Ru Freeman is an award-winning Sri Lankan and American novelist, poet, editor, and critic, whose work appears internationally and in translation.

What outlasts us is what we imagine into being. Fitzgerald died thinking he had written nothing of worth, but The Great Gatsby has remained an exemplary work of social critique and literary finesse for over 90 years. Why? Because it is a book that dives into things that continue to move us as human beings: our often-futile struggle against the press of time, destiny, societal constructs that throw up obstacles to our desires, particularly our longing to resurrect the past, and simple human foolishness.

Fitzgerald offers up one of the biggest questions with which we all grapple, no matter how much or how little we have by way of money: what will we choose to do with it? Do we save it for an unforeseen eventuality? Do we, like Gatsby, accumulate it so that we can purchase a foothold in a social stratum to which we may not yet belong, or to escape one to which we do? Do we buy something that offers the fantasy of safety, like a bigger car, to compensate for a lack of power, or a diminutive figure, or a harassed gender or race? Why is it that in the periods of deepest economic depression, the sales of cosmetics rise? Why do young Americans buy so many shoes? Why is there a saying in Russia that translates: When faced with choosing food or a dress, buy the dress, because nobody can see your hunger.

This is a book that provides a timeless critique of social values, or lack thereof. While the book comments upon the excesses of the twenties, its indictment of the so-called American dream remains relevant today. Fitzgerald’s portrayal of financial and social breakdowns, and the destruction of moral values (the best that Daisy wants for her daughter is that she is born a beautiful little fool) in The Great Gatsby can be directed toward the conditions of life in America today. By focusing on the shallowness, selfishness, cruelty, and indifference of the elite, Fitzgerald shines a light on how little such people care about those who are beneath them (in class, status, etc.)

Finally, consider the dreams that are common to most of us—of glory, of fame, of requited love, of success etc.— but which often are not realized no matter how hard we try. Watching Gatsby strive and fail (for “more” in every aspect, including regaining Daisy), is both like watching a train wreck in slow-motion, and a cautionary tale for our own lives.

 

Students could explore the following questions:

How can we...

• Explore Fitzgerald’s character studies and Nick Carraway’s narration as an act of empathy, an attempt to understand other people that can be profound but never complete?
• Consider what it means to try to tell a story that reaches beyond one group’s perspective
• Use The Great Gatsby to test our understanding of American culture, both its past and present, its beauty and challenges?
• Think about other ways of American dreaming that enable flourishing across classes? Is Gatsby’s rags to riches story the only way? Conversely, if it is the predominant dream, identify how it manifests itself across classes.
• Recognize the rigid societal norms/patterns by which Fitzgerald’s characters operate and use that knowledge to better know ourselves and others? What unexamined norms do we live by and how do they affect our engagement with others?
• Understand how we may be inspired by artists—from writers to jazz and country musicians—and use their work in ways that honor and respect the original source?
• examine how neighborhoods, like our own or Fitzgerald’s Valley of Ashes, West and East Egg, define themselves and are defined by others?
• Use specific language and dialogue to evoke the atmosphere of a moment or place?

Students could investigate the following understandings:

• Writers choose and place words carefully to evoke specific emotions.
• Social critique concealed in books like The Great Gatsby helps us identify what needs to change and opens our imagination to how we might change it.
• The process of using The Great Gatsby to explain our culture in the present milieu can lead to insights that give us greater choice in how we choose to participate. Books can lead to action and change.
• While economic freedom helps political freedom, and money allows us to imagine ourselves anew, can it also insulate us from human connection?
• Turning our attention to uncomfortable truths is challenging, and it is easy to choose escape and avoidance. This does not condemn us; it only makes us human.

Geography

Winner Takes All...the Land There is an often-quoted line, attributed to Churchill, that history is written by the victorious, implying that the narratives of history could use scrutiny. Similarly, we might say, our notions of place might also be looked at with care. Think about the fact that generations of us grew up with the cylindrical projection of the world crafted by Flemish geographer and cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569, whose Euro-centric perspective, based on a desire for navigation and conquering, which exaggerated the importance of countries in the Northern Hemisphere and disadvantaged those in South America, Africa, and Southern Asia. It was not until 1974 that the German historian Arno Peters recast the map to emphasize the land-mass of each country more accurately. When the new map reissued in Amherst, Massachusetts, was adopted by an entire Boston school district in 2013, the world was, quite literally, changed in the eyes of students. Where we stand, what we centralize, matters. Assignment What’s the map for The Great Gatsby? Which literal and figurative territories matter? Who defines those places?

Math

How Novelists Think About Math There is a long tradition of math being centralized in novels. Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, Arcadia by Tom Stoppard, An Abundance of Katherines by John Green, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night by Mark Haddon, and Cathy Chung's The Tenth Muse, where a young woman sets out, in part, to conquer the Riemann Hypothesis, are books written by novelists who understand that fiction is a magnificent vehicle for the most complex thought processes.

While he was still writing this, his third book, Fitzgerald wrote to his editor, Maxwell Perkins, stating his intentions which included this line: "I want to write something new – something extraordinary and beautiful and simple + intricately patterned” Assignment Explore one of the following mathematical questions.

• What patterns can you see in The Great Gatsby?
• Can the mathematics of gambling be mastered?
• Why are croupiers forbidden from gambling at other establishments?
• Can you create an equation—or a series of them!—to explain the different relationships in the book?
• What are the statistics of financial success?