Hi.
Are you lost?
What do you mean, ‘where are you’? You’re in Long Island, dude.
Why am I dressed like that? It’s the jazz age, baby!
What? Look outside. It’s the 1920s, man. You’re in the 1920s. WAKE UP.
And get dressed, we’re going to a party tonight. Gatsby’s place, fancy shit.
PART 1: SOCIAL CONTEXT
Since you just explained to me that you’re a time traveler from the year 2024 (not a real year and I don’t believe you), let me explain a thing or two about our 1920s to you:
Who won this war? The allies, of course. The UK, France, Japan, Italy and, of course, the USA. AAAND, because we won THE Great War, now we’re partying. Hard.
So… we’re in the ‘Roaring Twenties’! And since it’s all about the parties, let me show you what you’ll typically find in a party:
Flappers are a subculture of young Western women prominent after our WW1 ended. As you can see, they wear really short skirts! Knee height! Can you believe that?! Outrageous. Their hair is usually short, they love dancing to some jazz, and they’ll most likely be prone to disdain prevailing codes of decent behavior.
What do we listen to…? Jazz! All the way! And in the latest technology… the RADIO! On November 2, 1920, the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company of Pittsburgh made the first scheduled transmission of a commercial radio station under the call sign KDKA. Just four short years later, there were 600 stations across the U.S.! Ain’t that nice?
Well, this is the latest mode in Architecture. Very classy, take a look!
So ‘Art Deco’! Oh, you don’t know what Art Deco is? Uhm… it’s French, you know? It’s modernism turned into fashion. It’s a sleek and anti-traditional elegance that symbolizes wealth and sophistication. It’s Avant-Garde. You don’t know what that is? Me neither.
And that’s all you need to know! The economy? It’s good. Who cares, anyway!
The party is almost starting, let’s go!
PART TWO: WHO DOESN’T KNOW THE GREAT GATSBY? OR SHOULD WE ASK.. WHO DOES KNOW THE GREAT GATSBY?
Oh, the post war… extravagant clothes, extravagant lifestyles and “all that jazz”…
‘The Great Gatsby’, a classic novel by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald is truly a product of the time it was made. Once described by T.S Eliot as “The first American fiction advance since Henry James”, the novel paints a faithful portrait of society in the ‘Roaring’ 1920s, materialistic, greedy and irresponsible.
I’ll walk you through the story, so grab your books, because we’re discussing CHAPTERS 1-2.
- CHAPTER 1
On chapter one, we’re introduced to the narrator of the book, your regular Joe, from Minnesota. His name is NICK CARRAWAY. Don’t forget that name.
He begins the book by, of course, talking about himself1. He tells us that he learned a very important lesson from his father: To reserve judgment about other people, because if he holds them up to his own moral standards, he will misunderstand them. Nick’s view of himself is that he’s both as highly moral and highly tolerant.
And then, he comes up with that shit of ‘I knew a guy… once.’
That guy represented everything he scorns (his own words), but Nick will never judge him (something he does a lot), because he’s in love with him he says that Gatsby’s personality, besides all that, was nothing short of “gorgeous”.
LORE ALERT: In the summer of 1922, Nick arrives in New York, where he moved to work in the bond business2, and rented a house on a part of Long Island called West Egg.
Now, there’s East Egg and West Egg. That’s an important distinction. East Egg is for people that had inter generational money, old, old, old money! West Egg is for the so called “new rich”, characterized by lavish displays of wealth and garish poor taste. It’s important to note that Nick is somewhat different than his West Egg neighbors. The ‘self made new rich’ totally lack what ‘old money’ people have, connections and pedigree. Nick graduated from Yale! Fun fact! Plus, he had many connections on East Egg.
Nick’s house in West Egg looked like any other b’s house. Regular. Just like him.
Now, I’d like to imagine Gatsby’s place being something like this:
On chapter one, we get introduced to many of the main characters.
One night, he drives out to East Egg to have dinner with his cousin Daisy (there’s always a rich cousin) and her husband, Tom Buchanan, whom Nick already knew because he was also a member of Nick’s social club back at Yale. Daisy is also there with a friend, Jordan Baker, who’s completely bored with everything about her life, and represents the hollowness of upper class people.
The dinner is awkward af, Daisy and Tom both suggest that Nick and Jordan should get together and that was it.
When Nick finally arrives home, after one disaster of a night, he sees Gatsby for the first time, a “handsome young man standing on the lawn with his arms reaching out toward the dark water”.
Nick looks out at the water, but all he can see is a distant green light that might mark the end of a dock.
QUOTES I HIGHLIGHTED
“I hope she’ll be a fool - that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”
Said by Daisy
“I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.”
Said by Nick
ANALYSIS
Quotes like the last one that I highlighted really show you the overall vibe of the book. Nick wrote the story because he wanted to belong - he was a passive observer of his own life, and the dramatic story of West Egg was no different. He was just looking at it.
