that the "lesser races" are going to come knock the Aryans—excuse us, "Nordic" people—off their white privilege pedestal." If we don't look out the white race will be—will be utterly submerged" (1), he says.

Okay, now Nick isn't the only one who doesn't like Tom. We're not big fans ourselves.

But why is Tom obsessed with the idea that his "race" is on the verge of being submerged? He certainly doesn't seem like he's going anywhere, because money isn't the only thing that makes him loom larger than life. He's also physically powerful, a college football star (for Yale), and someone whom Daisy calls a "brute of a man, a great, big, hulking physical specimen" (1.70).

Problem is, Tom doesn't like being called "hulking." We're not sure why, but we do have an idea: Tom believes that he has natural superiority. He's better than everyone else because of his family, his "blood," his station in life.

In fact, Daisy suggests, he comes by his power in the oldest, least classy way: he's just bigger and stronger than anyone else. And maybe, this passage seems to suggest, that's the root of all power. It has nothing to do with naturally superior races, or naturally superior families: it just has to do with whether or not you're big enough to steal someone else's woman. (Or money.)

Cruel Summer

Tom is definitely big enough—and he's also mean enough. He's a cruel man. It's not enough for him to take a mistress; he flaunts her "wherever he was known" (2.3-4), making sure that everyone sees her with him and apparently unconcerned with Daisy finding out about it.

And when he wins his little battle of wills with Gatsby, he drives the metaphorical knife in just a little bit more when he insists that Daisy drive home with Gatsby, saying "Go on. He won't annoy you. I think he realizes that his presumptuous little flirtation is over. (7.298).

Talk about burn. This little exchange makes Gatsby's undying love seem like a middle school crush; it deflates any feelings Daisy might have had for him; and it put Gatsby in his place by calling him "presumptuous." That's a lot of insult for a few words. And that's the point. He doesn't care about Daisy; he doesn't care about Gatsby. All he cares about is getting what's his. And Daisy, unfortunately for everyone, is his

Daisy Buchanan

Partially based on Fitzgerald’s wife, Zelda, Daisy is a beautiful young woman from Louisville, Kentucky. She is Nick’s cousin and the object of Gatsby’s love. As a young debutante in Louisville, Daisy was extremely popular among the military officers stationed near her home, including Jay Gatsby. Gatsby lied about his background to Daisy, claiming to be from a wealthy family in order to convince her that he was worthy of her. Eventually, Gatsby won Daisy’s heart, and they made love before Gatsby left to fight in the war. Daisy promised to wait for Gatsby, but in 1919 she chose instead to marry Tom Buchanan, a young man from a solid, aristocratic family who could promise her a wealthy lifestyle and who had the support of her parents.
After 1919, Gatsby dedicated himself to winning Daisy back, making her the single goal of all of his dreams and the main motivation behind his acquisition of immense wealth through criminal activity. To Gatsby, Daisy represents the paragon of perfection—she has the aura of charm, wealth, sophistication, grace, and aristocracy that he longed for as a child in North Dakota and that first attracted him to her. In reality, however, Daisy falls far short of Gatsby’s ideals. She is beautiful and charming, but also fickle, shallow, bored, and sardonic. Nick characterizes her as a careless person who smashes things up and then retreats behind her money. Daisy proves her real nature when she chooses Tom over Gatsby in Chapter 7, then allows Gatsby to take the blame for killing Myrtle Wilson even though she herself was driving the car. Finally, rather than attend Gatsby’s funeral, Daisy and Tom move away, leaving no forwarding address.
Like Zelda Fitzgerald, Daisy is in love with money, ease, and material luxury. She is capable of affection (she seems genuinely fond of Nick and occasionally seems to love Gatsby sincerely), but not of sustained loyalty or care. She is indifferent even to her own infant daughter, never discussing her and treating her as an afterthought when she is introduced in Chapter 7. In Fitzgerald’s conception of America in the 1920s, Daisy represents the amoral values of the aristocratic East Egg set.
Daisy is a trapped woman. She's trapped in a marriage that she is unhappy in and trapped in a world where she has no chance to be free or independent. She is at the mercy of her husband, a man who takes her for granted. Daisy is also terribly clever, delivering some of the funnier lines of the book. When a reader looks at the foolishness and shallowness of Daisy they must realize that Daisy may be doing out of necessity. As she said when she delivered her daughter, "- that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool". Daisy is smart enough to understand the limits imposed on her and has become jaded and indulgent because of them.
The word careless also describes Daisy well. Many of the things that Daisy does, the accident with Myrtle in particular, show a woman who is just careless. She has become very much wrapped up in herself. Part of this is due to the fact that she had been spoiled all her life. She was born into money and had an endless assortment of men who would continue to spoil her. So she has learned to think only of herself without regard for the people that it may hurt.

