WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.160 Imagine, um, imagine pouring your absolute soul 00:00:05.160 --> 00:00:07.599 into a novel, you know, putting all your deepest, 00:00:07.919 --> 00:00:10.660 most painful insecurities into every single page. 00:00:10.919 --> 00:00:13.220 Right. It's a very vulnerable thing. Exactly. 00:00:13.519 --> 00:00:16.100 And you publish it and you're completely convinced 00:00:16.100 --> 00:00:18.539 you've just written like the great American masterpiece 00:00:18.539 --> 00:00:21.199 and then crickets. Just total silence. Yeah. 00:00:21.239 --> 00:00:24.539 It barely sells 20 ,000 copies. The critics completely 00:00:24.539 --> 00:00:28.379 missed the point. And then, uh, a few years later, 00:00:28.420 --> 00:00:30.300 the Great Depression hits. Which really changed 00:00:30.300 --> 00:00:32.780 the public's appetite. Oh, completely. The public 00:00:32.780 --> 00:00:35.299 actually resents your book because it's all about 00:00:35.299 --> 00:00:37.820 rich people drinking champagne. Yeah, they actively 00:00:37.820 --> 00:00:40.479 hated it. Right. So you spend your final years 00:00:40.479 --> 00:00:43.100 writing these terrible Hollywood scripts just 00:00:43.100 --> 00:00:45.359 to pay off debts, drinking yourself to death, 00:00:45.359 --> 00:00:48.740 and you die at 44. It's just so sad. It is. You 00:00:48.740 --> 00:00:51.539 die entirely convinced you're a monumental failure 00:00:51.539 --> 00:00:54.119 and that history is going to... Like, completely 00:00:54.119 --> 00:00:56.520 forget your greatest work. It's a profoundly 00:00:56.520 --> 00:00:59.939 tragic trajectory, especially when you consider 00:00:59.939 --> 00:01:02.500 what actually happened next. Yes, the massive 00:01:02.500 --> 00:01:05.780 plot twist, because history had this huge surprise 00:01:05.780 --> 00:01:09.180 waiting. Fast forward to World War II. Right? 00:01:09.560 --> 00:01:13.040 That same supposedly forgotten book gets printed 00:01:13.040 --> 00:01:15.840 on, like this really cheap paper, and handed 00:01:15.840 --> 00:01:18.840 out to over 150 ,000 American soldiers. Just 00:01:18.840 --> 00:01:21.359 huddled in foxholes across Europe and the Pacific. 00:01:21.719 --> 00:01:24.879 Yeah. And the troops absolutely devour it. And 00:01:24.879 --> 00:01:27.900 from the ashes of that war, the book rises to 00:01:27.900 --> 00:01:30.640 become, I mean, arguably the most famous, most 00:01:30.640 --> 00:01:33.640 assigned piece of American literature ever. It's 00:01:33.640 --> 00:01:36.099 wild. Today, we're tearing into the glorious, 00:01:36.459 --> 00:01:39.379 messy, and frankly, deeply misunderstood tragedy 00:01:39.379 --> 00:01:42.140 of the great Gatsby. It's such a crazy phenomenon. 00:01:42.299 --> 00:01:44.239 And if you're joining us for this deep dive, 00:01:44.599 --> 00:01:46.819 there's a really strong chance you're exploring 00:01:46.819 --> 00:01:50.439 this text for a high school or a college literature 00:01:50.439 --> 00:01:53.120 class right now. Which is great, but it is incredibly 00:01:53.120 --> 00:01:55.540 easy to get distracted by the surface level aesthetics 00:01:55.540 --> 00:01:57.620 of the novel. Oh, for sure. The flapper dresses, 00:01:57.780 --> 00:02:00.519 the Art Deco fonts. The jazz music, the lavish 00:02:00.519 --> 00:02:03.079 parties. It's like the ultimate 1920s mood board. 00:02:03.519 --> 00:02:06.719 Precisely. But our mission today is to serve 00:02:06.719 --> 00:02:08.719 as your intellectual companion to help you look 00:02:08.719 --> 00:02:11.139 past that glittering facade. Because there is 00:02:11.139 --> 00:02:13.379 so much more going on. There really is. We're 00:02:13.379 --> 00:02:16.099 pulling from a very robust stack of sources today. 00:02:16.840 --> 00:02:19.340 Comprehensive historical texts on the 1920s, 00:02:19.479 --> 00:02:22.139 really deep biographical accounts of the author 00:02:22.139 --> 00:02:24.580 F. Scott Fitzgerald. Right. And of course, some 00:02:24.580 --> 00:02:27.400 of the most rigorous literary analysis of the 00:02:27.400 --> 00:02:29.479 text itself. So we're really going to deconstruct 00:02:29.479 --> 00:02:31.580 the major themes, right? Like the American dream 00:02:31.580 --> 00:02:33.819 and social class. Exactly. And we want to ground 00:02:33.819 --> 00:02:37.810 this fictional narrative in the very real and 00:02:37.810 --> 00:02:40.969 honestly often brutal history of the Jazz Age 00:02:40.969 --> 00:02:43.270 and Prohibition. Yeah, we really want to move 00:02:43.270 --> 00:02:46.509 way beyond just a simple plot summary here. Right, 00:02:46.550 --> 00:02:48.990 we need to dissect the mechanics of why this 00:02:48.990 --> 00:02:51.469 tragedy unfolds the way it does and what it reveals 00:02:51.469 --> 00:02:53.909 about social hierarchies that frankly still operate 00:02:53.909 --> 00:02:56.530 today. Okay, let's unpack this because I want 00:02:56.530 --> 00:02:58.770 you the listener to imagine stepping out of a 00:02:58.770 --> 00:03:02.590 time machine into 1922. I love this mental image. 00:03:02.810 --> 00:03:05.289 Right. So you're standing on the sweeping lawn 00:03:05.289 --> 00:03:08.530 of this massive Long Island estate. The champagne 00:03:08.530 --> 00:03:11.449 is flowing. The orchestra is roaring. Everyone 00:03:11.449 --> 00:03:14.909 looks just completely carefree. But it's an illusion. 