What are the details of Gatsby’s ‘constructed past’?

Nick describes his account as being “like skimming hastily through a dozen magazines”, which may relate to how magazines at the time could make people into stars, but were also known to be quick spreaders of gossip and scandal. He suggests that Gatsby’s story may make an image of his past visible but it is very distant from reality.

What role does Wolfshiem play in this chapter?

Gatsby introduces Nick to Wolfshiem in New York, who recalls the murder of a friend, Rosy Rosenthal, in the Metropole Hotel. His account follows Gatsby’s explanation of his constructed past, which may lead to sinister undertone’s in Gatsby’s story. The murder he describes was an actual event and one of the instances in the novel where Fitzgerald fuses historical occurrences with fiction and romance. He is the epitome of the grubby capitalist who’ll do anything when a trade makes money. Gatsby and everyone else is tainted by Wolfshiem.

What is the significance of the cars that pass Nick and Gatsby as they cross the bridge?

One car is consists of black Americans being driven by a white chauffeur in an expensive car, and the other contains people of south eastern European descent attending a funeral. They may be seen as foreshadowing Gatsby’s fate and America’s diversity. The wealthy black Americans may lend to the idea of equal opportunities for all and the American dream, but the social barriers may also implicitly suggest wealth by illegal means.

What contradictions and questions emerge from Jordan’s account of Daisy’s past?

It occured in 1917, when Jordan was sixteen years old and Daisy was eighteen. The account makes Gatsby “come alive to me” in Nick’s eyes, as he has perhaps seen that Gatsby has an emotional side to his character, with desires other than showing off. The end of it is the moment when Nick realises he is being used by Gatsby. The chapter ends with Nick embracing Jordan, which may contrast with Gatsby’s desire for the distant Daisy.

What are the parallels between Gatsby and Kurtz from The Heart of Darkness?

In The Heart of Darkness, Kurtz does not appear for a long time yet a lot of rumours are heard about him. He becomes a symbol of all that is European in Africa, similar to how Gatsby becomes a symbol of all that is new America, but inside the character, there is a heart of darkness. The Great Gatsby is a novel about light and parties, yet also about the arrogance of money. Kurtz also symbolises the arrogance of European depredation of Africa.

1. The novel’s epigraph is about what a man will do to win the love of a woman. It encapsulates the idea in the novel that a significant goal for Gatsby’s is to win Daisy’s heart.
2. One theme in the novel is the idea of vulnerability. Nick thinks of himself as having advantages, yet when he gets to West Egg, he finds himself disadvantaged. This also shows how the novel works by contradiction. There is also the theme of superiority, where the East is considered better than the bland midwest. There are sometimes implications of racism, such as when he states that  “a sense of fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth”. Some readers note that the novel seems intangible, such as the famous green light, and that things are not explicit. It is not a novel with any certainties. It is a novel where modern morality is questioned, not as to what is right or wrong, but what morals are.
3. American identity stems from the first colonisers, the puritans, who were religious fundamentalists that came to find freedom, something that is emboldened in American identity. At the time, it was expected that the Gatsbys, Daisys and Buchanans of the world were people to admire, that desires were materialistic. A sense of moral superiority was felt by some of higher birth, such as those who lived in the East of the country compared to those in the West.
4. Nick Carraway sets himself up from line 1 as a character with some moral values who is going to think the best of everyone and not criticise, yet he does not understand the behaviour of the people he is documenting in regards to his own moral standpoint, some of his words have a snobbish undertone to them, he is never full of praise for women and he has underlying insecurities. He narrates through contradiction, wanting to come out of it looking good and as a result, his motivations and everything he says has to be questioned. He himself is unsure of what he says, where he is or what he talks about, why he moves to the East or why he moves back at the end.