Gatsby

Question 1

Who believes that Gatsby’s failure originates from his lack of moral guidance from his parents?

Answer 1

Thomas Stavola

Question 2

When did Fitzgerald learn that life is not a force that can be conquered?

Answer 2

Had a breakdown in 1934

Question 3

Who was president during the Teapot Scandal?

Answer 3

Warren G. Harding

Question 4

Who believes that Gatsby’s death was “a product of an elusive, outlived subconscious illusion”?

Answer 4

Thi Huong Giang Bui

Question 5

Who argues that Nick as a narrator is more of a spectator than an actor?

Answer 5

Max Perkins, Fitzgerald’s editor

Question 6

Which critic discusses Gatsby’s duality as a “chivalrous lover and cold-blooded killer”?

Answer 6

Keith Gandal

Question 7

Which critic states that Fitzgerald doesn’t allow us to meet Gatsby until “he has concretely created his fantastic world of Gatsby’s vision”?

Answer 7

Marius Bewley

Question 8

Which critic describes Gatsby as a romantic hero and states that Fitzgerald appears to believe in the enchantment of the romantic dream?

Answer 8

James E. Miller Jr

Question 9

What feeds into the modern reader’s belief of first-person narration as unreliable?

Answer 9

Freudian psychology

Question 10

Who views Myrtle as a sacrificial victim from a class perspective?

Answer 10

Nicolas Tredell

Question 11

Which critic argues that romanticism in 20th century America is intertwined with capitalism and brutality?

Answer 11

Nicolas Tredell

Question 12

Which critic argues that class is an issue that Fitzgerald delights in and views as darkly apocalyptic due to upheaval of traditional social order?

Answer 12

Robert Emmet Long

Question 13

Who declares that Gatsby’s greatness lies in the fact that there is no authentic object of his desire?

Answer 13

Harold Bloom

Question 14

Where did Fitzgerald go to college?

Answer 14

Princeton

Question 15

Which critic explored Nick’s fascination with Tom’s masculine body as well as the homoerotic undertones in the scene between Nick and Chester McKee?

Answer 15

Keath Fraser

Question 16

Wayne Booth

Answer 16

Unreliable narration is about being at a distance; circumventing “norms”; actions conflicting with narration

Question 17

Which rich socialite did Fitzgerald court when he was younger?

Answer 17

Ginevra King

Question 18

Who were some of the most popular athletes of the time?

Answer 18

Babe Ruth; Ty Cobb

Question 19

Which critic views Gatsby as a classic scapegoat?

Answer 19

Thomas J. Cousineau

Question 20

What does Per Bjorner Grande argue that Nick’s fixation with Gatsby’s mansion is paralleled with?

Answer 20

Kant and his church steeples

Question 21

Who states that the depreciation of nature is a common trait of both Gnosticism and Existentialism?

Answer 21

Hans Jonas

Question 22

Which critic believes that we are acting towards Carraway in the same way that he acts towards Gatsby?

Answer 22

Thomas Boyle

Question 23

When was Fitzgerald alive?

Answer 23

1896-1940

Question 24

Which critic states that Fitzgerald’s first two novels expose common failure of Romantic writers- the inability to understand true nature of characters?

Answer 24

Gary J. Scrimgeour

Question 25

Which critic believes that Gatsby’s failure is his prolongation of the “adolescent incapacity to distinguish between dream and reality”?

Answer 25

William Troy

Question 26

Who argues that Gatsby tries to maintain his own loneliness?

Answer 26

Thi Huong Giang Bui

Question 27

Which critic argues that Jordan is an honest hedonist?

Answer 27

Gary J. Scrimgeour

Question 28

Which critic argues that Fitzgerald was “the man at the dance and also the poor boy outside with his nose pressed to the glass”?

Answer 28

Malcolm Cowley

Question 29

When was the novel published?

Answer 29

1925

Question 30

Which critic believes that Fitzgerald projected some of himself onto both Gatsby and Nick?

Answer 30

Bill Mullen

Question 31

Who believes that Baz Luhrmann’s 2013 adaptation fails to appreciate Fitzgerald’s intensely ironic ambivalence and hostility towards the upper classes?

Answer 31

Bill Mullen

Question 32

What was Wilsonian idealism replaced with?

Answer 32

Disillusion; isolationism

Question 33

When was there a massive influenza epidemic?

Answer 33

Spring of 1918- spread throughout Europe in 1917

Question 34

How many Americans were killed in the massive influenza epidemic?

Answer 34

More than 1/2 million

Question 35

What small but influential group of writers and intellectuals was Fitzgerald part of?

Answer 35

‘Lost Generation’

Question 36

What defined the ‘Lost Generation’?

Answer 36

Shocked by carnage of WW1; dissatisfied with materialism and spiritual emptiness of USA

Question 37

What was government policy like in the 1920s?

Answer 37

Very conservative