Jay Gatsby. What makes him great?

 The title character and protagonist of the novel, Gatsby is a fabulously wealthy young man living in a Gothic mansion in West Egg. He is famous for the lavish parties he throws every Saturday night, but no one knows where he comes from, what he does, or how he made his fortune. As the novel progresses, Nick learns that Gatsby was born James Gatz on a farm in North Dakota; working for a millionaire made him dedicate his life to the achievement of wealth. When he met Daisy while training to be an officer in Louisville, he fell in love with her. Nick also learns that Gatsby made his fortune through criminal activity, as he was willing to do anything to gain the social position he thought necessary to win Daisy. Nick views Gatsby as a deeply flawed man, dishonest and vulgar, whose extraordinary optimism and power to transform his dreams into reality make him “great” nonetheless.

Why is he ‘great’?

F. Scott Fitzgerald already sets us up to understand that Gatsby is Great, but why? Even people who have read this book cover to cover, took notes on the inner symbolism, and got A's on the tests; do not know the reason that Gatsby is considered great. Therefore, let us look on how F. Scott Fitzgerald creates a character good enough to be called "great". I feel this is a good time to point out that F. Scot Fitzgerald, nor any author but Fitzgerald took pain staking drinking binges to achieve it, does not write ANYTHING accidentally or arbitrarily. F. Scott Fitzgerald thought out every minute and every second of his book he called "his crowning achievement". In Gatsby, he has developed a character that can only be considered great, and develops it all the way to the end of the novel.

In short, F. Scot Fitzgerald created Jay Gatsby to embody the American dream. That unique American ability to go from rags to riches. The ability of each of us to live as rich as we want, and dream as big as we want. A dream that is the epitome of all dreams, and that all people have dreamt at one time or another: The poor boy or the broke soldier having the very very rich girl, and rising to the class of the rich and famous. James Gatz, the man who would become Jay Gatsby, had only $5 in his pocket when he arrived in New York and met Wolfshiem(from the end of the book after Gatsby's death) This little piece of info shows that in a mere 3 years, he went from nothing to owning one of the largest houses in New York speaking to the most powerful people around, and throwing parties that every important person in the Us attended. This is the American Dream.

F. Scot Fitzgerald places him as a mid-west good old boy, who went into the Army to fight "the great war". He is the all American boy. Then we find out that he had a list of things to guide his life and become great. These are directly reminiscent to Ben Franklin's rules to live life by from his autobiography. F. Scott Fitzgerald knew the history, and added these in because these rules took over the 10 commandments as Americas laws to live by, and we live by and know many of them right now. By doing this, F. Scott Fitzgerald has likened him to one of our greatest founding fathers.

F. Scott Fitzgerald has put this information into the book to show that we do have the ability to do these things, to become as great as we want. Even though F. Scott Fitzgerald could have stopped there, he did not feel that James Gatz had truly become great. Fitzgerald then lifts Gatsby to god like status. He points out that yes, we all do have this ability in America; but Gatsby, unlike everyone else, achieved this greatness for love. When one person selflessly gives themselves, sacrifices themselves, sacrifices everything they have, and even gives their life for someone else; they are greater than anyone - they are akin to the status of Jesus.

