Tuesday and Wednesday; March 8 and March 9

Gatsby character party.


Gatsby Prezi, click here

If you were not here for the character tea party, these are the blurbs about each of eleven people involved in the story. Take notes about them:

1.     I am Nick Carraway, a quiet Midwesterner adrift in the corruption of eastern seaboard wealth. I am the narrator of the book, a cousin of Daisy Buchanan, and a former member of Tom Buchanan’s social club at Yale. I met Gatsby when I moved in next to him, and I became his only real friend after a series of strange events. I have a romantic interest in golf pro Jordan Baker, but I am repelled by her dishonesty and her lack of consideration for others. I eventually decide to settle in Minnesota, where the moral structure is stronger.

2.     I am Jay Gatsby. I’m thirty years old, and I rose from an impoverished childhood in North Dakota to become fabulously wealthy. I don’t admit to my childhood. As a poor, young military officer, I met Daisy Buchanan before leaving to fight in WWI. Daisy said that she would wait for me, but she didn’t.  She did not know about my poverty, and I pursued wealth in order to win her back. After gaining my fortune, I changed my name from James Gatz, and everything I do is with an eye to win Daisy back. Others do not really know how I got my money, and some think it was due to criminal activity. Regardless, they attend my parties anyway. I am not usually seen at my lavish parties until Nick arrives in town.

3.     I am Daisy Buchanan. Nick Carraway is my cousin. I fell in love with Gatsby right before he left to serve in WWI. I believed that he was wealthy, and promised that I would wait for him to return. I got tired of waiting, though, and married Tom Buchanan, who is “old money” from East Egg, an area with homes occupied by generationally rich families.  I am beautiful, charming, fickle, shallow, and easily bored. People tell me my character is partially based on Fitzgerald’s wife Zelda, because we both love money, ease, and material luxury.

4.     I am Tom Buchanan. I was once a member of Nick Carraway’s social club at Yale. I am arrogant, athletic, and hypocritical. Although I am married to Daisy, I am having an affair with Myrtle, the sexy, uneducated wife of Tom Wilson, who is my mechanic. I tend to become a little outraged at the thought of my wife looking at other men.

5.     I am Jordan Baker. I’m Daisy’s friend and Nick’s love interest. I am a competitive golfer, and cheated to win my first tournament. I am known to be cynical, boyish, outgoing, and self-centered. I have no problem bending the truth.

6.     I am Myrtle Wilson. My husband is George, who owns a garage in the Valley of the Ashes where he sometimes works on Gatsby’s cars. Although I am married, Tom Buchanan is my lover. I am fiercely determined to improve my life, and I want it to include Tom, not George. I often visit my sister to create a way to meet up with Tom.

7.     I am George Wilson. I am married to Myrtle, and I own a garage in the Valley of the Ashes. Sometimes I work on Gatsby’s cars. I am devoted to Myrtle, but she doesn’t seem to notice it, perhaps because I am not going to move up the social ladder. I’m not sure, but I suspect that she might be having an affair.

8.     I am Klipspringer. Some think I am a shallow freeloader who seems almost to live at Gatsby’s mansion and takes advantage of his money. After Gatsby dies, I disappear. I do not even attend the funeral, although I do call Nick about a pair of tennis shoes that I left at Gatsby’s mansion. People think that there are some parallels between me and a young James Gatz.

9.     I am Meyer Wolfsheim, Gatsby’s friend. I have connections to organized crime, and helped Gatsby make his fortune bootlegging illegal liquor. I am an inhabitant of New York’s seedy underworld and a dead ringer for real-life Arnold Rothstein, who fixed the 1919 World Series. That I am still acquainted with Gatsby suggests to some that Gatsby is still involved in illegal business.

10.  I am the Owl-Eyed Man, the eccentric, bespectacled drunk who Nick meets at the first party he attends at Gatsby’s mansion.  Nick finds me looking through Gatsby’s library, astonished that the books are real. Some see me as being similar to the billboard for Dr. T.J. Eckleburg with the “all-seeing” eyes, as we symbolize an uninvolved, spectator god.

11.  I am Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940), an American novelist and short story writer whose works are the paradigmatic writings of the Jazz Age. I was widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20^th century and considered a member of the “Lost Generation” of the 1920s. I wrote four novels: This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned, The Great Gatsby, and Tender is the Night (a fifth, The Love of the Last Tycoon, was published posthumously). I also wrote numerous short stories, many of which treat themes of youth and promise, and age and despair. My wife is Zelda, a beautiful Alabama socialite who, when were engaged, broke off the engagement when it did not appear that I could support her to her style. She resumed the engagement when my first book, This Side of Paradise, made me wealthy.