The Great Gatsby – Second Edition

Book excerpt: The Great Gatsby is widely regarded as one of the masterpieces of American fiction. It tells of the mysterious Jay Gatsby’s grand effort to win the love of Daisy Buchanan, the rich girl who embodies for him the promise of the American dream. Deeply romantic in its concern with self making, ideal love, and the power of illusion, it draws on modernist techniques to capture the spirit of the materialistic, morally adrift, post-war era that Fitzgerald dubbed “the jazz age.” Gatsby’s aspirations remain inseparable from the rhythms and possibilities suggested by modern consumer culture, popular song, and the movies, while his obstacles remain inseparable from contemporary American anxieties about social mobility, racial mongrelization, and the fate of Western civilization. This Broadview edition sets the novel in context by providing readers with a critical introduction and crucial background material about the consumer culture in which Fitzgerald was immersed, the novel’s composition and reception, and the jazz age. The second edition has been updated throughout, with expanded writings on race and immigration in 1920s America from Anzia Yezierska, Alain Locke, and others.