James Gatz lived his entire life to love Daisy. When he shows her the stuff in his house, he's showing her the house he has created for her. He doesn't really care for any of this - it's all done specifically for her. The parties stopped when she didn't like them, because they too we for her. In the end, he says that he will tell the police that he was driving, he waits outside her house like a gallant knight, and finally takes a bullet for her so that she may live on. Jay Gatsby has lived and created all that eh has in the name of love and the name of Daisy, not James Gatz or Jay Gatsby.

F. Scott Fitzgerald made the general populace as the ashen men. He has them, symbolized by George, to rise up to kill the most powerful of them, and the one and only exemplar that the normal people had for what they could do and become - Jay Gatsby. This parallels the death of Jesus who did all things exactly as the Jewish people had written them. He came in on a Donkey on the exact date, he entered the temple at the required time, he challenged the status quo when it was suppose to be, and told everyone that there was a possibility to live in a world of love; and they all denounced him. Without a thought of anger or fear, and even to the very last moment on the cross, he stated that he loved all of them. The last comment from Gatsby is about Daisy coming to him, and Nick responds by stating that Gatsby is better then all of them. So Gatsby dies for love, for the people, and as an example of what can be if we want it to be.

Zelda through Daisy

Like most authors, F Scott. Fitzgerald is not exempt from incorporating the effects of societal and personal events into his writing. The rise of the flappers throughout the Roaring Twenties and his wife’s heavy involvement in the ideology of the revolution became a recurring theme in Fitzgerald’s novels and female characters. In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald portrays his strained relationship with wife Zelda through his characterization and actions of Daisy Buchanan

Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald was raised the privileged daughter of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Sayre in a prominent southern family with roots dating back to the Confederacy. As a child, Zelda was well known for her mischievous, vivacious personality and her physical beauty, traits that would follow her to her adulthood leading to her becoming the quintessential woman of the Jazz Age. Being the eccentric wife to a renowned author, Zelda became instantly famous due to her inspiration for the character of Rosalind Connage in Fitzgerald’s first novel The Side of Paradise, a novel advocating the “free” lifestyle of both Fitzgerald and Zelda.

Fitzgerald’s first attempt to court Zelda, however, was not originally successful. Scott, a twenty-one year old second lieutenant, attempted to court the youthful eighteen year old Zelda after meeting her at a dance. The young couple had a short-lived romance of only a couple months in which Zelda “threw herself into their courtship,” testing the waters that could possibly lead her to her ultimate escape of the South (Cline). Zelda initially agreed to an engagement but was doubtful of Fitzgerald’s ability to maintain her materialistic lifestyle. This inability would lead to Zelda’s eventual withdrawal from the engagement. Zelda moved on to other men, and Fitzgerald left to war for a year, returning and successfully publishing his novel The Side of Paradise. With his persistence and publishing of his novel, Scott is finally able to marry Zelda in 1920 (Curnutt). Together, the couple would embrace “the freedoms and excesses of the 1920’s Jazz Age” (Curnutt), consequently morphing Zelda into the symbol of the liberated woman and the “flapper” lifestyle.

As the couple continued to live a luxurious lifestyle, the Fitzgerald’s briefly stopped at France and had their only child Frances “Scottie” Fitzgerald. Zelda can be quoted in saying that she wished her daughter was a “beautiful little fool” (Curnutt). The Fitzgeralds’ joy, unfortunately, was ephemeral; Scott found difficulty in producing any plays or novels of great success, leading the family into debt. During the couples period of struggle, Scott found solace in alcohol leading to an addiction and alleged violence between Zelda and himself. In an attempt to escape the distractions of America, the family returned to France which led to the successful creation of Scott’s novel The Great Gatsby, but the straining of his marriage due to Zelda’s secret affair with French aviator Edouard Jozan (Bruccoli). Through the affair was ambiguous in nature, Zelda’s close friends noticed a change in the Fitzgeralds’ relationship. Scott was too immersed in his writing to notice Zelda’s slow detachment from him and Zelda only became more and more infatuated with the young Frenchmen, going as far as to indirectly profess her strong attraction to him in her novelSave Me the Waltz (Cline).