00:03:15.349 --> 00:03:17.250 Totally. Yeah. Because what you don't realize 00:03:17.250 --> 00:03:19.990 is that you are walking through a literal minefield 00:03:19.990 --> 00:03:24.270 of invisible social rules, deep resentments, 00:03:25.090 --> 00:03:28.569 and like vicious class warfare. Which is the 00:03:28.569 --> 00:03:31.530 true core of the book. Exactly. To understand 00:03:31.530 --> 00:03:34.110 the tragedy of Jay Gatsby, we can't just look 00:03:34.110 --> 00:03:36.169 at the fictional world. We have to look at the 00:03:36.169 --> 00:03:38.689 very real world that birthed him. And that means 00:03:38.689 --> 00:03:40.490 starting with the man who built the time machine 00:03:40.490 --> 00:03:43.110 in the first place, F. Scott Fitzgerald. Yeah, 00:03:43.229 --> 00:03:45.569 you really cannot separate the great Gatsby from 00:03:45.569 --> 00:03:48.370 the era it was written in. No, you can't. Nor 00:03:48.370 --> 00:03:50.330 can you separate it from the psychological baggage 00:03:50.330 --> 00:03:52.090 of its author. I mean, we are talking about the 00:03:52.090 --> 00:03:55.550 1920s, a decade inextricably linked to the phrase 00:03:55.550 --> 00:03:58.569 the Jazz Age. And Fitzgerald actually popularized 00:03:58.569 --> 00:04:01.129 that term, didn't he? He did. He published a 00:04:01.129 --> 00:04:03.889 short story collection in 1922 literally titled 00:04:03.889 --> 00:04:06.610 Tales of the Jazz Age. He was like the ultimate 00:04:06.610 --> 00:04:08.870 branding expert for his own generation. He really 00:04:08.870 --> 00:04:11.150 was. But let's set the stage historically for 00:04:11.150 --> 00:04:14.409 a second. What is actually happening in the American 00:04:14.409 --> 00:04:17.300 psyche right now? Like, why is everyone partying 00:04:17.300 --> 00:04:20.839 so hard? Well, to understand the manic energy 00:04:20.839 --> 00:04:23.660 of the 1920s, you really have to look at the 00:04:23.660 --> 00:04:26.600 trauma of the decade prior. Right. World War 00:04:26.600 --> 00:04:30.160 I. Exactly. Think about the psychological whiplash 00:04:30.160 --> 00:04:32.800 of this era. You have an entire generation of 00:04:32.800 --> 00:04:35.420 adolescents and young adults who just witnessed 00:04:35.420 --> 00:04:38.750 the old world. literally tear itself apart. Yeah, 00:04:38.870 --> 00:04:40.810 the mechanized slaughter in the trenches. Right. 00:04:40.970 --> 00:04:43.250 And for decades, they had been told by their 00:04:43.250 --> 00:04:44.970 parents, by their institutions, that if they 00:04:44.970 --> 00:04:47.529 just followed the traditional rules, you know, 00:04:47.810 --> 00:04:50.870 duty, honor, strict Victorian morality society 00:04:50.870 --> 00:04:53.110 would progress. And where did those rules actually 00:04:53.110 --> 00:04:55.649 lead them? To millions of young men dying in 00:04:55.649 --> 00:04:58.149 muddy trenches in Europe. So the prevailing mood 00:04:58.149 --> 00:05:00.870 among the youth is basically like, your rules 00:05:00.870 --> 00:05:03.069 got our older brothers killed. Why on earth should 00:05:03.069 --> 00:05:05.230 we listen to you? That is the exact sentiment. 00:05:05.310 --> 00:05:07.949 There is this profound systemic disillusionment. 00:05:08.509 --> 00:05:10.990 The younger demographic actively rejected the 00:05:10.990 --> 00:05:13.189 prevailing social norms because they just viewed 00:05:13.189 --> 00:05:15.810 those norms as morally bankrupt. Makes total 00:05:15.810 --> 00:05:17.589 sense when you put it that way. So they turn 00:05:17.589 --> 00:05:20.709 to rebellion, self -gratification, hedonism, 00:05:20.709 --> 00:05:23.589 and you couple that psychological rebellion with 00:05:23.589 --> 00:05:26.930 a massive post -war economic boom. And the sudden 00:05:26.930 --> 00:05:29.589 widespread availability of the automobile. Exactly. 00:05:29.829 --> 00:05:32.569 Cars changed everything. Plus the explosion of 00:05:32.569 --> 00:05:35.959 jazz music. You suddenly have a culture obsessed 00:05:35.959 --> 00:05:38.519 with living entirely in the present moment because 00:05:38.519 --> 00:05:41.240 the past is traumatic and the future is totally 00:05:41.240 --> 00:05:43.319 uncertain. It's a culture running entirely on 00:05:43.319 --> 00:05:45.699 adrenaline and borrowed money. And Fitzgerald 00:05:45.699 --> 00:05:48.180 is right in the center of it. Oh, he's the epicenter. 00:05:48.339 --> 00:05:50.240 But he isn't just taking notes from the corner 00:05:50.240 --> 00:05:53.540 of the room. Right. He is living it. His own 00:05:53.540 --> 00:05:55.899 life is essentially the rough draft for the great 00:05:55.899 --> 00:05:58.720 Gatsby. It absolutely is. So let's look at his 00:05:58.720 --> 00:06:00.779 background because it heavily influenced the 00:06:00.779 --> 00:06:03.259 DNA of the novel. Fitzgerald is a midwesterner. 00:06:03.360 --> 00:06:05.670 Right. Born in St. Paul, Minnesota. Yeah, to 00:06:05.670 --> 00:06:08.029 a family that has some social standing, but they're 00:06:08.029 --> 00:06:10.509 constantly struggling financially. And that financial 00:06:10.509 --> 00:06:13.470 anxiety, that is the absolute bedrock of his 00:06:13.470 --> 00:06:15.670 worldview. He always felt like the poor boy in 00:06:15.670 --> 00:06:18.300 the rich kid's school. Always the outsider. Exactly. 