Jay Gatsby

James Gatz turned himself into Jay Gatsby by….

Costume – While James was growing up his family wasn’t wealthy and were considered part of the lower class. Fashion would have been a luxury to them so when James changed himself into Gatsby he changed his clothes, they make him look more expensive and worthy. The type of expensive clothes he now wears are suits, bowties, shirts, vests, shoes, and hats. ‘They’re such beautiful shirts… It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such – such beautiful shirts before.’

Props – Gatsby’s yellow car shows his wealth and attention his is trying to draw to himself. He wants people, especially Daisy, to know he is wealthy. On the drive to New York Gatsby gets pulled up by the police but after his white card is flashed he is let off without any punishment. He says to Nick ‘I was able to do the commissioner favour once, he sends me a Christmas card every year.’ At Nicks house when he invited Daisy and Gatsby over for lunch, Gatsby arranged to have dozens of flowers sent over to display at Nicks house. He went very overboard with this just to impress Daisy. Gatsby also keeps a lot of photos around of Daisy, Dan Cody, and a photo from his days at Oxford. I think he keeps these to remember the past with Daisy, and to show how far he has come.

Setting of the ‘Stage’ – Gatsby throws massive parties in his huge elegant house in East Egg. Owl eyes calls him a ‘regular Belasco’. He puts a lot of effort into his house and sets everything out perfectly. He goes to extreme measures to make sure it is believable and that anyone will believe the things he tells. Gatsby’s house was a giant symbol of success but now it is just a symbol of his loneliness without Daisy.

Speech and dialogue – When Gatsby speaks he is very formal which sometimes will make his words sound forced and unnatural. ‘…before he introduced himself I’d got a strong impression that he was picking his words with care.’ It was obvious to Nick he wasn’t being natural and trying very hard to sound important/impressive. In the time table James Gatz wrote as a kid, he put ‘practice poise and elocution.’ Elocution is the skill of clear and expressive speech. Gatsby trained himself to succeed at this skill which he thought would make him more successful.

Backstory – There are a lot of different rumours going. around about Gatsby like where he has came from and what he has done. We only hear the whole story when Gatsby tells Nick about it in the car on the way to lunch in New York. Parts of his story still sounds like rumours and the way he tells it is very suspicious. He has props on hand to show Nick to prove his point. ‘A souvenir of Oxford days. It was taken in Trinity Quad…’ A photo from his days at Oxford is just one of the objects he tends to carry around with him. Usually you would not have such an precise backstory unless there was someone you didn’t particularly want people to know about you.