The relationship would only dissipate after The Great Gatsby as the couple separated, Fitzgerald continuing his work in America while Zelda attempted to become a professional dancer in vain and eventually being diagnosed with Schizophrenia, after which she was sent to a clinic where she wrote her only novel Save Me the Waltz, recounting the couples unstable marriage (Curnutt).

While Fitzgerald’s relationship with Zelda was hardly idealistic, he found inspiration for several of his novels through her. He became well known for “describing in semi-autobiographical fiction the privileged lives of wealthy, aspiring socialites” (Willhite) and creating a new breed of characters: “the independent determined young American woman” (Bruccoli). Not only did he use Zelda as inspiration for his heroines but Scott also quoted Zelda through his characters and on one occasion used a passage straight from Zelda’s diary for one of his novels (Curnutt). Through Scott’s constant use of Zelda in his writings, it becomes more than evident that Scott had a slightly obsessive deep compassion and care for Zelda, or rather the modern woman he hoped Zelda would be.

At the turn of the century, women’s role in society began to change rapidly. Women became intolerant of the suppression forced upon them by the changing society of the early twentieth century. Lady-like rules of the past were quickly vanishing, woman did not wish to “button-up their gloves,” speak in the refined language of the aristocracy, or partake in the feminine submissiveness demanded by woman of the pre-flapper era. The Flapper Revolution called on young woman who dress in revealing clothing rode in automobiles, flirted with men and sought out individual pleasures; flapper became the “epitome of modernism” (Gourley). Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald would become the poster-girl for the modern woman, embodying all aspects of the flapper lifestyle. Daisy Buchanan, the character most notably inspired from Zelda in Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby, too, became representative of the flapper lifestyle. Daisy, like Zelda, sought to find a liberated self, breaking the barriers of tradition with her open sexuality and personification of the “freedoms of modern life” (Chadwick).

Daisy’s life and relations in the novel seem to parallel Zelda’s life in most aspects. Daisy was a woman who lived for the moment, preoccupied by the today over the tomorrow, a belief system advocated by Zelda herself (“The Great Gatsby”). And like Zelda, Daisy came from a southern, aristocratic family of “old money”; she was a girl who knew “how to dress, how to act and what to say in order to maintain appearances” (Willett). Daisy was the perfect representation of the changing roles of woman during the 20’s; she portrayed the dichotomy of both the sexual and virginal woman of the time. 

Fitzgerald’s relation with Zelda becomes present as the novel progresses through Daisy’s relationship with Jay Gatsby. Gatsby and Daisy were separated by a class distinction that would not allow Daisy, whom was graced with a “voice of money” as described by Fitzgerald, to elope with a soldier of no particular social class. However much like Fitzgerald returned with wealth to redeem himself, Gatsby also returned to New York to finally return to his love Daisy; both men feeding their respective lover “illusion that money makes everything beautiful, even if it’s not” (“The Great Gatsby”). Though Daisy is married, Gatsby persist on seducing the “idea of Daisy…rather than the real woman she is”.

When viewing Zelda and Scott as portrayed through Daisy and Gatsby, Fitzgerald’s frustrations in his marriage to Zelda become apparent. He has personified Zelda as a detached and irresponsible wife. As Daisy practically ignored her “beautiful little fool” child, Zelda did as well, with her conveniently equivalent daughter. And Daisy’s dependency on her husband Tom, for his money and strength, parallel Zelda’s necessity of financial stability. 

