Today, we embark on another three-act analysis, this time of one of the most iconic American novels of the 20th century: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Published in 1925 and set in the early 1920s, this story captures the sparkle and energy of the roaring twenties and gives us a window into the world of Long Island high society.
If you need a quick review of the three-act structure, check out this article for an in-depth discussion of this framework.
Spoiler Alert! As with all our three-act analyses, I like to give a spoiler warning. This book in particular has a significant surprise at the end. If you’ve never read it before, you might want to do so before diving into this analysis because it will ruin the ending for you.
Okay, let’s do our analysis of The Great Gatsby.
ACT 1: The book starts with Nick Carraway telling us the story. He takes great pains from the outset to establish himself as an objective and truthful narrator. Nick moves to the fictional town of West Egg on Long Island, and spends time with Tom and Daisy Buchanan (who live on East Egg), as well as their friend Jordan Baker. At one point, Tom takes Nick to meet his mistress, Myrtle Wilson (wife of George Wilson), who lives in the valley of ashes between West Egg and the city.
Throughout the first act, Gatsby barely appears. In fact, it feels as though the story is really about Nick. Gatsby is mentioned several times, but we don’t actually meet him until the first pivot point.
Character: We meet everyone but the protagonist. Nick is the narrator and we also meet Tom, Daisy, Jordan, Myrtle, and George (as well as several other minor characters) but Gatsby barely appears.
The only contact we have with Gatsby in Act 1 is at the end of Chapter 1, when Nick sees him walk out onto his dock to look at the green light on Daisy’s dock across the water. Aside from that one instance, Gatsby is only mentioned but never shows up on the page in Act 1.
Voice: This book is a classic example of the peripheral first-person point of view (POV), in that the character narrating the story is not, in fact, the protagonist. In this case, the protagonist is Gatsby, but Nick is the one telling the story.
I think Fitzgerald structured it using this POV for a few reasons. The peripheral POV gives us a “way in” with Gatsby. He’s not a particularly relatable (or even likeable) character, but Nick Carraway is. By putting the story in Nick’s POV, we can relate better to Gatsby.
Fitzgerald withholds Gatsby in Act 1 as a way to build up the mystique around his character and to create anticipation. If we were in Gatsby’s POV from the beginning, it would be hard to create that kind of mystery.
World: This story is set on Long Island and in New York City during the roaring twenties, with all the glitz and glamour that this time period entails. We have a subtle distinction between the two primary locations on Long Island: West Egg (“new money”) and East Egg (“old money”).
Social class is a big factor in this story. Tom comes from old money and Daisy is married into it. Gatsby is new money, and despite his attempts at extravagance, he never quite manages to belong. Nick is somewhat of an outsider. He comes from more humble origins (though still with a fair amount of privilege), allowing him to have a more outside perspective on the other characters.
Problem: The immediate problem is that Nick wants to make his way on the East Coast, having moved there from the Midwest. He’s trying to belong, much in the same way that we see Gatsby trying to belong later on.
Event: The story kicks off when Nick moves into the small rented house next door to Gatsby on West Egg.
PIVOT POINT 1: Nick is invited to one of Gatsby’s fancy parties. While there, he speaks to an unassuming man who turns out to be Gatsby. The external event is Nick going to the party, while the internal choice is Gatsby deciding to reveal his identity.
Identity is an important element in this story. It’s interesting to note that until Gatsby reveals his identity, nobody knows that it’s him. His guests at the party have all sorts of theories about who he is, but no one really knows the true Gatsby. In fact, you could say that by the end of the story, Nick might be the only person who comes close to figuring out who Gatsby really is, and even then, Gatsby still remains something of a mystery.
ACT 2: In Act 2, we move into the world of the extravagant Gatsby parties. Nick starts to put the pieces of Gatsby’s past together and Gatsby and Nick become friends. Throughout Act 2, we learn details of Gatsby’s past and slowly we are able to get a full picture.
Gatsby and Daisy have a past and once knew each other. He courted her before she was married to Tom, but he had no money, so when he left to go to the war, Daisy ended up marrying Tom instead. After the war, Gatsby did whatever he could to rise up in society, even some questionable business activities. Now that he’s living across the water from Daisy, all that he wants is to get her back.