00:06:18.600 --> 00:06:21.300 And he eventually attends Princeton University, 00:06:21.560 --> 00:06:24.079 which is, I mean, the ultimate bastion of the 00:06:24.079 --> 00:06:26.639 East Coast elite. Which perfectly mirrors the 00:06:26.639 --> 00:06:29.579 narrator of the novel, Nick Carraway. Yes. Nick 00:06:29.579 --> 00:06:32.240 is also a midwesterner who travels East to attend 00:06:32.240 --> 00:06:35.300 an Ivy League school Yale, in Nick's case. Right. 00:06:35.459 --> 00:06:37.769 So Fitzgerald is at Princeton. surrounded by 00:06:37.769 --> 00:06:40.550 the scions of American industry. The heirs to 00:06:40.550 --> 00:06:43.069 massive, massive fortunes. And he desperately 00:06:43.069 --> 00:06:45.170 wants to belong, doesn't he? Like, to be in their 00:06:45.170 --> 00:06:47.670 exclusive eating clubs and be accepted as an 00:06:47.670 --> 00:06:50.889 equal. He does. But he was always acutely aware 00:06:50.889 --> 00:06:52.670 that he didn't have their money. He's just pressing 00:06:52.670 --> 00:06:55.509 his face against the glass. Yeah. And that feeling 00:06:55.509 --> 00:06:59.300 of inadequacy... goes from just a dull ache to 00:06:59.300 --> 00:07:02.980 a sharp agonizing stab when it comes to his romantic 00:07:02.980 --> 00:07:05.399 life. Oh, his romantic life is pivotal here. 00:07:05.620 --> 00:07:08.199 The parallels between his real life and the plot 00:07:08.199 --> 00:07:11.060 of Gatsby are almost uncomfortable to look at. 00:07:11.620 --> 00:07:14.160 So he's an 18 -year -old student, and he meets 00:07:14.160 --> 00:07:17.660 this 16 -year -old girl named Geneva King. Geneva 00:07:17.660 --> 00:07:20.199 King is an absolutely crucial historical figure 00:07:20.199 --> 00:07:22.120 if you want to understand the psychological engine 00:07:22.120 --> 00:07:24.279 of this novel. Tell us about her. Well, she was 00:07:24.279 --> 00:07:27.120 a prominent Chicago debutante. We are talking 00:07:27.120 --> 00:07:31.040 about the absolute pinnacle of upper class Midwestern 00:07:31.040 --> 00:07:34.180 society. Like old money royalty. Exactly. She 00:07:34.180 --> 00:07:36.980 was wealthy, sought after, and moved in these 00:07:36.980 --> 00:07:39.199 exclusive circles that Fitzgerald could really 00:07:39.199 --> 00:07:43.000 only dream of. And he falls completely obsessively 00:07:43.000 --> 00:07:44.779 in love with her. I mean, they write these intense, 00:07:45.160 --> 00:07:46.879 passionate letters back and forth to each other. 00:07:46.980 --> 00:07:49.699 They do. And for a brief moment, it really seems 00:07:49.699 --> 00:07:52.439 like she reciprocates his feelings. But then 00:07:52.439 --> 00:07:54.480 the reality - of the American class system just 00:07:54.480 --> 00:07:56.959 steps right in. It always does. Her family looks 00:07:56.959 --> 00:07:59.500 at this kid from St. Paul with no real money, 00:07:59.699 --> 00:08:02.420 no concrete prospects, and they just shut it 00:08:02.420 --> 00:08:05.060 down. And the sources point to a very specific, 00:08:05.379 --> 00:08:08.339 devastating piece of advice that Genevra's father 00:08:08.339 --> 00:08:11.819 supposedly delivered to Fitzgerald. Yes. He purportedly 00:08:11.819 --> 00:08:13.980 told him poor boys shouldn't think of marrying 00:08:13.980 --> 00:08:18.370 rich girls. Ouch. I mean, core boys shouldn't 00:08:18.370 --> 00:08:20.069 think of marrying rich girls. You really have 00:08:20.069 --> 00:08:22.629 to pause and consider the sheer destructive power 00:08:22.629 --> 00:08:25.009 of a sentence like that. Especially on the psyche 00:08:25.009 --> 00:08:28.810 of an ambitious, deeply insecure young man. It 00:08:28.810 --> 00:08:31.050 completely rewrites his understanding of his 00:08:31.050 --> 00:08:33.610 own worth. It does. And Geneva ultimately ends 00:08:33.610 --> 00:08:36.450 the courtship and very quickly marries a wealthy, 00:08:36.809 --> 00:08:39.110 established Chicago businessman. You know, a 00:08:39.110 --> 00:08:42.169 man from her own social stratum. And that rejection 00:08:42.169 --> 00:08:44.929 doesn't just hurt. It... permanently damages 00:08:44.929 --> 00:08:47.490 him. It lodges like a splinter in his brain. 00:08:47.769 --> 00:08:50.750 It's the wound that never heals. Right. And Genevra 00:08:50.750 --> 00:08:53.929 King essentially becomes the blueprint for Daisy 00:08:53.929 --> 00:08:56.169 Buchanan in the novel. Yeah. She's the golden 00:08:56.169 --> 00:08:59.370 girl safe up in her palace, completely inaccessible 00:08:59.370 --> 00:09:02.169 to the poor boy who loves her. Exactly. But the 00:09:02.169 --> 00:09:04.909 story gets even crazier because Fitzgerald leaves 00:09:04.909 --> 00:09:07.429 school. goes to the military during World War 00:09:07.429 --> 00:09:10.990 I, gets stationed in Alabama, and lightning literally 00:09:10.990 --> 00:09:14.409 strikes twice. He meets Zelda Sayre. Ah, Zelda. 00:09:14.809 --> 00:09:17.389 She was a vivacious 17 -year -old Southern belle, 00:09:17.789 --> 00:09:20.129 the daughter of an Alabama Supreme Court justice. 00:09:20.289 --> 00:09:23.090 Again, very prominent in her local society. Very 00:09:23.090 --> 00:09:25.110 prominent and fiercely independent. Fitzgerald 00:09:25.110 --> 00:09:27.529 is entirely captivated by her, so he proposes 00:09:27.529 --> 00:09:30.649 marriage. And her response is incredibly revealing 00:09:30.649 --> 00:09:34.279 about... the pragmatic nature of romance in this 00:09:34.279 --> 00:09:36.620 era. It really is. She basically says, I love 00:09:36.620 --> 00:09:42.519 you, but no. Or more accurately, she postpones 00:09:42.519 --> 00:09:45.360 the engagement specifically because he does not 00:09:45.360 --> 00:09:47.500 have enough money to support the lifestyle she 00:09:47.500 --> 00:09:49.620 expects. She puts him on layaway, essentially. 