Zelda’s affair becomes a key role in the novel’s plot. “Daisy’s two betrayals of Gatsby were based on Zelda’s broken engagement to Scott and her romance with Jozan” (Cline). In the novel, Gatsby valiantly tries to reserve Daisy’s love for himself, much like Scott attempts to do with Zelda after the Jozan episode. Scott goes on to take inspiration from Zelda in Daisy’s response, “…I love you now – isn’t that enough? I can’t help what has passed” (Cline). As the lust for Daisy brought success the downfall of Gatsby, early Fitzgerald biographers defined Zelda as both “an inspiration and a liability”, even Hemingway characterized a fictional Zelda, in A Movable Feast, as a harridan who derailed her husband’s career.

By the end of the novel, Gatsby and Daisy cannot be together; Gatsby is killed and Daisy returns to her abusive relationship. Scott and Gatsby’s “American Dream” become a fantasy alone, as Gatsby died, so did the illusion of Fitzgerald’s marriage to Zelda. Fitzgerald makes the claim that his relationship with Zelda was improbable from its conception. The tragic ending of the novel does not only provide a glimpse into the dismal delusions brought on by Scott and Zelda’s disconnect from reality, but the universal illusions construed in lust, ambition and the inability to move on from the past.

Symbols in The Great Gatsby

The Valley of Ashes

Valley of Ashes represents absolute poverty and hopelessness.

“This is a valley of ashes – a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of ash-grey men, who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air. Occasionally a line of grey cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak, and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-grey men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud, which screens their obscure operations from your sight. … The valley of ashes is bounded on one side by a small foul river, and, when the drawbridge is up to let barges through, the passengers on waiting trains can stare at the dismal scene for as long as half an hour.” 

The lower classes who inhibit this region all want to leave but cannot. This illustrates how the American Dream is impossible to achieve. For example, Myrtle dies trying to escape the Valley of Ashes. Also, when Tom visits, it shows the difference between the rich and poor. 

 “Hello, Wilson, old man,” said Tom, slapping him jovially on the shoulder. “How’s business?”

            “I can’t complain,” answered Wilson unconvincingly. “When are you going to sell me that car?”

            “Next week; I’ve got my man working on it now.”

            “Works pretty slow, don’t he?”

            “No, he doesn’t,” said Tom coldly. “And if you feel that way about it, maybe I’d better sell it somewhere else after all.”

            “I don’t mean that,” explained Wilson quickly. (Pg 28)

This confrontation of Tom and George shows how the rich look down on the poor because of the difference in their social status. It represents the moral and social decay hidden by the West, and East Egg. The valley is created through industrial dumping and thus a by-product of capitalism. The people and also the environmental are suffering. Tom, Daisy, and Jordan, with their empty, void lives, are the characters represented as the formless bodies of ashes in the valley of ashes. The ashes are symbols of dead, with more self-centered and arrogant people arising from them. Every generation, the ashes pile distorting the American Dream further.

 The Eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg

The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are a pair of fading, bespectacled eyes painted on an old advertising billboard over the valley of ashes. They may represent God staring down upon and judging American society as a moral wasteland, though the novel never makes this point explicitly. Instead, throughout the novel, Fitzgerald suggests that symbols only have meaning because characters instill them with meaning. The connection between the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg and God exists only in George Wilson’s grief-stricken mind. This lack of concrete significance contributes to the unsettling nature of the image. Thus, the eyes also come to represent the essential meaninglessness of the world and the arbitrariness of the mental process by which people invest objects with meaning. Nick explores these ideas in Chapter 8, when he imagines Gatsby’s final thoughts as a depressed consideration of the emptiness of symbols and dreams.

