A Study Guide (New Edition) for F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide (New Edition) for F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby", excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Feb 15, 2019
• ISBN: 9780028666334

Book preview

18

The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald

1925

Introduction

The Great Gatsby is a novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, first published on April 10, 1925, by Charles Scribner's Sons. It received mixed reviews from critics and was a commercial failure. It was never out of print in Fitzgerald's lifetime, but only because there were copies left over from its initial printings. Interest in the book was rekindled after his death, and it is now regarded as the greatest novel of the Jazz Age; indeed, it has been Scribner's best-selling title for years since its rediscovery.

Nick Carraway, the narrator, tells the story of Jay Gatsby, his mysterious and fabulously wealthy neighbor on Long Island in 1922, famous for the wild parties he hosts at his mansion. The two become friends, and when Gatsby discovers that Nick is the cousin of his long-lost love, Daisy Buchanan, the stage is set for a destructive conflict involving Gatsby; Nick; Daisy; her husband, Tom; and several others. The novel is at once a love story and a biting critique of the American dream. Its themes, ranging from romantic relationships and deceit to the inescapability of the past, elevate it to the ranks of great American literature.

Author Biography

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born on February 24, 1896, in St. Paul, Minnesota. His father was a furniture manufacturer who later worked for Procter and Gamble; his mother was the daughter of an Irish wholesale grocer. His upbringing was upper middle class and comfortable. Until he was twelve, the family lived in Buffalo, New York, where he demonstrated an interest in literature; by the time the family moved back to St. Paul, his interest in writing was evident. He attended Princeton University in 1913, but by this time his dedication to the writer's life outweighed his interest in academic studies, and in 1917, after being placed on academic probation for poor grades, he dropped out and joined the army.

While serving as a lieutenant at a base in Alabama, he met Zelda Sayre, a young Montgomery socialite, and fell in love with her. After his discharge, to prove his ability to support her, he moved to New York and found a job with an advertising agency, but she ultimately broke off their engagement. He moved back to St. Paul to revise a novel rejected several years earlier by Scribner's, meanwhile living in his parents' house and repairing car roofs for a meager living. Scribner's accepted the revision, titled This Side of Paradise, and published it in 1920 to immediate acclaim. The success of the novel provided him with financial security; Zelda was impressed enough to renew their engagement and marry Fitzgerald in 1921.

Fame opened the doors of the publishing world, and Fitzgerald's short stories were published in the Saturday Evening Post, Collier's, and Esquire. He also made several trips to Paris, home to a thriving American expatriate community that included such famous writers as Ernest Hemingway, with whom he became close friends. However, Fitzgerald's literary efforts failed to earn him enough income to support the life of excess he and his wife craved, which included endless parties, copious drinking, and increasingly bitter quarrels. Her diaries and letters provided him