00:09:49.820 --> 00:09:52.149 Yeah. Until he can prove his financial viability. 00:09:52.289 --> 00:09:54.830 It is a highly conditional love. She only agrees 00:09:54.830 --> 00:09:57.149 to actually marry him after he proves he can 00:09:57.149 --> 00:09:59.009 generate substantial wealth. Watch your ex pulls 00:09:59.009 --> 00:10:02.850 off. He does. In 1920, his first novel, This 00:10:02.850 --> 00:10:05.789 Side of Paradise, becomes a massive overnight 00:10:05.789 --> 00:10:09.129 commercial success. He gets the money and immediately 00:10:09.129 --> 00:10:12.070 Zelda says, okay, let's get married. Just like 00:10:12.070 --> 00:10:14.250 that. I really want you to think about what that 00:10:14.250 --> 00:10:16.970 does to a person's soul. Like, how do you function 00:10:16.970 --> 00:10:18.730 in a marriage? How do you look at your spouse 00:10:18.730 --> 00:10:21.210 every morning, knowing with absolute certainty 00:10:21.210 --> 00:10:23.990 that she only said, I do, because your royalty 00:10:23.990 --> 00:10:26.110 check cleared? It's a dark thought. You got the 00:10:26.110 --> 00:10:28.149 girl, but you literally had to buy her. And that 00:10:28.149 --> 00:10:31.190 creates a profound agonizing ambivalence in him. 00:10:32.169 --> 00:10:34.750 On one hand, Fitzgerald achieves the sudden fame 00:10:34.750 --> 00:10:37.710 and fortune. He and Zelda become national celebrities 00:10:37.710 --> 00:10:40.090 practically overnight. They move into the Biltmore 00:10:40.090 --> 00:10:42.230 Hotel in New York City and just start acting 00:10:42.230 --> 00:10:45.370 completely wild. Completely. The press follows 00:10:45.370 --> 00:10:48.690 them everywhere. They are doing handstands in 00:10:48.690 --> 00:10:51.789 hotel lobbies, jumping into public fountains, 00:10:51.830 --> 00:10:54.769 riding on the roofs of taxis. Yes. They become 00:10:54.769 --> 00:10:58.169 the very embodiment, the living avatars of the 00:10:58.169 --> 00:11:00.690 jazz age hedonism they are famous for writing 00:11:00.690 --> 00:11:03.610 about. They are basically the 1920s equivalent 00:11:03.610 --> 00:11:07.070 of mega influencers. But instead of Instagram, 00:11:07.320 --> 00:11:09.720 They're all over the society papers. That's a 00:11:09.720 --> 00:11:11.919 great comparison. But this is where I really 00:11:11.919 --> 00:11:14.480 need to drill down into something. Because on 00:11:14.480 --> 00:11:17.159 the surface, this makes absolutely no sense. 00:11:18.050 --> 00:11:20.789 Fitzgerald is the poster boy for the era. He 00:11:20.789 --> 00:11:22.929 has the fame, he has the money, he has the beautiful 00:11:22.929 --> 00:11:25.190 wife. He won the game. Green won the game. So 00:11:25.190 --> 00:11:27.909 how does a guy who is living the ultimate American 00:11:27.909 --> 00:11:31.690 fantasy sit down and write a novel that so viciously, 00:11:31.909 --> 00:11:34.529 surgically criticizes and dismantles that exact 00:11:34.529 --> 00:11:37.149 world? Because he never actually felt like he 00:11:37.149 --> 00:11:39.759 belonged. Really? Even with all the money? Even 00:11:39.759 --> 00:11:41.340 with all the money, he felt like he was just 00:11:41.340 --> 00:11:43.399 renting his status while the people he was partying 00:11:43.399 --> 00:11:45.840 with actually owned theirs. The historical texts 00:11:45.840 --> 00:11:48.860 are very clear on this point. Fitzgerald deeply 00:11:48.860 --> 00:11:51.940 admired the rich. He desperately strived to emulate 00:11:51.940 --> 00:11:55.159 their lifestyle. But simultaneously, he found 00:11:55.159 --> 00:11:57.879 their behavior, their entitlement, and their 00:11:57.879 --> 00:12:00.679 carelessness just morally repulsive. It's a massive 00:12:00.679 --> 00:12:03.490 contradiction. It is. He possessed what one of 00:12:03.490 --> 00:12:06.990 his biographers famously described as the smoldering 00:12:06.990 --> 00:12:09.610 resentment of a peasant toward the elite. Oh, 00:12:09.610 --> 00:12:11.529 I love that quote. The smoldering resentment 00:12:11.529 --> 00:12:14.750 of a peasant. It's so evocative, he could never 00:12:14.750 --> 00:12:16.750 forgive the rich for being rich. It perfectly 00:12:16.750 --> 00:12:19.169 captures that feeling of like wanting to burn 00:12:19.169 --> 00:12:20.490 down the country club because they wouldn't let 00:12:20.490 --> 00:12:23.769 you in. Exactly. And this exact duality, this 00:12:23.769 --> 00:12:26.769 consuming desire to possess something that you 00:12:26.769 --> 00:12:29.350 simultaneously despise, that is the psychological 00:12:29.350 --> 00:12:31.710 foundation of the great Gatsby. It's all starting 00:12:31.710 --> 00:12:34.409 to make sense now. Right. Jay Gatsby is driven 00:12:34.409 --> 00:12:37.289 to acquire immense, impossible wealth purely 00:12:37.289 --> 00:12:40.690 to win back his former fiance, Daisy, who rejected 00:12:40.690 --> 00:12:43.190 him because he was poor. It's a mirror image 00:12:43.190 --> 00:12:46.429 of his own life. Gatsby's five -year obsessive 00:12:46.429 --> 00:12:49.909 quest completely mirrors Fitzgerald's own desperate 00:12:49.909 --> 00:12:53.129 need to prove his financial worth to Zelda and, 00:12:53.129 --> 00:12:55.850 before her, to Geneva's father. It really makes 00:12:55.850 --> 00:12:57.840 you wonder about the... You have the green lights 00:12:57.840 --> 00:13:00.039 we chase in our own lives today. Oh, absolutely. 