Cars 

The American Dream involves people trying to gain wealth and status. And through the desire to obtain this dream, became the significance of cars. Cars were seen as a status of wealth and a sense of new found freedom. In the novel, Gatsby possesses countless cars, one of them being the Rolls-Royce. “It was a rich cream color, bright and there in it’s monstrous length with triumphant hat-boxes and supper-boxes and tool-boxes, and terraced with a labyrinth of wind-shields that mirrored a dozen suns.”  The reason his car is yellow is to attract Daisy and to display his achievement of wealthy status. However, there is a conflict with this materialistic view of cars. For example, the conflict arises where Myrtle is struck and killed by a car. This exemplifies irony because Myrtle believes the individual driving the car is Tom. Tom is her ticket to the American Dream and leaving the Valley of Ashes. However, it is ultimately this desire for her American Dream which kills her. 

Weather

As in much of Shakespeare’s work, the weather in “The Great Gatsby” unfailingly matches the emotional and narrative tone of the story. Gatsby and Daisy’s reunion begins amid a pouring rain, proving awkward and melancholy; their love reawakens just as the sun begins to come out. Gatsby’s climactic confrontation with Tom occurs on the hottest day of the summer, under the scorching sun (like the fatal encounter between Mercutio and Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet). Wilson kills Gatsby on the first day of autumn, as Gatsby floats in his pool despite a palpable chill in the air—a symbolic attempt to stop time and restore his relationship with Daisy to the way it was five years before, in 1917.

The heat becomes oppressive during the climactic scene in the novel. Tom, Daisy, Nick, Jordan, and Gatsby head to the city as tension increases. Nick describes the day as "broiling, almost the last, certainly the warmest of the summer" (102). Daisy complains, "It's so hot, and everything's so confused" (106). linking the oppressive heat with the oppressive situation. It's possible, as well, that the heat is, in some way, symbolic of hell and damnation. It is in chapter 7 that Gatsby's dream is crushed and Myrtle Wilson's infidelity is discovered.

Geography (East vs West )

Throughout the novel, places and settings epitomize the various aspects of the 1920s American society that Fitzgerald depicts. East Egg represents the old aristocracy, West Egg the newly rich, the valley of ashes the moral and social decay of America, and New York City the uninhibited, amoral quest for money and pleasure. Additionally, the East is connected to the moral decay and social cynicism of New York, while the West (including Midwestern and northern areas such as Minnesota) is connected to more traditional social values and ideals. Nick’s analysis in Chapter 9 of the story he has related reveals his sensitivity to this dichotomy: though it is set in the East, the story is really one of the West, as it tells how people originally from west of the Appalachians (as all of the main characters are) react to the pace and style of life on the East Coast.

Green: Life, Vitality, The Future, Exploration

We’re thinking green = plants and trees and stuff, so life and springtime and other happy things. Do we see this in The Great Gatsby? The most noticeable image is that green light we seem to see over and over. You know, the green light of the "orgastic future" that we stretch our hands towards, etc. etc. We can definitely see green as being hopeful, as being the future, as being vitality and freshness. Right before these famous last lines, Nick also describes the "fresh, green breast of the new world," the new world being this land as Nick imagines it existed hundreds of years before. The new world might be green, but when Nick imagines Gatsby’s future without Daisy, he sees "a new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about...like that ashen fantastic figure gliding toward him through the amorphous trees." Nick struggles to define what the future really means, especially as he faces the new decade before him (the dreaded thirties). Is he driving on toward grey, ashen death through the twilight, or reaching out for a bright, fresh green future across the water?

Green also represents spring, which is a new beginning or hope.

Once also used for envy. [“In the sunlight his (George Wilson’s) face wasgreen.”]

Gatsby

The ‘green light at the end of Daisy’s dock’ is the representation of ‘The American Dream’, the desire to succeed in life which again refers to money.

The green light also represents hope. Gatsby was hoping to restore his ancient relationship with Daisy that has long been impossible, though Gatsby failed to realize it because he was blinded by the hope generated by the green light. It insinuates that hope is not always a reality.