To me, personally, Nick has always been a really complex character and a very unreliable narrator, because he contradicts himself quite a lot throughout the book. He describes himself as being ‘highly moral and highly tolerant’, as said earlier, but looks at both the shallowness of East Egg and the decadence of West Egg with the same judgmental approach, as if he had a better sense of self than most people - he doesn’t.
Nick goes to the Midwest to find a less ‘strict’ environment, maybe in hopes to find himself. And, in my opinion, he begins to become obsessed with what Gatsby represents because it’s something that is completely different from what he finds acceptable, but he can’t quite comprehend why he’s so drawn to it, which leads him into obsession.
I was always impressed with the ‘East Egg’ side of things, because it’s one of the parts in the book where you can really see the suffering and the depression behind the sparkly, shiny things. Fitzgerald was very careful when writing the dialogue for this book, and you can definitely tell. Every single word that comes out of Daisy or Tom’s mouth will tell you exactly who they are, even when there is zero backstory to the characters yet. The author writes it carefully, so it all unveils beautifully, like an orchestra.
Daisy and Tom are, for me, the best written characters of this novel. Daisy is extremely complex and doesn’t have a sense of who she is. The same for Tom. The self indulgence, the lovers, his extravagance and his hideous behavior shows someone who hides under a mask. Someone deeply unhappy and unfulfilled.
Jordan Baker is also an example of someone with power, beauty and wealth who is deeply unhappy with her own life. But, the thing is: she never hid it. She’s almost cynical. And that’s all there is to her.
And of course, Gatsby. The full opposite of everything that East Egg represents. And of course, the green light. Nick doesn’t know the reasoning behind the green light yet, but his eagerness to find out makes us want to read another chapter to find out more as well.
I like to think of East/West Egg as the contemporary Capulet and Montague, the only difference being the criteria that makes them different. In Gatsby’s story, that’s money. How old is their money, how clean is their money. For the average person like me and you, that doesn’t matter when you’re partying inside a house with millions of bedrooms, money IS money. But that’s not how some people think, especially upper echelon.
At the end of the day, I couldn’t care less. Not a single one of these people is helping anyone to get free healthcare, anyway.
CHAPTER 2
- “Halfway between West Egg and New York City sprawls a desolate plain, a gray valley where New York’s ashes are dumped.” […] “The men who live here work at shoveling up the ashes.”
Did you know that this is an ACTUAL real place3?
Anyway, in chapter two, as our least favorite besties Nick and Tom are riding the train into the city, Tom forces Nick to follow him out of the train at one of the train’s stops. Tom leads Nick to George Wilson’s garage, which sits on the edge of the valley of ashes. Why is that, you might ask. Well… Tom has a lover.
Tom’s lover is George Wilson’s wife, Myrtle. Ta-da! Wilson is described as handsome, but lifeless. The ashes colored him gray and striped him away from any sort of vitality. Go girl, give us nothing!
In contrast, Myrtle is more alive than ever. She’s super vital, and even sexy to Nick. (But Nick is totally what we would call an incel in today’s terms). He’s totally unreliable, don’t you forget about that.
George Wilson is SO lifeless (he’s dead inside) that he lets Tom be a b*tch to him and take his wife away. Off to the train they go, I guess.
Tom takes Nick and Myrtle to New York City, to the Morningside Heights apartment he keeps for his affair. Typical. And… it’s the 1920s, of course there’s a party happening. In the party are Myrtle’s sister, Catherine, and Mr. + Mrs. McKee (a really strange couple).
Catherine tells Nick that she has heard that Jay Gatsby “is the nephew or cousin of Kaiser Wilhelm, the ruler of Germany during World War I.” Like… what? Ok, girl. And then, Nick says that he only got drunk twice in his life, and that the second time was at that party.
The party is, of course, boring to our poor Nick. It seems like everyone is trying to put on a show to hide the deep and obscure parts of themselves. But, Nick is NOT like the other girls, he’s fascinated by everything that irks him. So, he stays at the party.
Then, the party ends with Tom being a monster (duh) and Nick takes the FOUR (4) A.M train back to Long Island LMAO. He’s so crazy, I love him.
ANALYSIS
When you think about this book, some words like opulence, lust, money, might come to mind. I love this chapter, because it’s totally not what it is about.
The ‘valley of ashes’ is the one common thing between East and West Egg. It’s an ugly dump of ashes that is common to both sides because it’s a direct product of capitalism. Both sides contributed to the industrial dumping by trying to get richer and richer. It’s also where the (few) poor people in the novel live.
In the summary of the chapter, there is something that I left aside for you, which is a billboard on the valley of Doctor T.J Eckleburg. And that’s because it’s something that was kind of ‘left aside’ by Fitzgerald, but readers around the world give it great value. The author, through Nick, does as much as briefly mention the symbol, leaving the meaning of the billboard to interpretation.