00:13:00.159 --> 00:13:02.120 Like the Ivy League acceptance letter, the Tech 00:13:02.120 --> 00:13:05.240 Bro startup millions, the perfectly curated aesthetic 00:13:05.240 --> 00:13:08.179 on social media. Fitzgerald is essentially warning 00:13:08.179 --> 00:13:12.019 us from a century ago. Look, I got everything 00:13:12.019 --> 00:13:15.059 I thought I wanted and it felt completely hollow. 00:13:15.370 --> 00:13:18.350 The pressure to prove your worth through material 00:13:18.350 --> 00:13:21.450 success is a trap. It's a total psychological 00:13:21.450 --> 00:13:23.570 trap. But to understand the physical mechanics 00:13:23.570 --> 00:13:26.230 of the novel, we have to look at the environment 00:13:26.230 --> 00:13:28.889 that allows Gatsby to actually build his fortune. 00:13:28.970 --> 00:13:31.210 Right, the economics of the 1920s. Because we 00:13:31.210 --> 00:13:33.590 know the parties at Gatsby's mansion are legendary. 00:13:34.009 --> 00:13:36.309 Hundreds of people, massive jazz orchestras, 00:13:36.509 --> 00:13:39.029 and just endless free -flowing alcohol. Yes, 00:13:39.169 --> 00:13:41.750 the alcohol is key here. Right, and here is where 00:13:41.750 --> 00:13:44.289 the historical timeline gets very messy. The 00:13:44.289 --> 00:13:46.230 novel takes place in the spring and summer of 00:13:46.230 --> 00:13:50.350 1922. Now, anyone who knows basic American history 00:13:50.350 --> 00:13:52.529 knows that the 18th Amendment went into effect 00:13:52.529 --> 00:13:56.610 in 1920. Prohibition. Prohibition. The manufacture, 00:13:56.789 --> 00:13:59.169 sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages 00:13:59.169 --> 00:14:02.570 is federally banned. It is the law of the land. 00:14:02.669 --> 00:14:06.889 It is. So I have to ask, if alcohol is illegal 00:14:06.889 --> 00:14:10.120 everywhere, How on earth is a guy like Gatsby 00:14:10.120 --> 00:14:13.980 moving enough liquor to throw a 300 person carnival 00:14:13.980 --> 00:14:16.659 every single weekend without the federal government 00:14:16.659 --> 00:14:19.309 kicking his door down? There has to be systemic, 00:14:19.309 --> 00:14:21.529 massive corruption at play. There has to be. 00:14:21.629 --> 00:14:23.950 And there is. That is the great hypocrisy of 00:14:23.950 --> 00:14:26.929 the 1920s. Prohibition did not stop America from 00:14:26.929 --> 00:14:29.009 drinking. It simply transferred the incredibly 00:14:29.009 --> 00:14:32.110 lucrative alcohol industry from legitimate businesses 00:14:32.110 --> 00:14:34.210 into the hands of organized crime. It birthed 00:14:34.210 --> 00:14:36.570 the speakeasy. Speakeasy culture and a massive 00:14:36.570 --> 00:14:39.210 violent underground economy. And this is the 00:14:39.210 --> 00:14:42.590 dark underbelly of the novel. Gatsby's mysterious, 00:14:42.830 --> 00:14:45.090 seemingly limitless wealth is not inherited from 00:14:45.090 --> 00:14:47.009 some noble family. Right, he's not old money. 00:14:46.990 --> 00:14:49.789 Not at all. It is derived entirely from bootlegging 00:14:49.789 --> 00:14:52.309 and his deep association with the criminal underworld. 00:14:52.730 --> 00:14:55.649 So he is a gangster. I mean, a very polite, well 00:14:55.649 --> 00:14:58.370 -dressed gangster in a pink suit, but a gangster 00:14:58.370 --> 00:15:01.110 nonetheless. Precisely. And Fitzgerald didn't 00:15:01.110 --> 00:15:03.769 just pull this out of thin air. He didn't. No, 00:15:03.769 --> 00:15:07.049 he based Gatsby's operations on the very real 00:15:07.049 --> 00:15:09.970 criminal ecosystem that surrounded him when he 00:15:09.970 --> 00:15:13.529 moved to Great Neck, Long Island in late 1922. 00:15:13.769 --> 00:15:15.929 Okay, tell me about this because this is fascinating. 00:15:16.159 --> 00:15:19.240 The biographical sources highlight a specific 00:15:19.240 --> 00:15:22.259 neighbor of Fitzgerald's named Max Gerlach. Max 00:15:22.259 --> 00:15:25.940 Gerlach? Yes. Gerlach was a very enigmatic figure. 00:15:26.759 --> 00:15:29.059 He purportedly served as an officer in the American 00:15:29.059 --> 00:15:31.860 Expeditionary Forces during World War I. And 00:15:31.860 --> 00:15:34.980 upon returning, he became a gentleman bootlegger. 00:15:35.220 --> 00:15:37.340 A gentleman bootlegger? Yes. He lived like an 00:15:37.340 --> 00:15:40.259 absolute millionaire in New York. He threw incredibly 00:15:40.259 --> 00:15:43.259 lavish parties, fostered these grand myths about 00:15:43.259 --> 00:15:45.820 his own background. What kind of myths? including 00:15:45.820 --> 00:15:47.820 a rumor that he was related to the German Kaiser. 