• The Great Gatsby
    by F. Scott Fitzgerald
    The Great American Novel

    Enrichment/Exploration Options

    1. Go to the back counter in the classroom:
      • Read "The Love before Zelda" about how he loved a girl before his wife...and how this girl is essentially Daisy (article on the back counter in class)
      • take a secondary source article and peruse it - if you like it print one for yourself from the website.
    2. Look at your book
      • Look at the epigraph in the beginning of the text (it's on the inside cover page.) What does this mean? How does it connect to the ideas of the text.
      • Reread the opening pages and compare them to our close reading of the final pages.  What do you see?
      • Choose any section of the novel you'd like to revisit/re-read and explore it/discuss it with a friend.
    3. Fitzgerald considered other titles for his novel.  What do you think of them? Why is the final title (The Great Gatsby) good or bad?
    4. Read Fitzgerald's Letters to his Editor
    5. Look at the covers of the books:  which do you like best, and why? Is there one that is truly best for the book? (If this link doesn't work, just plug "Gatsby novel covers" into google images!)
    6. Read his comments on this book and his writing overall
    7. Read his biographical background + commentary on the text
    8. LISTEN
      1. To this song ("Someone Like You" by Adele) that's essentially the plot of Gatsby...but not quite. Consider the greatest difference and how Adele's choices in response to her situation underscores Fitzgerald's message.
      2. There's also "If I Ain't Got You" by Alicia Keys, which also shows what Gatsby should have done but doesn't.
    9. WATCH The Great Gatsby Crash Course by John Green
    10. WATCH:  Fitzgerald's bio.

     

     
    Textual References
    • Background Information - this is a listing of some of the references made during the chapters.  It's very helpful for those things like "Teutonic" and "rotogravure"
       
    • Gatsby's house is compared to France's Hotel de Ville.  A gorgeous structure, it conveys the opulence of his lifestyle.
     
    The Narrator:  Nick Carraway
    We have learned a good deal about Nick, both through indirect and direct characterization, and will continue to do so throughout the novel.  Before continuing, however, do you view Nick as reliable?  After reading the article given in class, please respond to the question posted on the blog page.
    F. Scott Fitzgerald, author
     
    Personal Life
     
    His wife, Zelda, to whom this novel is dedicated, was a paradoxical figure for Fitzgerald.  Read more about her here.  She apparently was not his first love, however.  This article from the Princeton Alumni Weekly chronicles another love who supposedly inspired the character of Daisy.   Ginevra King was known as "The Love Before Zelda."