The American Dream

Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby

In this course, Dr William Blazek (Liverpool Hope University) explores F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel, The Great Gatsby. We being by thinking about the concept of the American Dream, focusing in particular on how some of the major characters in the novel operate within the expectations of this key American myth of success. In the second module, we think about how we can understand class divisions in the novel, focusing in particular on how characters from the upper class (e.g. Tom Buchanan) appear to sap or steal energy (or ‘vitality’) from those lower down the social order (e.g. Myrtle Wilson). After that, in the third module, we think about the presentation of social mobility in the novel, as well as some of the new technologies that represent the new world order of the early 1920s: the automobile and the telephone. In the fourth module, we think about narrative technique and style, before turning in the fifth module to consider the reception of the Great Gatsby and its enormous impact on twentieth- and twenty-first-century literature, theatre, ballet and opera.

The American Dream

In this module we think about the concept of the American Dream in the Great Gatsby, focusing in particular on what the American Dream was, and the way in which the main characters of the novel – Gatsby, Tom, Daisy, George and Myrtle – operate within the expectations of this key American myth of success.