00:15:47.940 --> 00:15:49.899 Oh, just like the rumor about Gatsby in the book. 00:15:50.039 --> 00:15:52.659 Exactly. And he frequently addressed people with 00:15:52.659 --> 00:15:55.320 the phrase, Old Sport. Wait, wait, wait. He literally 00:15:55.320 --> 00:15:59.799 said Old Sport in real life. He did. Fitzgerald 00:15:59.799 --> 00:16:02.200 essentially lifted his neighbor's entire persona 00:16:02.200 --> 00:16:04.460 and just dropped it into the manuscript. That 00:16:04.460 --> 00:16:07.720 is wild. I had no idea Old Sport was a real guy's 00:16:07.720 --> 00:16:12.080 catchphrase. But Gerlach isn't the only real 00:16:12.080 --> 00:16:15.299 -life figure smuggled into the book, right? We 00:16:15.299 --> 00:16:17.919 have to talk about Meyer Wolfsheim. Yes, Wolfsheim 00:16:17.919 --> 00:16:21.299 is crucial. In the novel, Wolfsheim is the shadowy 00:16:21.299 --> 00:16:24.000 figure who basically mentors Gatsby. He's the 00:16:24.000 --> 00:16:26.840 one who helps him build his illegal empire. And 00:16:26.840 --> 00:16:30.539 Fitzgerald explicitly bases Wolfsheim on a real 00:16:30.539 --> 00:16:33.539 man named Arnold Rothstein. Arnold Rothstein 00:16:33.539 --> 00:16:36.159 was the notorious kingpin of the New York Jewish 00:16:36.159 --> 00:16:38.679 mob. A seriously dangerous guy. Very. He was 00:16:38.679 --> 00:16:40.679 a pioneer of organized crime, really turning 00:16:40.679 --> 00:16:42.940 it from street -level thuggery into a massive 00:16:42.940 --> 00:16:45.649 corporate enterprise. And in the novel Gatsby 00:16:45.649 --> 00:16:47.809 casually mentions to Nick that Wolfsheim is the 00:16:47.809 --> 00:16:50.889 man who fixed the 1919 World Series. Which is 00:16:50.889 --> 00:16:52.950 exactly what Rothstein was accused of doing in 00:16:52.950 --> 00:16:55.789 real life. Exactly. The famous Black Sox scandal 00:16:55.789 --> 00:16:57.970 where members of the Chicago White Sox were actually 00:16:57.970 --> 00:17:00.169 paid to intentionally lose the championship. 00:17:00.490 --> 00:17:02.009 Let's just pause on that for a second because 00:17:02.009 --> 00:17:05.430 fixing the World Series in 1919 isn't just like 00:17:05.430 --> 00:17:08.309 regular sports crime. No, it was a cultural earthquake. 00:17:08.650 --> 00:17:10.849 Baseball was the ultimate symbol of American 00:17:10.849 --> 00:17:14.400 purity and fair play. To rig the World Series 00:17:14.400 --> 00:17:17.119 was to fundamentally corrupt the American ideal. 00:17:18.000 --> 00:17:20.180 It basically proved that everything, even the 00:17:20.180 --> 00:17:22.980 most sacred institutions, was up for sale. It 00:17:22.980 --> 00:17:25.339 was a huge loss of innocence for the public. 00:17:25.700 --> 00:17:27.859 Right. So Gatsby is surrounded by and entirely 00:17:27.859 --> 00:17:31.319 dependent on this massive, corrupt, criminal 00:17:31.319 --> 00:17:33.660 enterprise. Which brings up a huge contradiction. 00:17:33.920 --> 00:17:36.960 What's that? Gatsby is a bootlegger. He associates 00:17:36.960 --> 00:17:39.319 with men who ruin the integrity of the country. 00:17:39.980 --> 00:17:42.250 Yet, Nick Caraway... who's supposed to be our 00:17:42.250 --> 00:17:44.809 moral compass, and by extension, you know, the 00:17:44.809 --> 00:17:47.049 reader, completely falls in love with him. We 00:17:47.049 --> 00:17:49.009 do root for him. We totally root for him. Why? 00:17:49.329 --> 00:17:51.470 Why do we root for the criminal? Because of his 00:17:51.470 --> 00:17:55.250 motivation. Fitzgerald uses Gatsby's criminality 00:17:55.250 --> 00:17:57.930 to highlight the deeper moral decay of the so 00:17:57.930 --> 00:18:00.890 -called legitimate upper class. OK, how so? Well, 00:18:00.950 --> 00:18:04.190 the era was racing along, generating this unprecedented 00:18:04.190 --> 00:18:06.750 wealth, but it was utterly lacking a moral center. 00:18:07.019 --> 00:18:09.160 Yes, Gatsby is a criminal, he breaks federal 00:18:09.160 --> 00:18:11.640 laws, but you have to examine why he breaks them. 00:18:11.940 --> 00:18:14.759 His crimes are committed in the singular, obsessive 00:18:14.759 --> 00:18:18.279 pursuit of love. He builds an empire of dirty 00:18:18.279 --> 00:18:22.369 money for pure reason, to reach Daisy. Contrast 00:18:22.369 --> 00:18:24.450 that with the legal wealth of the other characters, 00:18:24.849 --> 00:18:27.289 right? Like Tom Buchanan. Exactly. Tom Buchanan's 00:18:27.289 --> 00:18:30.349 wealth is inherited. It is entirely legal. But 00:18:30.349 --> 00:18:32.329 what does he do with it? Nothing good. He hoards 00:18:32.329 --> 00:18:35.569 it out of pure selfishness. He uses it to dominate 00:18:35.569 --> 00:18:38.450 others, to buy mistresses, to insulate himself 00:18:38.450 --> 00:18:40.869 from the consequences of his own cruel actions. 00:18:41.089 --> 00:18:43.569 So the legal money is actually the dirty money 00:18:43.569 --> 00:18:46.130 in a moral sense. In Fitzgerald's moral universe, 00:18:46.250 --> 00:18:49.890 yes. Gatsby's illegal pursuit of a pure romantic 00:18:49.890 --> 00:18:53.980 dream makes him strange. Great. Even compared 00:18:53.980 --> 00:18:57.500 to the legal, but morally bankrupt elite who 00:18:57.500 --> 00:18:59.680 surround him. It's an incredible paradox. Like, 00:18:59.900 --> 00:19:02.960 does the end justify the means? Gatsby clearly 00:19:02.960 --> 00:19:05.200 thought that illegal wealth was a perfectly valid 00:19:05.200 --> 00:19:08.039 tool if the dream was pure enough. He was a romantic. 00:19:08.339 --> 00:19:10.920 A deeply flawed one, but a romantic. He literally 00:19:10.920 --> 00:19:13.440 built an illicit empire just to buy a mansion 00:19:13.440 --> 00:19:15.680 directly across the bay from the woman he loved 00:19:15.680 --> 00:19:17.519 so he could just stare at her dock. It's track. 00:19:17.660 --> 00:19:21.529 It is. And that intense tragic yearning brings 00:19:21.529 --> 00:19:23.950 us to the beating heart of this entire narrative, 00:19:24.390 --> 00:19:26.289 the concept of the American dream and how it 00:19:26.289 --> 00:19:29.009 gets warped, corrupted, and eventually destroyed. 