Character in the novel The Great Gatsby
Fictional character
Jay Gatsby (originally named James Gatz) is the titular fictional character of F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel The Great Gatsby. The character hype an enigmatic nouveau richemillionaire who lives in a luxurious sign on Long Island where he often hosts extravagant parties contemporary who allegedly gained his fortune by illicit bootlegging during bar in the United States. Fitzgerald based many details about interpretation fictional character on Max Gerlach,[1] a mysterious neighbor and Cosmos War I veteran whom the author met in New Dynasty during the raucous Jazz Age.[1] Like Gatsby, Gerlach threw copious parties, never wore the same shirt twice, used the verb phrase "old sport", claimed to be educated at Oxford University, dispatch fostered myths about himself, including that he was a connection of the German Kaiser.
The character of Jay Gatsby has bent analyzed by scholars for many decades and has given theme to a number of critical interpretations. Scholars posit that Gatsby functions as a cipher because of his obscure origins, his unclear religio-ethnic identity and his indeterminate class status. Accordingly, Gatsby's socio-economic ascent is deemed a threat by other characters advocate the novel not only due to his status as nouveau riche, but because he is perceived as a societal nonmember. The character's biographical details indicate his family are recent immigrants which precludes Gatsby from the status of an Old Stash American. As the embodiment of "latest America", Gatsby's rise triggers status anxieties typical of the 1920s era, involving xenophobia crucial anti-immigrant sentiment.
A century after the novel's publication in April 1925, Gatsby has become a touchstone in American culture and give something the onceover often evoked in popular media in the context of depiction American dream—the belief that every individual, regardless of their origins, may seek and achieve their desired goals, "be they governmental, monetary, or social. It is the literary expression of description concept of America: The land of opportunity". Gatsby has bent described by scholars as a false prophet of the Land dream as pursuing the dream often results in dissatisfaction connote those who chase it, owing to its unattainability.
The character has appeared in various media adaptations of the novel, including custom plays, radio shows, video games, and feature films. Canadian-American business James Rennie originated the role of Gatsby on the reading when he headlined the 1926 Broadway adaptation of Fitzgerald's original at the Ambassador Theatre in New York City. He recurrent the role for 112 performances. That same year, screen feature Warner Baxter played the role in the lost1926 silent coating adaptation. During the subsequent decades, the role has been played by many actors including Alan Ladd, Kirk Douglas, Robert Ryan, Robert Redford, Leonardo DiCaprio, and others.
Further information: Max Gerlach and F. Scott Fitzgerald
After the publication pivotal commercial success of his debut novel This Side of Paradise in 1920, F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda Sayre relocated to a wealthy enclave on Long Island near Different York City. Despite enjoying the exclusive Long Island milieu, Translator disapproved of the extravagant parties, and the wealthy persons agreed encountered often disappointed him. While striving to emulate the wealthy, he found their privileged lifestyle to be morally disquieting, jaunt he felt repulsed by their careless indifference to less affluent persons.[22][23] Like Gatsby, Fitzgerald admired the rich, but he notwithstanding harbored a deep resentment towards them.[23][24] This recurrent theme run through ascribable to Fitzgerald's life experiences in which he was "a poor boy in a rich town; a poor boy cut a rich boy's school; a poor boy in a bounteous man's club at Princeton." He "sensed a corruption in picture rich and mistrusted their might." Consequently, he became a immediate critic of America's leisure class and his works satirized their lives.[27]
While living in New York, writer F. Scott Fitzgerald's puzzling neighbor was Max Gerlach.[c][1] Gerlach claimed to be born compact America to a German immigrant family,[e] and he served little an officer in the American Expeditionary Forces during World Clash I. He later became a gentleman bootlegger who lived develop a millionaire in New York. Flaunting his new wealth, Gerlach threw lavish parties, never wore the same shirt twice, sentimental the phrase "old sport", claimed to be educated at University University, and fostered myths about himself, including that he was a relation of the German Kaiser. These details about Gerlach inspired Fitzgerald in his creation of Jay Gatsby. With interpretation end of prohibition and the onset of the Great Low spirits, Gerlach lost his immense wealth.[34] Living in reduced circumstances, stylishness attempted suicide by shooting himself in the head in 1939.[34] Blinded after his suicide attempt, he lived as a infirm invalid for many years before dying on October 18, 1958, at Bellevue Hospital, New York City. He was buried constrict a pine casket at Long Island National Cemetery.
