2. ROMANTIC IDEALISM
• naive, miscalculated dream of a perfect world without
factoring in the flaws that reality would bring.
• Ideal romance has to do with a hope for love that is so
strong that the flaws of the people become endearing.
• Sometimes, when people idealize an individual the person
becomes a perfect version in the mind that the real person
can never live up to; leads to disappointment when
imagination and hope meet reality.

4. RUMOR
• The guests return to Gatsby’s house and gossip
about the host
• While bad mouthing Gatsby, the ladies partake
in the pleasures his house offers, clipping roses
from his garden.
• They are content not to find out the truth
about the host and are not his real friends - use
him for his wealth

6. BENNY MCCLENAHAN
“Benny McClenahan arrived always with four girls. They were never
quite the same ones in physical person, but they were so identical one
with another that it inevitably seemed they had been there before.”
• The girls are interchangeable decorations - no
individuality.
• Superficial - blend in to their surroundings
• The men in this society don’t seem to make lasting
connections with the women they surround
themselves with. Artificial people and
relationships.

8. GATSBY RESTLESS
“He was never quite still; there was always a tapping foot
somewhere or the impatient opening and closing of a
hand” (63)
Gatsby does not seem comfortable in his
skin and the restlessness reflects his
unhappiness in his surroundings.

9. DISAPPOINTMENT
• Gatsby talked very little and didn’t live up to
Nick’s ideal or expectation of him.
• Nick had an image of the mysterious Gatsby in
his mind, and the people in this novel tend to
be disappointed when they realize that reality
rarely satisfies.

11. GATSBY’S HISTORY
• Gatsby claims to come from a wealthy Midwestern family
that is all dead now. However, San Francisco is not in the
Mid West.
• He claims to be educated at Oxford, like his ancestors -
however, he hurried the phrase, as if he were lying.
• Nick begins to wonder if there isn’t something sinister
about Gatsby.
• Gatsby inherited a good deal of money when his family
all died - he is solemn at the memory as if still haunted by
the event.

12. GATSBY’S HISTORY
• After the tragedy, Gatsby lived “like a rajah in
all the capitals of Europe - collecting
jewels, chiefly rubies, hunting big game,
painting a little, things for myself only and
trying to forget something very sad that
had happened to me long ago.”
• Gatsby seems to surround himself with wealth
and distractions to forget the past.

14. NICK’S RESPONSE
• Doesn’t think Gatsby’s story is true
• He keeps picturing Gatsby in a turban -
calling him a character - “leaking
sawdust at every pore as he pursued a
tiger” through the foreign lands.
• Gatsby is more of a caricature in Nick’s
mind, a comical adventurer.

15. GATSBY’S PAIN
• “Then came the war, old sport. It was a great relief,
and I tried very hard to die, but I seemed to bear an
enchanted life.”
• Gatsby is suicidal over his emotional pain,
suggesting that whatever happened in the past
has done lasting harm.

17. MEDAL AND PHOTO
• reminders of the past and a record of his personal history
• proof of his story, since he knows many people might not
believe him
• Gatsby says that he wouldn’t want Nick to think he was a
nobody.
• He is often around strangers, drifting to forget the past, that he
needs to present validation of his accomplishments to new
acquaintances.
• Nick seems to come understand Gatsby’s pain and his money as
a quest to forget the pain.

19. MEYER WOLFSHEIM
• He is a small, flat-nosed Jew and a gambler.
• He is enamored with the old restaurant across the
street since it is “filled with faces dead and gone” - he
is nostalgic for the past.
• He was the man that fixed the World Series in 1919
and is an expert in shady deals.
• He looks around the restaurant skeptically, as if
paranoid.

20. CRIME
• Wolfsheim represents a world of crime
• Gatsby’s business associates are shady
Does this suggest that Gatsby’s fortune is gained
from illegal activities?
How does this make us feel about Gatsby?

22. GATSBY AND WOMEN
“Gatsby’s very careful about women. He
would never so much as look at a friend’s
wife.”
• a foil to Tom – opposites?
• Gatsby is seen as a man that honors marriage.

24. GATSBY AND DAISY
• However, this is false, since his interest in Daisy is the
motivating factor for all of Gatsby’s actions, and the
fact that she is married will not stop him from getting
her back.
• When it comes to his ideal love, Gatsby has no
qualms about romancing another man’s wife,
especially since he believes that a relationship with
him will be better for Daisy than her marriage

25. TOM AND DAISY’S CHILD
How do you think the fact that Daisy and
Tom have a daughter would affect Gatsby?
How does this add to the dissolution of
Gatsby’s dream? Think about what Gatsby
wants from Daisy, and how a child might ruin
that dream of the perfect life.