00:19:29.309 --> 00:19:33.210 The American dream is a massive philosophical 00:19:33.210 --> 00:19:35.829 concept with roots tracing all the way back to 00:19:35.829 --> 00:19:38.460 the founding of the nation. Right. Life. liberty, 00:19:38.779 --> 00:19:40.799 and the pursuit of happiness. At its core, it 00:19:40.799 --> 00:19:43.500 is the fundamental belief that anyone, regardless 00:19:43.500 --> 00:19:46.079 of their origins, their class, or their station 00:19:46.079 --> 00:19:49.700 of birth, can achieve upward mobility and success 00:19:49.700 --> 00:19:52.200 through hard work and determination. The ultimate 00:19:52.200 --> 00:19:55.140 meritocracy. Yes. It is the promise of the frontier, 00:19:55.359 --> 00:19:57.599 the idea that the future can always be forged 00:19:57.599 --> 00:20:00.259 into something better than the past. And in The 00:20:00.259 --> 00:20:03.410 Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald takes this massive centuries 00:20:03.410 --> 00:20:07.430 -old national ethos and condenses it into one 00:20:07.430 --> 00:20:10.609 single haunting image, the green light. It's 00:20:10.609 --> 00:20:12.730 brilliant symbolism. In the opening chapter, 00:20:12.930 --> 00:20:14.890 Nick sees Gatsby standing on his lawn alone in 00:20:14.890 --> 00:20:17.069 the dark, physically trembling, reaching his 00:20:17.069 --> 00:20:19.150 arms out toward a tiny green light at the end 00:20:19.150 --> 00:20:21.289 of Daisy's dock across the bay. It's such a famous 00:20:21.289 --> 00:20:24.269 scene. On a literal level, the light represents 00:20:24.269 --> 00:20:29.410 Daisy. But symbolically, it represents that ultimate 00:20:29.410 --> 00:20:33.069 achievable future. The promise that if you just 00:20:33.069 --> 00:20:35.509 stretch your arms a little further, you can grasp 00:20:35.509 --> 00:20:38.430 your destiny. But Fitzgerald does something revolutionary 00:20:38.430 --> 00:20:40.930 here. In earlier American literature, the dream 00:20:40.930 --> 00:20:43.829 was largely optimistic. It was all about pioneers 00:20:43.829 --> 00:20:46.990 and self -made men. Rags to riches stories. Exactly. 00:20:47.349 --> 00:20:49.890 But Fitzgerald strips the optimism completely 00:20:49.890 --> 00:20:53.450 away. He makes Jay Gatsby a false prophet of 00:20:53.450 --> 00:20:56.789 the dream. A false prophet. Yes. Gatsby believes 00:20:56.789 --> 00:20:59.309 that because he has amassed the wealth, he is 00:20:59.309 --> 00:21:02.180 entitled to the reward. But his pursuit results 00:21:02.180 --> 00:21:05.220 only in deep existential dissatisfaction because 00:21:05.220 --> 00:21:07.960 the goal he is chasing Daisy and the complete 00:21:07.960 --> 00:21:10.700 societal acceptance she represents is an illusion. 00:21:11.299 --> 00:21:13.240 It's like chasing the horizon. You get in your 00:21:13.240 --> 00:21:15.299 car, you see the horizon line out there in the 00:21:15.299 --> 00:21:17.220 distance, and you hit the gas. You drive a hundred 00:21:17.220 --> 00:21:18.799 miles an hour toward it. But you never reach 00:21:18.799 --> 00:21:21.440 it. Never. No matter how fast you drive, no matter 00:21:21.440 --> 00:21:24.059 how much ground you cover, the horizon always 00:21:24.059 --> 00:21:26.130 stays the exact same distance away. You can never 00:21:26.130 --> 00:21:28.470 actually catch it. That's a perfect analogy for 00:21:28.470 --> 00:21:31.190 Gatsby's struggle. Gatsby has all the money in 00:21:31.190 --> 00:21:33.369 the world, the custom yellow Rolls Royce, the 00:21:33.369 --> 00:21:35.990 biggest house, the wildest parties, but he is 00:21:35.990 --> 00:21:38.589 still just a man standing in the dark, reaching 00:21:38.589 --> 00:21:41.529 out toward a light he can never touch. It forces 00:21:41.529 --> 00:21:45.490 us to ask a really difficult question. What happens 00:21:45.490 --> 00:21:48.430 when you tie your entire identity, your entire 00:21:48.430 --> 00:21:51.029 reason for existing to a goal that is inherently 00:21:51.029 --> 00:21:54.619 unachievable? You break down. You do. Gatsby's 00:21:54.619 --> 00:21:57.299 ultimate tragedy is his refusal to accept the 00:21:57.299 --> 00:22:00.640 passage of time. He is so steadfastly committed 00:22:00.640 --> 00:22:03.680 to a youthful, idealized concept of himself and 00:22:03.680 --> 00:22:06.099 his memory of loving Daisy five years ago that 00:22:06.099 --> 00:22:08.480 he completely rejects reality. Yeah, when Nick 00:22:08.480 --> 00:22:10.839 tells him you can't repeat the past, Gatsby genuinely 00:22:10.839 --> 00:22:13.440 replies, why, of course you can. He really believes 00:22:13.440 --> 00:22:15.059 it. He thinks he can just buy a reset button. 00:22:15.140 --> 00:22:17.700 He does. He cannot see the reality of the deeply 00:22:17.700 --> 00:22:19.799 flawed, superficial woman Daisy has actually 00:22:19.799 --> 00:22:22.359 become, nor can he accept the reality of the 00:22:22.279 --> 00:22:25.039 brutal, rigid society she inhabits. He's blinded 00:22:25.039 --> 00:22:28.519 by his own dream entirely. The text is saturated 00:22:28.519 --> 00:22:32.420 with rampant adultery, broken promises and deceit. 