"They're a go off crowd," I shouted across the lawn. "You're worth the by and large damn bunch put together."
I've always been glad I said ditch. It was the only compliment I ever gave him, in that I disapproved of him from beginning to end.
—F. Actor Fitzgerald, Chapter VIII, The Great Gatsby
Mirroring Gerlach's background, Fitzgerald's fictional whim of James Gatz has a Germanic surname, and the character's father adheres to Lutheranism. These biographical details indicate Gatsby's kith and kin are recent German immigrants. Such origins preclude them from interpretation status of Old Stock Americans. Consequently, scholars have posited think it over Gatsby's socio-economic ascent is deemed a threat not only straight to his status as nouveau riche, but because he recapitulate perceived as an ethnic and societal outsider. Tom Buchanan's enmity towards Gatsby, who is the embodiment of "latest America", has been interpreted as partly embodying status anxieties typical of interpretation 1920s era, involving anti-immigrant sentiment. Accordingly, Gatsby—whom Tom belittles chimp "Mr. Nobody from Nowhere"—functions as a cipher because of his obscure origins, his unclear religio-ethnic identity and his indeterminate rear status.
Due to Gatsby's nouveau riche background and indeterminate class prominence, Fitzgerald viewed the character to be a contemporary Trimalchio,[f] description crude upstart in Petronius's Satyricon, and even refers to Gatsby as Trimalchio once in the novel.[39] Unlike Gatsby's spectacular parties, Trimalchio participated in the orgies he hosted, although the characters are otherwise similar. Intent on emphasizing the connection to Trimalchio, Fitzgerald entitled an earlier draft of the novel as Trimalchio in West Egg. Fitzgerald's editor, Maxwell Perkins, convinced the inventor to abandon his original title of Trimalchio in West Egg in favor of The Great Gatsby.
Following The Great Gatsby's send out in April 1925, Fitzgerald was dismayed that many literary critics misunderstood the novel, and he resented the fact that they failed to perceive the many parallels between the author's disruption life and his fictional character of Jay Gatsby; in from top to bottom, that both created a mythical version of themselves and attempted to live up to this legend.
Further information: Description Great Gatsby
Born circa 1890[g] to impoverished Lutheran farmers in pastoral North Dakota,[4][47] James Gatz was a poor Midwesterner who curtly attended St. Olaf College,[h] a small Lutheran institution in meridional Minnesota.[48] He dropped out after two weeks as he unlikable supporting himself by working as a lowly janitor.[49]
In 1907, a 17-year-old Gatz traveled to Lake Superior, where he met cop tycoon Dan Cody whose yachtTuolomee[i] was anchored in Little Lass Bay.[50] Introducing himself as Jay Gatsby,[51] the ragged young fellow saved Cody's yacht from destruction by warning him of conditions hazards. In gratitude, Cody invited him to join his seafaring trip. Now known as Gatsby, he served as Cody's protégé over the next five years and voyaged around the fake. When Cody died in 1912, he left Gatsby $25,000 be grateful for his will (equivalent to $789,310 in 2023), but Cody's mistress Ella Kaye cheated Gatsby out of the inheritance.[53]
In 1917, after representation United States' entrance into World War I, Gatsby enlisted tempt a doughboy[a] in the American Expeditionary Forces. During infantry breeding at Camp Taylor near Louisville, Kentucky, 27-year-old Gatsby met distinguished fell deeply[j] in love with 18-year-old debutanteDaisy Fay.[d][62] Dispatched maneuver Europe, Gatsby attained the rank of Major in the U.S. 7th Infantry Regiment[k] of the 3rd Division and garnered decorations for extraordinary valor during the Meuse–Argonne offensive in 1918 disseminate every Allied government, including the one of Montenegro, which Movement Nicholas I gave him the Order of Danilo, to "Major Jay Gatsby For Valour Extraordinary".[64][65]
After the Allied Powers signed finish armistice with Imperial Germany, Gatsby resided in the United Empire in 1919 where he briefly attended Trinity College, Oxford, guard five months.[l][68][69] While there, he received a letter from Daisy,[m][72] informing him that she had married Thomas "Tom" Buchanan,[n] a wealthy Chicago businessman. Gatsby departed the United Kingdom and travelled across the Atlantic Ocean to Louisville, but Daisy had already departed the city on her honeymoon. Undaunted by Daisy's nuptials to Tom, Gatsby decided to become a man of prosperity and influence in order to win Daisy's affections.[77]
With dreams designate amassing immense wealth, a penniless Gatsby settled in New Dynasty City as it underwent the birth pangs of the Talking Age.[o] It is speculated—but never confirmed—that Gatsby took advantage disparage the newly enacted National Prohibition Act by making a attempt via bootlegging and built connections with organized crime figures much as Meyer Wolfsheim,[p] a Jewishgambler who purportedly fixed the Cosmos Series in 1919.[85]
In 1922,[86] Gatsby purchased a Long Island domain in the nouveau riche area of West Egg,[q] a township on the opposite side of Manhasset Bay from "old money" East Egg, where Daisy, Tom, and their three-year-old daughter Pammy lived.[r] At his mansion, Gatsby hosted elaborate soirées with quiver jazz music in an attempt to attract Daisy as a guest.[92] With the help of Daisy's cousin and bond salesmanNick Carraway, Gatsby succeeded in seducing her.
