THE GREAT GATSBY - WEEK 2 - CHAPTER 1

THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Alright everyone! It's Great Gatsby Day! Woohoo!! I'm going to start this post by saying that we could literally spend months discussing this book. ( Breathe! We're not going to do that! ) I am willing to take the discussion as deeply as you want to go, because Gatsby's going to bring us face to face with moral dilemmas in a lot of different areas. It can be a little tricky to navigate in the first couple of chapters, but if you stick with it, we're going to dive into some deep, but moving waters about midway through to the end.

There are lots of directions we can go with our discussions. Gatsby is chock full of literary devices. I will bring some to our attention periodically. There is the storyline to navigate, but there is also the glaring question of what would YOU do in some of the scenes/situations?

Okay, enough intro. Time to dig into the book.

We've got to start out by knowing who our narrator is. Meet Nick Carraway - Yale graduate, WWI veteran, currently a banker, just rented a home. Even though we're going to get to know Nick pretty well by the end of the book, this story really isn't about him. It's about Nick's neighbor, one Jay Gatsby.

Now Nick was given a piece of advice by his father that is important to tuck into the back of your mind somewhere. He told him that, "Whenever you feel like criticizing any one, just remember that all people in this world haven't had the advantages you have." Because Nick took this advice to heart, people feel like they can freely talk to him. They open up and "spill their guts." But Nick gives us a bit of foreshadowing here. He's talking to us after this story has happened and he's moved back to the Midwest where he was originally from. Not only that, he's changed his tune about tolerance. After experiencing all that he's going to tell us, he now wants the world to be "uniform" and at "moral attention forever." Only one person is exempted from this, and that's Gatsby.

This book takes place off of New York around Long Island in an area called West Egg and East Egg. They are separated by a bay. East Egg is the extravagantly wealthy area, and West Egg, still a very nice place, is not as fashionable as East Egg.

The actual story starts with an evening trip over to East Egg, where Nick visits with his distant cousin and her super wealthy husband, Daisy and Tom Buchanan. Nick knew Tom from his days at Yale. Even though they weren't socially from the same world, Tom always approved of Nick.

Okay, the stage is set, and I'm going to turn it over to you to comment. Tell me your thoughts on the first impression entering the room with Daisy and Jordan, what Tom's reading, the phone call at supper, Daisy's heart to heart with Nick (did you notice a King Solomon vibe?), Nick's first encounter with Gatsby, and what's the deal with the green light? So many places to go. Your choice what we discuss.