In the book, Eckleburg’s eyes simply “brood on over the solemn dumping ground.” BUT - conspiracy theory moment - people say that actually, the doctor’s eyes represent the eyes of God, staring down at the moral decay of the 1920s. The faded aspect of the paint may also represent society’s ‘lost connection to God’, but that’s only speculation (as far as I know).
Also, New York City is portrayed to be completely different from the valley. In our protagonist’s eyes, it’s a very loud, obnoxious place. It’s repulsive to Nick, which makes it fascinating to him as well. (Damn, he’s repulsed by everything tbh). To him, New York is all glitz and glamour but it’s totally lacking morals. Like Tom!
Tom is “‘“‘forced’’’’’’’ to keep his affair with Myrtle a secret in East Egg, so it doesn’t hurt Daisy, and forced to keep it a secret in the valley because… Myrtle is literally a married woman (not that both care about it, they just want to keep their appearances).
New York is the place where both can be seen together, because there’s always weirder stuff to care about. Especially in the 1920s. This situation is what makes Nick a very unreliable character because he, as the king of morals and justice, seems to not care that his cousin is getting cheated on, AND that Tom publicly shows that to people.
Now, Tom is a very well written character, as said before, because he manages to piss me off every time that I read this book. He is a dirty manipulator, using his social status to make people into whatever he wants them to be. He wants Daisy as his wife, Myrtle as his lover, and he wants George Wilson to be okay with it. Because he’s THE Tom Buchanan, he expresses his authority onto people by just being himself.
This is another example of Fitzgerald using contrast to define characters’s moral compasses. Tom has a lot of money, but lacks basic human decency, whereas George has good morals but has no money. Men like Tom take everything from men like George, no matter what their morals might be. And that’s the way it has always been.
Fitzgerald also makes a very prolific usage of the party scene to return the narrative back to Gatsby, because we would forget about him otherwise! He didn’t make a significant appearance in the book yet. At the party, he is the subject of a very insane rumor, which proves to us, readers, that everyone knows him, but no one TRULY knows him (hence this part two’s title).
And that’s it for today! Now open your little notebooks to save the dates for parts TWO, THREE AND FOUR:
PART TWO COMES OUT 10/13
PART THREE COMES OUT 10/27
PART FOUR COMES OUT 11/10
Phew! That was a lot of work. Our book club is meant to be completely free, so that I can manage to bring literature to everyone. But, if you liked the content and want to support me, I’d love if you could become a paid subscriber to my main account, Certified. Thank you!!!
See you around, I guess.
He’ll do this a lot.
The bond business is a very, very vague reference to working on Wall Street and trading stocks and bonds as a career. Nick and his loser ass clearly had no talent for that.
THE CORONA ASH DUMPS:
“The prospect of creating a port was halted in 1917 by material restrictions caused by World War I, and a lack of federal support for the project. Industrial activities in the borough were fulfilled by existing terminals in Long Island City, Maspeth, Flushing, and College Point. Dumping of ash into the meadows continued, however, fueled by the increased use of garbage incinerators in the city. The area became known as the Corona Dump or Corona Ash Dumps. During nearly 30 years of filling, around 50 million cubic yards of ash and waste were dumped onto the meadows site. One particular mound of ash rose 90 feet (27 m) high and was called "Mount Corona". Other mounds rose 40–50 feet (12–15 m) high. The average thickness of the ash was 30 feet (9.1 m).”
“The dumps drew the ire of local residents, due to strong odors and being deemed unsightly, along with increasing rat infestations in the local neighborhoods.Much of the "street sweepings" collected consisted of horse manure from horse-drawn carriages. In addition, many residents simply threw out normal garbage along with the coal ashes. The meadows were also considered one of the worst breeding grounds for mosquitoes in the city.
The dump was famously characterized as "a valley of ashes" in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.”
“Fitzgerald meanwhile described the Flushing River, now polluted from the dumps, as "a small foul river". The dumps and garbage trains were accused of facilitating a polio outbreak in Corona in 1916. The Brooklyn Ash Removal Company was brought to court by local residents in 1923 for "violation of the sanitary code" due to the smoke emitted from the dumps. As a minor concession, the company opened the Corona Park Golf and Country Club in 1931, on a tract near Nassau Boulevard (today's Long Island Expressway).”
I have read this book 4 times. Every time I read it I find something different. I love how you opened your piece. I know everything you talked about. You have it fresh air for me. Getting into it I was very neutral on the characters. I never read this in school. I started it on my own learning about Fitzgerald. Every character has their flaws. Boy, a lot. I'm so ready for the rest. When you asked for ideas, this came to my mind. Hemingway is the other. But anyways this was great. Every piece you write I am captured. Your thoughts and ideas just fill me. Thank you 🫶🌹💯🕺💃
Amanda what kind of joke is this one!! Im not lying when I say i just watched this money a week ago. This telepathy thing is getting serious with you girl 💖💅🏻✨ we need to make a collab for real. Ps: great article, very educational and well researched 👏🏻👏🏻 as always great work.