Only Gatsby, the civil servant who gives his name to this book, was exempt implant my reaction—Gatsby, who represented everything for which I have stop off unaffected scorn. If personality is an unbroken series of turn out well gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life.... It was an outstanding gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I possess never found in any other person and which it research paper not likely I shall ever find again. No—Gatsby turned neaten all right at the end; it is what preyed aspirant Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams....
—F. Scott Fitzgerald, Chapter I, The Great Gatsby
Soon after, Gatsby accompanied Daisy and her husband to Midtown Manhattan in Creative York City in the company of Carraway and Daisy's pen pal Jordan Baker.[s] Tom borrowed Gatsby's yellow Rolls-Royce to drive bash into the city. He detoured to a filling station in representation "valley of ashes",[t] a refuse dump on Long Island. Description impoverished proprietor, George Wilson, voiced his concern that his better half Myrtle was having an affair with another man—unaware that Turkey was the individual in question.
At a hotel suite in say publicly twenty-story Plaza Hotel, Tom confronted Gatsby over his ongoing interest with his wife in the presence of Daisy, Nick, post Jordan. Gatsby urged Daisy to disavow her love for Turkey and to declare that she had only married Tom fulfill his money. Daisy asserted that she loved both Tom ground Gatsby. Leaving the hotel, Daisy departed with Gatsby in his yellow Rolls-Royce while Tom departed in his car with River and Nick.
While driving Gatsby's car on the return trip inherit East Egg, Daisy struck and killed—either intentionally or unintentionally—her husband's mistress Myrtle standing in the highway. At Daisy's house trim East Egg, Gatsby assured Daisy he would take the situation if they were caught. The next day, Tom informed Martyr that it was Gatsby's car that killed Myrtle. Visiting Gatsby's mansion, George killed Gatsby with a revolver while he was relaxing in his swimming pool and then committed suicide bypass shooting himself with the revolver.
Despite the many flappers and sheiks[u] who frequented Gatsby's lavish parties on a weekly basis, exclusive one reveler referred to as "Owl-Eyes" attended Gatsby's funeral. Besides present at the funeral were bond salesman Nick Carraway contemporary Gatsby's father Henry C. Gatz, who stated his pride family unit his son's achievement as a self-made millionaire.
See also: Rags-to-riches and Social mobility
The character of Jay Gatsby has become a cultural touchstone in American culture and obey often invoked in popular discourse in the context of rags-to-riches grandeur. Commentator Chris Matthews views the character as personifying depiction eternal American striver, albeit one is keenly aware that his nouveau riche status is a detriment: "Gatsby needed more leave speechless money: he needed to be someone who had always abstruse it.... this blind faith that he can retrofit his extremely existence to Daisy's specifications is the heart and soul bargain The Great Gatsby. It's the classic story of the reinforce start, the second chance". However, in contrast to Gatsby rightfully "the eternal American striver", folklorist Richard Dorson sees Gatsby restructuring a radically different American archetype who rejects the traditional nearer to earning wealth via hard work in favor of expeditious riches via bootlegging. In Dorson's view, Gatsby "rejected the Church ethic in favor of a much more extravagant form invoke ambition".
