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randoM House austraLia’s oFFiCiaL

The GreaT GaTsbyFiLM tie-in edition

in CineMas May 30

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reading group Questions for The Great Gatsby

1. Why might Fitzgerald have chosen to open his novel with the advice from Nick’s father: ‘Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone . . . just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.’? How does the notion of judgement and class develop through the course of the story? Does Nick live up to this piece of wisdom that he professes to value?

2. Can The Great Gatsby be read and understood without knowledge of the era it is written in; the end of the First World War, a time of class and race disparity?

3. If the Great War vanquished many ideas surrounding religious faith – including faith itself – what do the haunting eyes of Dr T. J. Eckleburg represent? What kind of world is he looking out on? What might the ash heaps represent, and why is its position between New York City and West/East Egg significant?

4. There are many powerful, shaping forces that run through The Great Gatsby – love, wealth, self-regard, excess, longing. Which are the most powerful and how do they alter the course of events?

5. How sincere is Gatsby’s love for Daisy? Why must it be complete, absolute? Is there anything authentic about anyone’s love in the novel?

6. How do you feel about Daisy? Is she victim, fraud, manipulator, a product of her times . . ?

7. There are some absurdist situations in the book – Owl Eyes in Gatsby’s library, the car accident in front of Gatsby’s house, Myrtle’s dog. How are we meant to read these curious scenes, and how might they reflect the spirit of ‘the Jazz Age’?

8. We initially see Nick Carraway as the distant observer of the dramas surrounding Jay Gatsby and the constellation of people surrounding him. How does his role evolve over the course of the novel? What are his stated and hidden agendas? How does Jordan’s comment at the end that she ‘met another bad driver’ illustrate his evolution (or devolution)?

9. Each character in the novel is burdened by their past. How does this conception of who they were impact on who they are and will be in the ‘orgastic’ future? How does the malleable definition of ‘the past’ prove problematic?

10. Tom’s attack on Gatsby includes the line, ‘I suppose you’ve got to make your house into a pigsty in order to have any friends – in the modern world?’ What does Tom mean by ‘modern’, and how does it contrast to the world that preceded it? What shifts in morality, class and religion have taken place?

11. How inevitable is Gatsby’s end, and what are we meant to take from his sparsely attended funeral? What is behind Nick’s loyalty to Gatsby, when everyone else deserts him?

12. Fitzgerald wrote, ‘You don’t write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.’ What did he have to say in Gatsby?

13. Fitzgerald juxtaposes words in unusual ways. An expression ‘definitely unfamiliar and vaguely recognisable’ passes over Gatsby’s face. Mr Wolfshiem ate ‘with ferocious delicacy’. Do these strange pairings upset your reading or perhaps place you more in Nick Carraway’s slowly unfurling world?

14. Can you repeat the past as Gatsby so desperately wants to do?

15. Who is the hero of the novel? Do novels need heroes and heroines?

16. Why does Daisy sob into ‘the thick folds’ of Gatsby’s shirts?

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top 10 did you Know?F. scott Fitzgerald and The Great Gatsby

1. Fitzgerald was so impressed by the original art deco cover for The Great Gatsby that he rewrote parts of the novel to suit the artwork – he famously contacted his editor, Maxwell Perkins, to urge, ‘For Christ’s sake, don’t give anyone that dust jacket you’re saving for me. I’ve written it into the book.’ (Source: The Far Side of Paradise: a biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald by Arthur Mizener)

2. Despite The Great Gatsby being the quintessential American novel, it was mostly written while Fitzgerald was residing on the Riviera in the South of France and revisions were said to have taken place in Rome. (Source: The Observer)

3. Celebrated author Hunter S. Thompson was apparently so inspired by The Great Gatsby that he used to type it up on a typewriter to experience what it was like to ‘write that way’. Thompson also said the classic novel was top of mind when he wrote Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. (Source: The New Yorker)

4. Fitzgerald’s editor, Maxwell Perkins, also brought Ernest Hemingway to prominence, publishing The Sun Also Rises in 1926. His other clients included Thomas Wolfe and James Jones. (Source: The Observer)

