The Great Gatsby
In this study guide we will help you analyse the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925) and analyze the characters in the text. You can also find detailed summaries of both the entire novel and its individual chapters, as well as inspiration for interpreting the text and putting it into perspective.
This study guide is based on the Penguin Popular Classics edition of the novel.
Presentation of The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald was an American author born in 1896. His writing brought him to fame and fortune at a young age, encouraged by his pleasure-seeking and somewhat wild wife Zelda, with whom he had a stormy relationship.
Their immersion in the decadent “Jazz age” of New York and Paris in the 1920s gave Fitzgerald the perfect material for some of his best-known works, and also made the couple an object of fascination for both the literary world and for the press. However, their reckless lifestyle eventually took its toll, with Zelda suffering a nervous breakdown and Fitzgerald drinking increasingly heavily.
These themes of mental instability and the delights and dangers of drink are also key themes in many of Fitzgerald’s novels, including „The Great Gatsby” . The novel is famous for being one of the best documents of the decadence of the glamorous 1920s, but it is also filled with some of the sadnesses which characterized both the era and Fitzgerald’s own life.
In this literary guide, we will use as a source of information the following edition of the book: Fitzgerald, F.S. (2000). The Great Gatsby. Penguin Classics.
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