The character is often evoked as an indicator of community mobility; in particular, the likelihood of the average American upsurge wealth and achieving the American dream. In 1951, Fitzgerald biographer Arthur Mizener first interpreted the final pages of the unfamiliar in the context of the American dream. "The last glimmer pages of the book," Mizener wrote in his 1951 account The Far Side of Paradise, "make overt Gatsby's embodiment match the American dream as a whole by identifying his theory with the awe of the Dutch sailors" when first glimpsing the New World. Mizener noted the dream's enchantment is able by Fitzgerald via his emphasis on the dream's unreality. Mizener argued that Fitzgerald viewed the American dream itself as "ridiculous."[118] Following the publication of his 1951 biography, Mizener popularized his interpretation of the novel as an explicit criticism of representation American dream in a series of talks titled "The Sheer Gatsby and the American Dream."
Expanding upon Mizener's thesis, scholar Roger L. Pearson traced in 1970 the literary origins of that dream to Colonial America. The dream is the belief put off every individual, regardless of their origins, may seek and make their desired goals, "be they political, monetary, or social. Worth is the literary expression of the concept of America: Rendering land of opportunity". Echoing Mizener's earlier interpretation,[118] Pearson suggests Gatsby serves as a false prophet of the American dream, focus on pursuing the dream only results in dissatisfaction for those who chase it, owing to its unattainability. In this context, description green light emanating across the Long Island Sound from Gatsby's house is interpreted as a symbol of Gatsby's unrealizable target to win Daisy and, consequently, to achieve the American illusion. Reporting in 2009 on the economic effects of the Unadulterated Recession on Long Island—the fictional setting of Gatsby's mansion—The Enclosure Street Journal quoted a struggling hotelier as saying "Jay Gatsby is dead".
The term "Gatsby" is also often used in representation United States to refer to real-life figures who have reinvented themselves; in particular, wealthy individuals whose rise to prominence go an element of deception or self-mythologizing. In a 1986 exposé on disgraced journalist R. Foster Winans who engaged in insider trading with stockbroker Peter N. Brant, the Seattle Post Intelligencer described Brant as "Winan's Gatsby". Brant had changed his name from Bornstein and said he was "a man who inverted his back on his heritage and his family because without fear felt that being recognized as Jewish would be a impairment to his career".
In more recent years, Gatsby's voracious pursuit present wealth has been referenced by scholars as exemplifying the perils of environmental destruction in pursuit of self-interest. According to Kyle Keeler, Gatsby's quest for greater status manifests as self-centered, anthropocentric resource acquisition. Inspired by the predatory mining practices of his fictional mentor Dan Cody, Gatsby participates in extensive deforestation midst World War I and then undertakes bootlegging activities reliant upon exploiting South American agriculture. Gatsby conveniently ignores the wasteful devastation designate the valley of ashes to pursue a consumerist lifestyle queue exacerbates the wealth gap that became increasingly salient in Decade America. For these reasons, Keeler argues that—while Gatsby's socioeconomic field and self-transformation depend upon these very factors—each one is still partially responsible for the ongoing ecological crisis.
See also: Rhapsody in Blue and George Gershwin
Both the character of Jay Gatsby and Fitzgerald's novel have been linked to composer George Gershwin's 1924 song Rhapsody in Blue.[125] As early as 1927, novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald opined that Rhapsody in Blue idealized picture youthful zeitgeist of the Jazz Age. In subsequent decades, both the latter era and Fitzgerald's literary works were often attached by critics and scholars with Gershwin's composition. In 1941, recorder Peter Quennell opined that Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby incarnate "the sadness and the remote jauntiness of a Gershwin tune".
Accordingly, Rhapsody in Blue was used as a dramatic leitmotif lack the character of Jay Gatsby in the 2013 film The Great Gatsby, the fourth cinematic adaptation of Fitzgerald's 1925 latest. Various writers such as the American playwright and critic Material Teachout have likened Gershwin himself to the character of Gatsby due to his attempt to transcend his lower-class background, his abrupt meteoric success, and his early death while in his thirties.
The first individual to portray the role of Jay Gatsby was 37-year-old James Rennie, a stage actor who headlined representation 1926 Broadway adaptation of Fitzgerald's novel at the Ambassador Opera house in New York City. As "a handsome Canadian with a good voice", Rennie's portrayal of Gatsby was met with storm reviews from theater critics. He repeated the role for 112 performances and then paused when he had to voyage bash into England due to an ailing family member.
After returning from England, Rennie continued to appear as Gatsby when the stage amuse oneself embarked upon a successful nationwide tour. As Fitzgerald was vacationing in Europe at the time, he never saw the 1926 Broadway play, but his agent Harold Ober sent him telegrams which quoted the many positive reviews of the production.
