Chapter 1

How does chapter 1 of The Great Gatsby

establish the novels characters and themes?

Welcome Work:

How can you tell if people have

money? Are there different types

of rich people? How so? Explain.

Old money is defined as “the inherited

wealth of established upper-class families”or “a person, family, or lineage possessing

inherited wealth.”

The term is typically used to describe

families that have been wealthy for multiple

generations

Famous Old Money Families

•Rockefeller

•DuPont

•Vanderbilt

•Rothschild

Refers to a person who has acquired

considerable wealth within his or her

generation.

This term is generally to emphasize that the

individual was previously part of a lower

socioeconomic rank, and that such wealth

has provided the means for the acquisition of

goods or luxuries that were previously

unobtainable.

During the early part of the 20th century,

those who held “old money” were seen as

more prestigious than those with “new

money.”

The term can also be used in a derogatory

fashion, for the purposes of social class

distinction, to describe persons with

newfound wealth as lacking the experience

to use wealth in the same manner as old

money.

Paris Hilton Beyonce & Jay Z

Bill Gates Prince William of England

The Midwest is referred to a

America’s Heartland.

Midwesterners are considered hard

working, humble, and practical.

Why does the narrator mention

he’s from the Midwest? How

does he want us to view him?

How do people who live on the East Coast differ

from those in the Midwest?

Notice what the narrator has to say about his

service during World War I (the “Great War”) and

his reasons for moving to New York.

• Midas was a mythical king

whose touch turned items to

gold.

• Morgan refers to a

prominent American banking

family.

• Maecenas was a wealthy

Roman patron of literature.

What is the effect of this

allusion?

“Twenty miles from the city, a pair of enormous

eggs...separated only by a courtesy bay, jut out into

the...great wet barnyard of Long Island Sound.”

Columbus answered a critic by challenging him

to balance an egg on its tip. When the man

failed, Columbus crushed the tip slightly,

flattening it so that the egg could

stand-proving that a discovery

seems obvious only after it has

been made by someone w/the

vision to imagine it.

What is the purpose of this

allusion?

West Egg: “I [the narrator] lived at West

Egg, the less fashionable of the two”

West Egg: “factual imitation of a hotel de

Ville in Normandy”

While it

sounds like a

hotel one

would stay in

for a night, it

actually is a

city

government

building.

East Egg: “Across

the courtesy bay, the

white palaces of

fashionable East

Egg glittered along

the water.”

on the dock across the lake:

Toward what is Gatsby stretching

his arms?

What might the color green signify?

What might the speck of distant light

in an otherwise dark sky indicate?