The Great Gatsby

Discussion

Discussion Items

• Characters• Setting• Plot• Theme• Mood/Structure• Fictional Technique

• Historical Context• F. Scott Fitzgerald’s

biography• Your Point of View

Setting

The time and place in which a narrative takes place; the physical and psychological background against which the action of a story takes place; the scenery and stage effects for a dramatic production.– Environment: The surrounding things, conditions,

and influences in the narrative.– Place: The physical location of the narrative. – Time: The period or era in which the narrative takes

place.

Setting as Means to Convey Theme

• Midwest vs. East• West Egg - where Nick and Gatsby live,

represents new money• East Egg - where Daisy lives, the more

fashionable area, represents old money• The City - New York City, where the characters

escape for work and play • The Valley of Ashes - between the City and

West Egg, site of Wilson’s gas station

East vs. West

• The East is corrupt. The West is innocent.• Nick, Jordan, Tom, and Daisy are all from the

West.• The image of the West in America: the frontier,

possibility, Hollywood. • Nick remembers life in the Midwest, full of

snow, trains, and Christmas wreaths, and thinks that the East seems grotesque and distorted by comparison.

Nick’s Memory of the Middle West

East: Setting Based on Real Places

Queens and Long Island

• The Valley of the Ashes is modeled on the city dump Fitzgerald passed many times, traveling between Manhattan and Great Neck.

• The huge fading eyes of T. J. Eckleburg convert a commonplace eyesore into a vast metaphor of modern desolation and futility.

• Great Neck is refashioned into West Egg. • Manhasset is turned into East Egg (where the

sun rises).

NYCIn Manhattan: action takes place in specific locations.• Tom's love nest is on west 158th Street.• Nick first encounters Meyer Wolfshiem in a cellar

restaurant on Forty-second Street. • Nick dines at the Yale Club and often strolls afterward

"down Madison Avenue past the old Murray Hill Hotel, and over Thirty-third Street to the Pennsylvania Station.”

• Wolfshiem's office is on frenzied Broadway. • The main characters assemble at the Plaza Hotel, which

Tom specifies as being on the south side of Central Park.

After Jordan tells Nick about Daisy and Gatsby…

Classwork

• Find quotations that describe settings.• Look for contrasts between east and west,

night and day, rain and sun.• Notice the sensory details and the language

that FSF uses to develop these settings.• Note at least five quotations about setting.• Then…

Classwork

• Choose your favorite quotation. Note the first and last words and page number.

• Do a LIP Analysis:– Literal translation: rewrite the text in Nutley English– Interpret: explain how the setting conveys a

specific message or theme– Personal connection: make it yours.

• Draw an illustration, map or a diagram, or• Write a detailed description of the setting as you

imagine it.

By Lucy Bowes: http://lucybowes.blogspot.com/2010/03/illustrations-inspired-by-great-gatsby.html