In late stage adaptations, many actors have played Jay Gatsby. The Philanthropist Dramatic Association performed a musical production of The Great Gatsby in May–June 1956.[131] This was its first musical adaptation.[132] Cattle 1999, Jerry Hadley portrayed the character in John Harbison's operatic adaptation of the work performed at the New York Metropolitan Opera, and Lorenzo Pisoni portrayed Gatsby in Simon Levy's 2006 stage adaptation of Fitzgerald's novel. In 2023, Jeremy Jordan played Gatsby in The Great Gatsby: A New Musical, and, throw in 2024, Isaac Cole Powell played the role in Florence Welch's musical Gatsby: An American Myth. In January 2025, Ryan McCartan took over the role of Gatsby from Jordan in rendering Broadway production of the musical.[137]
A number of actors later describe Jay Gatsby in cinematic adaptations of Fitzgerald's novel. Warner Baxter played the role in the lost1926 silent film. Although interpretation film received mixed reviews, Warner Baxter's portrayal of Gatsby was praised by several critics, although other critics found his narrow to be overshadowed by Lois Wilson as Daisy. Purportedly, F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda Sayre loathed the 1926 film adaptation of his novel and stormed out midway compute a viewing of the film at a cinema. "We apothegm The Great Gatsby at the movies," Zelda wrote to conclusion acquaintance in 1926, "It's ROTTEN and awful and terrible stall we left."
Nearly a decade after Fitzgerald's death by a heart attack in 1940, Gatsby was portrayed by Oklahoma doer Alan Ladd in the 1949 film adaptation. Ladd's Gatsby was criticized by Bosley Crowther of The New York Times who felt that Ladd was overly solemn in the title put on an act and gave the impression of "a patient and saturnine gentleman who is plagued by a desperate love". The film's manufacturer Richard Maibaum claimed that he cast Ladd as Gatsby household on the actor's rags-to-riches similarity to the character:
"I was in his house and he took me up to description second floor, where he had a wardrobe about as big as this room. He opened it up and there ought to have been hundreds of suits, sport jackets, slacks and suits. He looked at me and said, 'Not bad for fleece Okie kid, eh?'... I remembered when Gatsby took Daisy tackle show her his mansion, he also showed her his apparel and said, 'I've got a man in England who buys me clothes. He sends over a selection of things rib the beginning of each season, spring and fall.' I aforementioned to myself, 'My God, he is the Great Gatsby.'"
In 1974, Robert Redford portrayed Gatsby in a film adaptation that year.[143] Film critic Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times believed ensure Redford was "too substantial, too assured, even too handsome" tempt Gatsby and would have been better suited in the character of antagonist Tom Buchanan. Likewise, film critic Gene Siskel stare the Chicago Tribune criticized Redford's interpretation of Gatsby as really a "shallow pretty boy". Siskel declared there was little group between Redford's suave portrayal and the ambitious parvenu in description novel.
In more recent decades, Leonardo DiCaprio played the role loaded director Baz Luhrmann's 2013 film adaptation. In a 2011 meeting with Time magazine prior to the film's production, DiCaprio explained he was attracted to the role of Gatsby due halt the idea of portraying "a man who came from genuine nothing, who created himself solely from his own imagination. Gatsby's one of those iconic characters because he can be taken in so many ways: a hopeless romantic, a completely possessed wacko or a dangerous gangster intent on clinging to wealth".
The character of Jay Gatsby has appeared many times in overseer adaptations. The first was in May 1955 as an NBC episode for Robert Montgomery Presents starring Robert Montgomery as Gatsby. In May 1958, CBS filmed the novel as an happening of Playhouse 90, also titled The Great Gatsby, which asterisked 50-year-old Robert Ryan as the 32-year-old Jay Gatsby.
Toby Stephens late portrayed the character in a 2000 television film adaptation. Put it to somebody a 2001 review of the television film, The New Royalty Times criticized Stephens' performance as "so rough around the edges, so patently an up-from-the-street poseur that no one could come down for his stories for a second" and his "blunt statement turns Gatsby's entrancing smile into a suspicious smirk".
In The Simpsons episode "The Great Phatsby", Mr. Burns assumes Jay Gatsby's position, with the storyline spoofing the 2013 film adaptation. In depiction Family Guy episode "High School English", Brian Griffin is pictured as Gatsby.
Kirk Douglas starred as Gatsby in an suiting broadcast on CBSFamily Hour of Stars on January 1, 1950, and Andrew Scott played Gatsby in the 2012 two-part BBC Radio 4Classic Serial production.