26. PAMMY
• The daughter is a physical manifestation of the
past and the present that Tom and Daisy share.
• Gatsby cannot deny her reality when he meets
her and cannot deny the fact that Daisy has a
sexual relationship with Tom.
• She is no longer the pure and innocent girl that
he fell in love with. Daisy has been damaged
and soiled by reality and circumstances, much
different than Gatsby’s ideal.

28. YOUNG DAISY
• She was the most popular of all the young girls in
Louisville and one that Jordan admired for her
popularity.
• She was dressed in white and drove a white roadster -
Daisy is an interesting juxtaposition between
innocence and a corruption of innocence.
• The phone rang all day long for Daisy and many men
were interested in taking her out.

30. YOUNG GATSBY
“The officer looked at Daisy while she was speaking, in a
way that every young girl wants to be looked at some time”
• Jordan didn’t recognize Gatsby - suggests that he
has changed a great deal.
• The quest for wealth and reputation - to impress
Daisy with - has drastically changed him.
• He is now somber, detached and slightly
artificial.

32. DAISY AND GATSBY
• Daisy might have ran away with
Gatsby, since her family didn’t
approve of the match since Gatsby
was not wealthy.

34. DAISY AND TOM’S MARRIAGE
• The marriage was extravagant - a gift of pearls valued at
$350,000.
• The day of the wedding Jordan “found [Daisy] lying on her
bed as lovely as the June night in her flowered dress - and as
drunk as a monkey” - Daisy was a mixture of beauty and
sadness.
• She was clutching the letter from Gatsby and the memory of her
love made her realize that she has no feelings for Tom.
• Despite her strong feelings for Gatsby, she married Tom.
• WHY?

35. CONT.
• At first, Daisy seemed crazy about her
husband - would look for him whenever he
was out of the room.
• The perfect honeymoon didn’t last. Tom
had a car accident while driving around
town with one of the maids from the hotel
- already started cheating on Daisy.

37. LIFE IN CHICAGO
“They moved with a fast crowd, all of them young
and rich and wild, but she came out with an
absolutely perfect reputation. Perhaps because she
doesn’t drink. It’s a great advantage not to drink
among hard-drinking people. You can hold your
tongue, and, moreover, you can time any little
irregularity of your own so that everybody else is so
blind that they don’t see or care.”

39. GREEN LIGHT
“Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy
would be just across the bay...Then it had not
been merely stars to which he had aspired on
that June night. He came alive to me,
delivered suddenly from the womb of his
purposeless splendor.” (78-79)

40. GATSBY’S MOTIVATION
• All of Gatsby’s actions are motivated by Daisy - he
acquired wealth to impress her, since it was his social
status that prevented their union in the first place. He
wants her to wander into one of his parties and be
impressed.
• The green light that Gatsby was starring at was the
light from Daisy’s dock.
• To Nick, Gatsby has become a person of dimension
and purpose, not an empty shell with money - The
love for Daisy gives him emotion and personality.

41. Is she that shallow that he has to lure
her with money? Is this someone that is
worth all of Gatsby’s efforts and pain?
What does Gatsby’s infatuation with
Daisy tell us about his character?

42. GATSBY
• He also seems a bit shallow or superficial, in
love with the idea of love and the idea of Daisy
rather than the person.
• Uses material items to gain emotional
happiness.
• He knows that Daisy is materialistic and is
stooping down to her level.

43. ROMANTIC IDEALISM
• Gatsby had a strong desire for the American
dream, represented in the novel by Daisy, and
thinks that the best way to achieve that is by
making a lot of money to impress her with.
• The problem is, the only way he can make this
money and have any chance of winning her
back is through crime, corruption, bootlegging
• Pure love and crime don’t mix – will he fail?
Did he sacrifice who he was?

45. NICK AND JORDAN – ROMANCE?
• He knows that Jordan is superficial and
dangerous (as well as dishonest) but is
accepting her flaws.
• He is more of a realist than a dreamer.
• Jordan is physical; Daisy is almost a distant
object of admiration
• Nick knows people are not perfect, while
Gatsby seems to think that Daisy is.

46. PERFECTION
Do you think Daisy can ever live up to Gatsby’s
ideals about her? What will happen in their
relationship?
Why is it important to realize that no one is
perfect?