Nick encounters Gatsby standing in Gatsby’s lawn in the dead of night, and describes what he sees:

“…he stretched out his arms towards the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him I could have sworn he was trembling involuntarily I glanced seaward – and distinguishing nothing except a single green light, minute and faraway, that might have been the end of a dock.

The symbolism of green throughout the novel is as variable and contradictory as the many definitions of “green” and the many uses of money—”new,” “natural,” “innocent,” “naive,” and “uncorrupted”; but also “rotten,” “gullible,” “nauseous,” and “sickly.”

Yellow and Gold

First off, we’ve got yellows and golds, which we’re thinking has something to do with…gold (in the cash money sense). Why gold and not green? Because we’re talking about the real stuff, the authentic, traditional, "old money" – not these new-fangled dollar bills. So you’ve got your "yellow cocktail music" playing at Gatsby’s party where the turkeys are "bewitched to dark gold" and Jordan and Nick sit with "two girls in yellow." It seems clear, then, that Gatsby is using these parties to try to fit in with the "old money" crowd. And it doesn’t stop there; when Gatsby is finally going to see Daisy again at Nick’s house, he wears a goldtie. Nick later mentions the "pale gold odor of kiss-me-at-the-gate," which may seem weird (since last we checked, colors didn’t have a smell) until we remember Nick’s description of New York as "a wish out of non-olfactory money." Odor then is associated with gold, and non-odor with money. The difference? Perhaps the same distinction as Daisy’s upper class world and Gatsby’s new-found wealth. While Gatsby buys a yellowcar to further promote his facade, he’s really not fooling anyone. Lastly, we’ve got Daisy, who is only called "the golden girl" once Gatsby realizes that her voice, her main feature, is "full of money." Yellow is not just the color of money, but also of destruction. Yellow is the color of the car that runs down Myrtle. The glasses of Eckleburg, looking over the wasteland of America, are yellow. This dual symbolism clearly associates money with destruction; the ash heaps are the filthy result of the decadent lifestyle led by the rich.

 Yellow also represents corruptness. Gatsby's car is yellow, a product of his corrupt dealings, as are the spectacles of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg. It's probably not a coincidence that the novel's most impure character is named after a yellow flower. Gold has earned its place among the all time symbols of corruption and greed, although most wouldn't mind having more of it.

Daisy

Like her name suggests, is a flower with white petals and a yellowcentre. It kind of shows that Daisy looks innocent and pure on the outside, like her petals, but is rotten on the inside, which is represented by the yellow part of the flower.

She ends up killing Myrtle even though she looks so harmless on the outside.

Grey and a General Lack of Color: Lifelessness.

Then there is the lack of color presented in the grey ash heaps. If the ash heaps are associated with lifelessness and barrenness, and grey is associated with the ash heaps, anyone described as grey is going to be connected to barren lifelessness. Our main contender is Wilson: "When anyone spoke to him he invariably laughed in an agreeable colorless way." Wilson’s face is "ashen." His eyes are described as "pale" and "glazed." It is then no coincidence that Wilson is the bearer of lifelessness, killing Gatsby among yellow leaved trees, which we already decided had something to do with destruction.

Represents a dullness or a loss of hope, lack of happiness, lack of life.

Can also represent the fading of blue, which means the fading of dreams.

It is the main description of the ‘Valley of Ashes’

Jordan

- Jordan has grey eyes.

“Her grey, sun-strained eyes…”

They show lack of love and a general boredom in life because she is surrounded by everything she wants and has no dreams and no plans for the future.

- The first time Gatsby and Nick meet, they make a reference to the war saying:

“We talked for a moment about some wet, grey little villages in France.”

The villages are seen as sad as they have suffered during the war and can also be referred to ‘The Valley of Ashes’.