W.O.R.S.T.: One of the best ways to understand the evolution of a story’s conflict is by examining the character’s desires and understanding their motivations. To do that, we use the acronym W.O.R.S.T. and ask the following questions:
- W = What does the character want?
- O = What obstacles are in their way?
- R = What are they willing to risk to get it?
- S = What’s at stake if they don’t get it?
- T = How do they transform in the process?
Want: Gatsby wants to be with Daisy. He wants to reclaim what he had in the past, when he and Daisy were together.
Obstacle: When Gatsby went off to seek his fortune, Daisy decided to marry Tom. Now she’s married and has a young child.
Risk: Gatsby is willing to risk just about anything to get Daisy back. He does whatever it takes to make his fortune because he knows that money is a factor in wooing Daisy. He tries everything he can to fit in with the wealthy class of New York, even though he always remains something of an outsider. He even keeps a secret about Daisy at the end of the story (a secret that winds up costing him his life).
Stakes: If Gatsby can’t have Daisy, then everything he’s ever done in his whole life would have been for nothing. His entire adult life was motivated by this one desire: to be with her.
Transformation: This is where things get interesting. As a protagonist, Gatsby doesn’t really change on the page. Most of Gatsby’s change happens off the page, in parts of the story that happen before we meet him in Pivot Point 1. He changes his name, his identity, and his social status. He does all this in the effort to win Daisy.
While he changes almost everything about himself, in some ways, Gatsby’s entire mission in life is the antithesis of change. What he really wants is for everything to go back to how it was when he was with Daisy in the past. So, even though he has had to change himself in order to do it, what he really wants is the opposite of change: he wants to relive the past.
All of these above elements—want, obstacle, risk, stakes, and transformation—come into play as we learn more about Gatsby’s past in Act 2.
MIDPOINT: Gatsby wants Nick to invite Daisy over so he can happen to stop by at the same time and run into her. Nick invites Daisy for tea on a stormy afternoon. Gatsby stops by and, while at first things are awkward, eventually he and Daisy reconnect.
In fact, they hit it off so well that Gatsby offers to give Nick and Daisy a tour of his mansion next door. This moment is a Temporary Triumph for Gatsby because it feels like he might be on the road to winning Daisy back.
While at the end of the mansion tour, Gatsby brings Nick and Daisy into his bedroom and shows them his closet with shirts “piled like bricks in stacks a dozen high.” He begins flinging his shirts out of the cabinet. Suddenly, Daisy begins to cry.
“They’re such beautiful shirts,” she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds. “It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such—such beautiful shirts before.”
Of course, we know that she’s not really crying about the shirts. It’s what the shirts symbolize that makes her sad, because they are proof that Gatsby was able to make his way in the world and—had she only waited for him—maybe they could have been together.
This is the culmination of the Temporary Triumph because in this moment, it’s clear that Daisy still has feelings for Gatsby. Note that because we are in a peripheral first-person POV, we can’t really get a moment of self-reflection from Gatsby because we don’t have access to his thoughts..
ACT 2 CONT’D: Before we get to Pivot Point 2, we have one more significant sequence that helps to ramp up the story’s tension and propel us toward the climax. Tom, Daisy, Gatsby, Jordan, and Nick decide to go to the city. Tom wants to drive Gatsby’s ostentatious, yellow car, so he lets Gatsby and Daisy drive together in his blue coupe.
On the way into the city, Tom, Jordan, and Nick stop by Wilson’s garage in the valley of ashes and Tom learns that Wilson intends to move West with Myrtle. This information leaves him very upset.
The group meets up in the city and they head to the Plaza Hotel, where they take a suite and plan to drink mint juleps to cool off in the hot afternoon. Tom and Gatsby get into an argument over Daisy and eventually Gatsby says: “Your wife doesn’t love you… She’s never loved you. She loves me.”
Daisy admits that she would leave Tom. In response, Tom reveals some of Gatsby’s shady business dealings and Daisy loses her resolve. She and Gatsby get into his yellow car and head back out to Long Island. Tom, Jordan, and Nick follow in the coupe.
PIVOT POINT 2: When the coupe reaches the valley of ashes on the way back out to Long Island, Nick and his friends are met with a commotion. Myrtle Wilson has been the victim of a hit and run accident, and she has died. The car in question did not stop, but there are witnesses who say that it was yellow.
