The Great Gatsby, a 1925 novel by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald, is set during the Jazz Age on Long Island near New York City. The narrative expresess Nick Carraway's interactions with the enigmatic millionaire Jay Gatsby and Gatsby's fixation on reuniting with his former lover, Daisy Buchanan. Inspired by Fitzgerald's youthful romance with socialite Ginevra King and the extravagant parties he attended on Long Island's North Shore in 1922, Fitzgerald completed a draft of the novel in 1924 after relocating to the French Riviera.
Upon its release by Scribner's in April 1925, The Great Gatsby garnered generally favorable reviews, though some critics felt it did not match Fitzgerald's earlier works. The novel sold fewer than 20,000 copies by October, dashing Fitzgerald's hopes for a significant financial return. When Fitzgerald died in 1940, he regarded himself as a failure and believed his work had been forgotten. However, during World War II, the novel's popularity surged when the Council on Books in Wartime distributed free copies to American soldiers overseas. Scholars focus on the novel's exploration of social class, inherited versus self-made wealth, gender, race, environmentalism, and its cynical perspective on the American Dream. The Great Gatsby is now esteemed as a literary masterpiece and a contender for the title of the Great American Novel.
The American Dream, the national ethos of the United States, asserts that everyone has the freedom and opportunity to achieve a better life. Popularized by James Truslow Adams during the Great Depression in 1931, the concept has evolved over time. Initially emphasizing democracy, liberty, and equality, the American Dream has more recently focused on material wealth and upward mobility. Set on the affluent Long Island of 1922, The Great Gatsby provides a critical social history of Prohibition-era America during the Jazz Age, capturing the period's jazz music, economic prosperity, flapper culture, libertine mores, rebellious youth, and ubiquitous speakeasies.
The novel is narrated by Nick Carraway, a Yale University graduate from the Midwest who moves to New York after World War I to pursue a career in bonds. He recounts the events of the summer he spent in the East two years later, reconstructing his story through a series of flashbacks not always in chronological order. Fitzgerald completed The Great Gatsby in early 1925 while living in France, and Scribner’s published it in April of the same year. Fitzgerald struggled with the title, considering options like Trimalchio and Under the Red, White and Blue, but ultimately published it as The Great Gatsby.
The original dust jacket illustration, commissioned by Fitzgerald’s editor Maxwell Perkins before the manuscript was finished, was designed by Francis Cugat. The artwork depicts the eyes of a woman hovering over the carnival lights of Coney Island. Fitzgerald claimed to have written this image into the book, though it remains unclear whether it refers to the eyes of Doctor Eckleburg or something else. Cugat’s painting is now one of the most celebrated examples of jacket art in American literature.
While Fitzgerald considered The Great Gatsby his greatest work, it was neither a critical nor commercial success upon release. The initial print run of 20,000 copies sold slowly, and a second printing during Fitzgerald’s lifetime also struggled. It was only after Fitzgerald's death that the novel was rediscovered, gaining significant popularity in the 1950s and becoming a staple in high-school curricula. Today, it is regarded as a masterpiece of American fiction and remains one of Scribner’s best sellers. In 2021, The Great Gatsby entered the public domain in the United States.
Several film adaptations of the novel have been produced, including a notable 1974 version directed by Jack Clayton and starring Robert Redford as Gatsby, and a 2013 version directed by Baz Luhrmann and starring Leonardo DiCaprio. The Great Gatsby is memorable for its rich symbolism, particularly the green light at the end of Daisy's dock, representing Gatsby's hopes and dreams for the future. Jay Gatsby, the wealthy, mysterious protagonist, embodies the futility of trying to recapture the past and the death of the American Dream.
The novel takes place in New York City in 1922, primarily in the fictional suburbs of East Egg and West Egg. The Valley of Ashes, a desolate area of industrial waste, serves as a stark contrast to the opulence of the Eggs and New York City.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, named after his distant cousin Francis Scott Key of "Star-Spangled Banner" fame, gained fame for works that epitomized the American experience of their time. The Great Gatsby, told from the perspective of Nick Carraway, unfolds in the pre-Great Depression era of economic prosperity in the United States.
Nick Carraway, a Yale graduate from the Midwest, moves to West Egg, Long Island, to learn about the bond business. "In my younger and more vulnerable years, my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. 'Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,' he told me, 'just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.'"
Nick rents a modest house next to the mansion of Jay Gatsby, a mysterious millionaire known for his extravagant parties. "There was music from my neighbor's house through the summer nights." Despite the parties, Gatsby remains an enigmatic figure to most of his guests, who speculate about his past. "Somebody told me they thought he killed a man once." "It's more that he was a German spy during the war."
Nick's cousin, Daisy Buchanan, lives in East Egg with her wealthy but brutish husband, Tom. "Their house was even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful red-and-white Georgian Colonial mansion, overlooking the bay." During a visit, Nick learns of Tom's affair with Myrtle Wilson, a woman from the Valley of Ashes, an industrial wasteland. "The fact that he had one was insisted upon wherever he was known."
Gatsby befriends Nick and reveals that he fell in love with Daisy during World War I. "Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay." He asks Nick to help him reconnect with her. "I’m going to call up Daisy tomorrow and invite her over here to tea." During their reunion, Gatsby is overwhelmed by his emotions. "He smiled like a weather man, like an ecstatic patron of recurrent light."
Daisy and Gatsby begin an affair, leading to tensions with Tom. "His dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it." During a trip to New York City, Tom confronts Gatsby about his past and relationship with Daisy. "Mr. Nobody from Nowhere," Tom calls him. Daisy, unable to commit to Gatsby, ultimately chooses Tom. "I did love him once—but I loved you too."
Driving back to Long Island, Daisy accidentally hits and kills Myrtle with Gatsby's car. "There was an unmistakable air of natural intimacy about the picture and anybody would have said that they were conspiring together." Gatsby decides to take the blame to protect Daisy. "But of course I'll say I was."
Myrtle's husband, George Wilson, believes Gatsby is responsible for the accident and for Myrtle's affair. "He had discovered that Myrtle had some sort of life apart from him in another world, and the shock had made him physically sick." In a fit of grief and rage, he kills Gatsby and then himself. "It was after we started with Gatsby toward the house that the gardener saw Wilson’s body a little way off in the grass, and the holocaust was complete."
Nick arranges Gatsby's funeral but is disheartened by the lack of attendees. "Nobody came." Disillusioned with the East Coast and its values, Nick returns to the Midwest. "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
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