Blue: This One’s Up For Grabs

Then there’s the color blue, which we think represents Gatsby’s illusions - his deeply romantic dreams of unreality. We did notice that the colorblue is present around Gatsby more so than any other character. His gardens are blue, his chauffeur wears blue, the water separating him from Daisy is his "blue lawn," mingled with the "blue smoke of brittle leaves" in his yard. His transformation into Jay Gatsby is sparked by Cody, who buys him, among other things, a "blue coat." Before you tie this up under one simple label, keep in mind that the eyes of T.J. Eckleburg are also blue, and so is Tom’s car. If blue represents illusions and alternatives to reality, God may be seen as a non-existent dream.

Gatsby

- Blue is used to describe Jay Gatsby’s gardens where people come and go to parties as they please. His “blue” gardens are representative of a fantasyland. Blue represents Gatsby’s dreamland which he thinks is reality.

- “In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars”

- “He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it”

- When Dan Cody buys Gatsby a blue coat, among other things, he begins to become more prosperous and wealthy. Maybe in the dream, his success may have been caused by the blue coat, but in reality, it was probably just a coincidence.

White: Innocence and Femininity. 

While we’re looking at cars, notice that Daisy’s car (back before she was married) was white. So are her clothes, the rooms of her house, and about half the adjectives used to describe her (her "white neck," "white girlhood," the king’s daughter "high in a white palace"). Everyone likes to say that white in The Great Gatsby means innocence, probably because 1) that’s easy to say and 2) everyone else is saying it. But come on – Daisy is hardly the picture of girlish innocence. At the end of the novel, she is described as selfish, careless, and destructive. Does this make the point that even the purest characters in Gatsby have been corrupted? Did Daisy start off all innocent and fall along the way, or was there no such purity to begin with? Or, in some way, does Daisy’s decision to remain with Tom allow her to keep her innocence? We’ll keep thinking about that one.

Symbolizes purity and innocence

Mostly symbolizes Daisy and Jordan. They are usually wearing white.

- Jordan and Daisy’s girlhood is described as “beautiful white.”

-  “They are both in white.”

- “Daisy and Jordan lay upon an enormous couch, like silver idols weighing down their own white dresses…”

Daisy

Daisy seems to always be connected to the colour white.

- On the day Daisy kissed Gatsby. “Daisy’s white face came up to his own.”

- “Our beautiful white [girlhood]-”

- “Her face bent into the single wrinkle of the small white neck.”

- “High in a white palace the king’s daughter…”

Childhood represents innocence and because the colour white is associated with innocence, white becomes a representation of innocence.It makes it seem that Daisy was innocent when she was younger.

- When Gatsby first knew Daisy, “…she dressed in white, and had a little white roadster…”

- ”When I came opposite her house that morning her white roadster was beside the curb…”

- ”…November night and revisiting the out-of-the-way places to which they had driven in her white car.”

Jordan

Jordan is also described with the word white, although not as often as Daisy.

- “Jordan’s fingers, powdered white over their tan…”

- “Aunt Jordan’s got a white dress too.”

Gatsby

Gatsby is also frequently described with white.

- The steps on Gatsby’s house are white. (It kinda means that on the outside the house looks innocent but on the inside it is not).

- “On the white steps an obscene word,…”

- “… made a bright sort of colour against the white steps…when I first came to his ancestral home.”

- When Gatsby wanted to meet Daisy for the first time in 5 years, he wore a white suit to show that he was good, pure and honest to appease Daisy.

- “…and Gatsby, in a white flannel suit, silver shirt and gold-coloured tie…”

- When Gatsby was stopped by the police for speeding.

“Taking a white card from his wallet, he waved it before the man’s eyes…”

Nick

Nick is also usually dressed in white to symbolize his innocence. He believes that he himself “is the most honest person he knows.”

- “…I am one of the few honest people I have ever known.”

- The first time he went to Gatby’s party he wore white.

- “Dressed up in white flannels I went over to his lawn a little after seven…”