Back on Long Island, Nick confronts Gatsby about the accident and it turns out that Daisy was the one driving the car. Despite the severity of the consequences, Gatsby insists he will not reveal that Daisy was driving. In this pivot point, the external event is Myrtle getting killed, while the internal choice is Gatsby lying to protect Daisy.
ACT 3: Suddenly, we’re in the point of view of a man named Michaelis, who is a friend to George Wilson and is with George at the garage after Myrtle has died. The effect of this POV shift is that it seems as though we’re hearing this account third-hand (Michaelis telling Nick, who in turn tells us readers).
This POV shift is essential because as George begins putting together the truth about his wife’s affair, he wouldn’t be open with someone like Nick, who’s of a different social class and barely an acquaintance. We have to hear this part of the story through Michaelis, who is his friend and who he would trust enough to discuss this subject.
CRISIS: From here, the story picks up momentum. We learn that Wilson has figured out that his wife was having an affair, and he assumes the person driving the yellow car is his wife’s lover. He goes looking for the yellow car and winds up in West Egg. He learns that Gatsby has a yellow car so he goes to his house.
Meanwhile, Gatsby has decided to use the pool (which he has not used all summer). He lies on top of an inflatable mattress on the water.
CLIMAX: The butler hears shots fired. Gatsby and Wilson are both found dead.
Ending Type: This is an example of a tragic ending. The character (Gatsby) does not get what he wants (to win Daisy), but he still wants it, right up to the end.
DENOUEMENT: In the denouement, we see the aftermath of the shooting. Nick tries to contact Daisy and Tom, but they have gone away, leaving no forwarding address or any indication of when they might come back. Nick is left on his own to manage Gatsby’s funeral and he learns a few last pieces of information about his friend. The day of the funeral arrives. No one comes.
RULE OF 3: There is one Rule of 3 that begins in Act 1 and ends in Act 3, and this is the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg. In the valley of ashes, right near Wilson’s garage, there is a billboard that shows a huge set of eyes. As Nick says:
“The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic—their retinas are one yard high. They look out of no face, but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a non-existent nose.”
These eyes come up three times in the story. They first appear in Act 1, when Tom takes Nick to Wilson’s garage to meet his mistress and they all go into the city together.
The second appearance of the eyes is when Tom, Jordan, and Nick stop by the garage on their way into the city, and Tom learns that Wilson wants to take his wife and move West. Nick notices the eyes just as he realizes Myrtle has been watching their conversation the whole time.
The third and final appearance of the eyes is when Wilson talks to Michaelis and reveals that he knows about his wife’s affair. Michaelis looks up and sees the eyes looming and Wilson says, “God sees everything.” This third instance is different because it is the moment where Fitzgerald connects the dots and makes it clear that the eyes in the billboard symbolize the eyes of God.
In this book, the characters are constantly trying to be something they’re not or do something they’re not supposed to do. Gatsby changes his identity and tries to become a new man. Daisy loves Gatsby, but doesn’t have the guts to leave her husband. Tom has a hidden affair with Myrtle. Even Nick tries to fit in with Tom, Daisy and their set, despite not being nearly as wealthy. Everyone is trying to pretend, but ultimately, nothing escapes those all-seeing eyes.
CONCLUSION: The Great Gatsby is an excellent example of the peripheral first-person POV. The trickiest thing about this technique is being able to show certain events that happen when the POV character (i.e., Nick) is not there. What Fitzgerald does is he uses subtle shifts in POV, where other characters recount their version of events to Nick, giving us (the readers) access to that information.
For example, in Chapter IV, Jordan tells Nick about Daisy’s past because she and Daisy grew up together. Later, in Chapters VI and VIII, we have passages where Gatsby tells Nick things about his life. And, of course, there’s that Michaelis section at the end of Chapter VIII where we jump completely from Nick to Michaelis’ POV and it’s barely implied that Nick is recounting that event to us (the readers) because he learned that information after the fact.
These point of view jumps may seem drastic, but they ramp up slowly. Each incidence of a shift in POV is a little more daring than the last, so that by the time we get to the Michaelis passage, we’ve learned to trust the narrator and we take that dramatic POV jump in stride. In this way, The Great Gatsby is an excellent study in first-person peripheral POV and how to build up to bigger, more dramatic POV shifts throughout the story.
Until next time, keep writing and keep being awesome!
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