5. The four-line poem entitled ‘Then Wear the Gold Hat’ at the start of The Great Gatsby is credited to Thomas Parke D’Invilliers. In reality, D’Invilliers doesn’t exist – he is in fact a character from Fitzgerald’s first novel, This Side of Paradise. (Source: Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald by Francis Scott Fitzgerald,

Zelda Fitzgerald)

6. Fitzgerald had trouble naming The Great Gatsby, jumping from Trimalchio in West Egg; Among Ash-Heaps and Millionaires; On the Road to West Egg; Under the Red, White and Blue; Gold-Hatted Gatsby; and The High-Bouncing Lover. (Source: The Observer)

7. Since first published, The Great Gatsby has inspired five English-language film adaptations, various stage productions including an opera, and has even been turned into a computer game, in which Carraway must dodge flappers and evil butlers in his quest to locate Jay Gatsby. The earliest adaptation of The Great Gatsby, filmed without sound in 1926, a year after the book was published, has been lost: only the trailer and publicity photos remain. (Source: The Observer)

8. Fitzgerald met his wife Zelda Sayre in Alabama, where he was stationed during his army years, and it was only after the success of his first novel that she agreed to marry him. Most of his ‘flapper’ heroines were believed to be based on his striking young wife. (Source: The American Midwest: An Interpretive Encyclopedia, edited by Andrew R. L. Cayton, Richard Sisson,

Chris Zacher)

9. Fitzgerald was just shy of 30 years old when The Great Gatsby was published.

10. Fitzgerald died of a heart attack at 44, thinking of himself as a failure. Despite garnering some modest achievement in his lifetime, he never witnessed the enormous commercial and critical success of his book The Great Gatsby. (Source: Glittering Things: Flappers, Fantasies & Tales of the Jazz Age by F. Scott Fitzgerald, edited by Laura

Bonds, Shawn Conners)

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The GreaT GaTsby Quiz1. What is F. Scott Fitzgerald’s first name?

a) Franz b) Farnham c) Francis d) Felton

2. When does the story take place? a) 1922 b) 1925 c) 1926 d) 1928

3. Who played Jay Gatsby in the 1974 film adaptation? a) Paul Newman b) Al Pacino c) Sean Connery d) Robert Redford

4. Where is the story set? a) Paris b) Long Island and New York City c) Los Angeles and Las Vegas d) London

5. Every night, Gatsby stares at a light at the end of Daisy’s dock. What colour is it? a) Green b) Blue c) Yellow d) Red

6. Where does Gatsby claim to have been educated? a) University of Cambridge b) Trinity College, Oxford c) Yale d) Princeton

7. What expression does Gatsby often use? a) Pal b) My friend c) Old sport d) Old man

8. What was Jay Gatsby’s real name? a) James Gatz b) Jay Jones c) Jarred Gatsby d) Jay Gatz

9. Whose nose did Tom Buchanan break in the book? a) George Wilson b) Myrtle Wilson c) Jay Gatsby d) Nick Carraway

10. Where is Gatsby originally from? a) New York b) New England c) North Carolina d) North Dakota

11. Where Is George Wilson’s garage located? a) Valley of Roses b) Valley of Dust c) Valley of Ashes d) Valley of Death

12. Who killed Gatsby? a) Nick Carraway b) George Wilson c) Tom Buchanan d) Jordan Baker

13. What is Daisy’s maiden name? a) Fay b) Freeman c) Gatz d) Carraway

14. What sport does Jordan play? a) tennis b) golf c) polo d) volleyball

15. What was in the drawer that Myrtle had bought the day before she died? a) a gun b) a pearl necklace c) a letter d) a dog leash

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ANSWERS: Q1: c) Francis Q2: a) 1922 Q3: d) Robert Redford

Q4: b) Long Island and New York City Q5: a) Green Q6: b) Trinity

College, Oxford Q7: c) Old sport Q8: a) James Gatz Q9: b) Myrtle

Wilson Q10: d) North Dakota Q11: c) Valley of Ashes Q12: b)

George Wilson Q13: a) Fay Q14: b) golf Q15: d) a dog leash

aCting tHe partprepare yourself for the party with these quick tips

for costumes, make-up and dancing!

Click on the links below.

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• dress tHe part •

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