2. POINTS OF
DEPARTURE
• Does Gatsby represent the
American Dream?
• How does geography shape
social class in the Great
Gatsby?
• Is Nick a reliable narrator? Why
or why not?
3. ENVIRONMENT
How does Fitzgerald compare and
contrast the city with East Egg?
Find two specific, short quotes
that set up that comparison.
4. RELATIONSHIPS
How would Nick and Jordan
compare to John and May? How
would Tom and Daisy compare to
Desiree and Armand? Pick two
relationships—one from The
Great Gatsby and one from
another text we’ve read this
semester—and compare them.
5. GOSSIP
What sorts of things are gossiped
about in this book? Pick two
examples of things that are
gossiped about and trace them
through the text. Is there ever an
instance in which reality is just as
exciting as the hype?
6. WOMEN DRIVERS
Nick and the other male characters in this text assume that
women are “rotten drivers.”
• While nearly everyone in this book drives recklessly (see: the
first car accident outside of Gatsby’s party), women are
singled out as being unable to properly operate the vehicle
itself. Jordan, according to Nick, is a “rotten driver” because
she assumes everyone else will avoid the path of her car,
saying breezily, “it takes two to make an accident.” (That
could be a tagline for the entire novel!) Nick scolds her:
“Either you ought to be more careful, or you oughtn’t to drive
at all.”
• Similarly, when Daisy runs over Myrtle, she is physically
unable to control the vehicle at the key moment, and Gatsby
takes the wheel after the yellow roadster has struck Mrs.
Wilson.
Why aren’t there any skillful women drivers in this book?
7. WOMEN WHO DRINK
Everyone in The Great Gatsby drinks, and most to excess. And many experience extreme
emotions when drunk—Tom’s anger and Gatsby’s passionate desire for Daisy are two
examples. But it is women who in Fitzgerald’s novel get into the most uncontrollable states
when drunk.
• Daisy first drinks to excess just before her wedding (according to Jordan, who is scared
by the experience). She receives a letter from Gatsby that moves her to excessive tears.
She will not physically let go of the letter, not even when the maid gets her into the bath.
There is so much excess water—both from tears and from bathing—that the letter cannot
remain physically intact—it “com[es] to pieces like snow” once Jordan can finally pry it
from her hand.
• At Gatsby’s parties, the women who drink often exhibit excessive emotion, to the point
that they are considered non-functional not by themselves but by the men around them.
Miss Baedeker, for example, is prone to outburst: “When she’s had five or six cocktails
she always starts screaming like that.” But a doctor at the party, when called to attend the
woman, sticks her head in the pool despite her own protestations. Nick, too, sees the
woman as nonfunctional: “The girl was trying, unsuccessfully, to slump against my
shoulder.” (pg. 106)
• This is also true in an earlier scene when a female professional singer (& party
guest), having “drunk a quantity of champagne,” decides her song “was very, very sad,”
and cries her way through it until another guest comments on her mascara running. At
which point she “throws up her hands” and goes away to sleep it off. The song remains
unfinished. (pg. 51 in my version.)
• And of course, alcohol was involved in Daisy’s accident.
Why are women uncontrollable when drunk in The Great Gatsby?
8. MOTHERHOOD
Daisy and Tom’s three-year-old daughter Pamela appears
twice in the text—once simply through Daisy mentioning her
birth (“let her be a fool”), and once when she is dressed up
by her nursemaid in order to make an appearance in front of
the adult partygoers. While some of the distance between
Daisy and her child is convention, that distance is
exacerbated by modern-day chemicals (Daisy gives birth
under ether, for example, and is usually drunk when talking
about her child).
Do you think Daisy is seen (through Nick’s eyes) as a good
mother? Why or why not?