00:22:32.640 --> 00:22:35.599 These aren't just scandalous plot devices. They 00:22:35.599 --> 00:22:38.200 symbolically represent the total corruption and 00:22:38.200 --> 00:22:40.480 loss of faith in the American dream itself. The 00:22:40.480 --> 00:22:43.319 dream rotted from the inside out. Exactly. The 00:22:43.319 --> 00:22:46.180 1920s took a pursuit of self -improvement and 00:22:46.180 --> 00:22:49.579 liberty and mutated it into a shallow, cynical 00:22:49.579 --> 00:22:52.259 worship of sheer materialism. It makes you look 00:22:52.259 --> 00:22:54.309 at your own goals differently. You know, we all 00:22:54.309 --> 00:22:56.250 have a green light, maybe it's a specific career 00:22:56.250 --> 00:22:58.869 milestone, a financial number in your bank account, 00:22:59.230 --> 00:23:01.890 or like an idealized relationship you're obsessing 00:23:01.890 --> 00:23:05.259 over. But Fitzgerald is warning us. Be careful 00:23:05.259 --> 00:23:07.799 what you sacrifice to reach it, because the moment 00:23:07.799 --> 00:23:10.559 you achieve the fantasy, it instantly turns back 00:23:10.559 --> 00:23:13.119 into mundane reality. The chase is literally 00:23:13.119 --> 00:23:15.779 the only thing keeping Gatsby alive. That existential 00:23:15.779 --> 00:23:18.140 dread is the philosophical core, but we also 00:23:18.140 --> 00:23:20.400 have to address the structural reality of the 00:23:20.400 --> 00:23:22.819 novel. Right. Because there is a very specific 00:23:22.819 --> 00:23:26.079 sociological reason why Gatsby could never achieve 00:23:26.079 --> 00:23:28.200 his dream, regardless of his wealth. Oh, the 00:23:28.200 --> 00:23:30.670 money was never going to be enough. Never. His 00:23:30.670 --> 00:23:33.410 pursuit of the American dream crashes headfirst 00:23:33.410 --> 00:23:36.589 into the unbreakable iron wall of social class. 00:23:36.710 --> 00:23:38.630 Right, because the mythology of the American 00:23:38.630 --> 00:23:40.869 dream tells us that class doesn't matter. It 00:23:40.869 --> 00:23:43.809 tells us that meritocracy is real. If you work 00:23:43.809 --> 00:23:46.309 hard and get rich, you win the game. You're at 00:23:46.309 --> 00:23:49.170 the top. That's the myth. But Fitzgerald says 00:23:49.170 --> 00:23:52.869 absolutely not. In this world, getting rich is 00:23:52.869 --> 00:23:55.230 only half the battle, and it's the easy half. 00:23:55.660 --> 00:23:58.759 The novel maps out this class division geographically. 00:23:58.920 --> 00:24:01.819 Which is such a clever literary device. It is. 00:24:02.000 --> 00:24:04.220 Long Island is split into two distinct areas 00:24:04.220 --> 00:24:06.539 separated by a bay. You have East Egg and you 00:24:06.539 --> 00:24:09.099 have West Egg. And this geography is crucial. 00:24:09.420 --> 00:24:12.160 East Egg represents old money. These are the 00:24:12.160 --> 00:24:14.559 families with inherited wealth, fortunes that 00:24:14.559 --> 00:24:16.460 have been established for generations, people 00:24:16.460 --> 00:24:18.519 like Tom and Daisy Buchanan. They don't have 00:24:18.519 --> 00:24:20.619 to work. No, they don't even talk about money 00:24:20.619 --> 00:24:22.339 because they've never had to worry about earning 00:24:22.339 --> 00:24:25.599 it. West Egg, on the other hand, represents new 00:24:25.599 --> 00:24:28.599 money. The nouveau riche. Exactly. These are 00:24:28.599 --> 00:24:31.039 the self -made millionaires, the actors, the 00:24:31.039 --> 00:24:33.140 industrialists, and the bootleggers like Gatsby. 00:24:33.480 --> 00:24:36.640 They have massive wealth, but they severely lack 00:24:36.640 --> 00:24:39.180 the social pedigree. And again, Fitzgerald grounds 00:24:39.180 --> 00:24:41.960 this completely in reality. When he and Zelda 00:24:41.960 --> 00:24:44.839 moved to Long Island in 1922, they lived in Great 00:24:44.839 --> 00:24:47.559 Neck, which was the real life hub for the newly 00:24:47.559 --> 00:24:50.539 wealthy Broadway stars, writers, the flashy crowd. 00:24:50.619 --> 00:24:53.740 Right. That became West Egg. Directly across 00:24:53.740 --> 00:24:56.720 the bay was Port Washington, specifically an 00:24:56.720 --> 00:24:59.380 area called Sands Point, which was home to New 00:24:59.380 --> 00:25:01.859 York's wealthiest, oldest aristocratic families. 00:25:02.339 --> 00:25:05.470 That became East Egg. Art imitating life. Exactly. 00:25:05.549 --> 00:25:07.490 So you have these two massive concentrations 00:25:07.490 --> 00:25:09.930 of wealth just glaring at each other across the 00:25:09.930 --> 00:25:12.869 water. But we cannot forget the third location, 00:25:13.210 --> 00:25:15.329 which is arguably the most visually striking 00:25:15.329 --> 00:25:17.690 in the entire book. The Valley of Ashes. The 00:25:17.690 --> 00:25:19.970 Valley of Ashes. It's so dark. The Valley of 00:25:19.970 --> 00:25:22.930 Ashes is the stark, brutal counterpoint to all 00:25:22.930 --> 00:25:25.630 the glittering wealth of the eggs. Nick describes 00:25:25.630 --> 00:25:28.990 it as a literal refuse dump, a desolate area 00:25:28.990 --> 00:25:31.269 where ashes are dumped from the city's coal burning 00:25:31.269 --> 00:25:33.410 furnaces. It's an actual place, right? It is. 00:25:33.910 --> 00:25:36.529 Historically, this area corresponds to the Corona 00:25:36.529 --> 00:25:39.250 ash dumps in Flushing Meadows, Queens. It's where 00:25:39.250 --> 00:25:41.529 the working class characters, George and Myrtle 00:25:41.529 --> 00:25:45.250 Wilson, live and run a failing garage. And the 00:25:45.250 --> 00:25:49.490 imagery is just apocalyptic. