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Reading and Literature Studies · Reading Literary Texts

Novel Study, Part 2: Symbol, Setting and Character in The Great Gatsby

1.4 1.6 2.3About 75 minutes
Learning goals
  • I can trace how a symbol (the green light, the valley of ashes, Eckleburg's eyes) develops across a novel.
  • I can make subtle inferences about a character from contradictions between what he says and what the text reveals.
  • I can explain how setting, colour and imagery develop themes.
  • I can explain how a writer's style (imagery, diction, sentence rhythm) shapes my response to a character.

Words to know

symbol
A concrete object, place, colour or action that stands for an idea beyond itself.
motif
An image, idea or phrase that repeats through a text and builds meaning.
dynamic symbol
A symbol whose meaning changes as the story develops.
foil
A character who contrasts with another, highlighting the other's qualities.
self-invention
Creating a new identity, history or image of oneself.
lyrical prose
Prose with the rhythm, imagery and emotional intensity of poetry.
illusion
A false idea or belief, or something that is not what it seems.

Hook: the backstory that keeps changing

You probably know someone online whose life looks perfect: the right clothes, the right trips, every photo carefully chosen. You might also suspect that the real story is more complicated. Jay Gatsby is the 1920s version: a man with a mansion, a hydroplane, a closet of beautiful shirts, and a backstory that changes depending on who is telling it. In Chapters 4 to 6, the mask starts to slip.

Remember from Grade 10

You learned that a symbol is a concrete thing standing for an abstract idea, and you traced motifs (blood, sleep, darkness) through Macbeth. In a novel, symbols have more room to develop and change. Grade 11 asks you to trace that development and make subtle inferences from contradictions.

Chapters 4 to 6 in brief

  • Chapter 4: Driving Nick to New York, Gatsby tells his life story: he is the son of some wealthy people in the Middle West, educated at Oxford, a decorated war hero. He shows a medal and a photograph. At lunch he introduces Meyer Wolfsheim, who, Gatsby says, fixed the World's Series back in 1919. Later, Jordan tells Nick the real reason for everything: in 1917, in Louisville, the young officer Gatsby and Daisy fell in love. He went to war; she married Tom. Gatsby bought his mansion to be across the bay from Daisy, and threw his parties hoping she would wander in. He wants Nick to invite Daisy to tea.
  • Chapter 5: In pouring rain, Gatsby and Daisy meet again at Nick's house. It is painfully awkward at first (Gatsby nearly knocks a clock off the mantel). Then the sun comes out, and Gatsby glows. He shows Daisy his house and throws his imported shirts onto the bed until she cries: They're such beautiful shirts. Nick notices something: the colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever, and that Daisy probably tumbled short of his dreams, not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion.
  • Chapter 6: Nick reveals what he learned later: Gatsby was born James Gatz, the son of poor farm people in North Dakota. At 17, he rowed out to warn a millionaire, Dan Cody, about a storm on Lake Superior, and on that day renamed himself Jay Gatsby. He sprang from his Platonic conception of himself. Tom attends a party and sneers at it; Daisy doesn't enjoy it. Gatsby wants Daisy to tell Tom she never loved him. When Nick warns, You can't repeat the past, Gatsby answers: Can't repeat the past? Why of course you can!
James GatzJay Gatsbyson of poor farm people"son of some wealthy people"North Dakota"educated at Oxford"worked on Lake Superiorwar hero with a medala few weeks at a Minnesota collegemansion, parties, "old sport"age 17meetsDan Codythe real past (Ch. 6)the invented self (Ch. 4)
Gatsby invented himself. Chapter 4 gives his own version; Chapter 6 gives the truth Nick learned later. Some of Gatsby's stories have a grain of truth (he did serve in the war and spent a short time at Oxford), which makes him harder to judge.
Worked example

Let's make a subtle inference about Gatsby

What can you infer about Gatsby from the contradictions in his own story in Chapter 4?

  1. Stated: he says he is from a wealthy family in the Middle West. Asked which city, he says San Francisco, which is not in the Midwest.
  2. Stated: he says he was educated at Oxford and hurries over the words, or swallowed it, or choked on it, Nick says, as though it had bothered him before.
  3. Implied: his speech is oddly formal and rehearsed (old sport, I lived like a young rajah), as if borrowed from books. Nick almost laughs.
  4. But: the medal and the Oxford photograph are real, so parts of the story are true.
  5. Inference: Gatsby has constructed an identity to match the world he wants to enter. He believes in it so deeply that he mixes truth and invention. His story is less a lie than a performance, and he is anxious about whether it convinces.

Gatsby's identity is a careful performance built from truth and invention, designed to make him belong in Daisy's world. The awkward hesitation over Oxford suggests he knows how fragile it is.

Symbols that develop

The green light. In Chapter 1 it is minute and far away, and Gatsby reaches toward it: it stands for Daisy, and for a dream he can't reach. In Chapter 5, with Daisy beside him, its colossal significance has vanished. Nick says: Now it was again a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one. Once the dream is reached, it becomes ordinary: the real Daisy can never match the dream. The light is a dynamic symbol: its meaning changes as Gatsby's situation changes.

The valley of ashes. A fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens. The image mocks a fertile farm: here, only waste grows. It stands for the ugly cost of wealth: the waste of industry, and the poor people (like George Wilson, coated in grey dust) left behind.

The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. An old billboard advertising an eye doctor: blue and gigantic—their retinas are one yard high. They look out over the valley of ashes, seeing everything and doing nothing. Later in the novel a grieving character will look at them and say God sees everything. They suggest a world where the only "god" watching is an advertisement: a world without moral judgment.

Colours. Gold and yellow cluster around wealth (Gatsby's yellow car, the gold of the epigraph); white around Daisy and Jordan (both wear white dresses when Nick first meets them), suggesting purity on the surface; grey around the valley of ashes; green around hope and longing.

Chapter 1far away, longed forGatsby reaches toward it across the dark waterChapter 5reached, and smallerwith Daisy beside him: "again a green light on a dock"Chapter 9always moving away"the orgastic future that year by year recedes"Gatsbythe green light
The distance between Gatsby (left circle) and the green light changes through the novel. When he finally reaches Daisy, the light shrinks to again a green light on a dock; by the end it has become the future that keeps moving away from everyone.
Worked example

Let's trace how a setting develops a theme

How does the valley of ashes develop the theme that the wealth of the rich depends on others who are left behind?

  1. Placement: the valley lies between the wealthy Eggs and New York. The rich drive through it constantly, but never stop to think about it.
  2. Imagery: ashes grow like wheat; it is a parody of a farm, producing only waste. Its people are grey: George Wilson is spiritless and covered in dust.
  3. Character link: Tom treats Myrtle, who lives there, as a pleasure and George as a fool. The rich use the valley's people.
  4. Development: a reader who has finished the novel knows that the story's worst consequences fall on the people of the valley, not on the rich. The setting predicts that.
  5. Theme stated: The comfort of the wealthy rests on people and places they ignore, and those people pay the highest price.

The valley of ashes, placed between the rich and their pleasures and described as a farm that grows only ashes, shows that wealth depends on, and harms, those left behind.

Style: Fitzgerald's lyrical prose

Fitzgerald is famous for lyrical prose: sentences with the rhythm and imagery of poetry. Look at how Nick describes Gatsby's smile in Chapter 3: It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. The long, flowing sentence and the grand word eternal show Nick being charmed, and the next sentences show the charm fading, as Gatsby turns back into an elegant young rough-neck whose careful speech just missed being absurd.

The effect: the style makes us feel Gatsby's glamour, as Nick does, while the shifts in tone remind us it's partly an illusion. The prose itself performs the novel's tension between dream and reality.

Just for fun

Funny-but-true: one of the most emotional moments in the whole novel involves shirts. Gatsby throws pile after pile of fine shirts on the bed, and Daisy bursts into tears: They're such beautiful shirts. No one in literature has ever been so moved by laundry.

Hands-on activity

Symbol tracker poster

You need: a large sheet of paper (or tape four pages together), your reading log, and coloured markers.

  1. Draw four columns: green light, valley of ashes, Eckleburg's eyes, colours.
  2. For each, list every appearance so far with a page number and a short quotation.
  3. Under each column, write what the symbol means at first and what it means now. Leave space to add Chapters 7 to 9.
  4. Explain one symbol to a family member in under a minute, using two quotations.

What to look for: page numbers and quotations, not just general statements; a clear note of how at least one symbol's meaning changes.

Your turn

1

What does the green light stand for in Chapter 1?

2

Why has the light's colossal significance vanished in Chapter 5?

3

What contradiction appears when Gatsby says he's from the Middle West?

4

Who was James Gatz?

5

Explain the irony in ashes grow like wheat.

6

What might the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg symbolize?

7

What does Gatsby's reply Why of course you can! reveal about him?

More practice: warm-up

1

Who is Meyer Wolfsheim said to have done?

2

Where and when did Gatsby and Daisy first fall in love?

3

Where do Gatsby and Daisy meet again?

4

Who was Dan Cody?

5

What is a dynamic symbol?

More practice: on your own

1

Why does Daisy cry over the shirts?

2

How is Tom a foil for Gatsby?

3

What does sprang from his Platonic conception of himself mean?

4

How do white clothes on Daisy and Jordan create irony?

5

Why might Fitzgerald have Nick learn Gatsby's true history only in Chapter 6, not at the start?

Challenge

1

Write an analytical paragraph tracing how the green light changes meaning between Chapters 1 and 5. Use two quotations.

2

Is Gatsby a liar or a dreamer? Argue a position using at least two pieces of evidence from Chapters 4 to 6.

3

How does Fitzgerald's lyrical style create sympathy for Gatsby even when the facts suggest he is a criminal? Is this a strength or a weakness of the novel?

Check your understanding

Quiz

1.

In Chapter 5 Nick says the green light's significance has vanished because...

2.

Gatsby's real name was...

3.

A fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat describes...

4.

A symbol whose meaning changes during a novel is called...

5.

Gatsby's slip about San Francisco suggests...

6.

Can't repeat the past? Why of course you can! shows that Gatsby...

For parents and teachers

What this lesson teaches: ENG3U Reading 1.4 (subtle inferences from stated and implied evidence), 1.6 (analysing how symbols and setting develop themes) and 2.3 (elements of style: imagery, colour, lyrical prose), using Chapters 4 to 6 of The Great Gatsby.

How to help at home:

  • Ask: What does the green light mean now, compared with Chapter 1?
  • Talk about self-invention: social media profiles, résumés, first impressions. When is it ambition, and when is it deception?

Common difficulties:

  • Treating symbols as codes with one fixed meaning. Encourage at first... later... sentences.
  • Summarizing instead of inferring. Ask what does that tell us about him?
  • Getting lost in the time jumps. Chapter 4 (Jordan's story) and Chapter 6 (Gatsby's youth) flash back; mark them in the log.

Facts used: quotations follow the 1925 text of the novel.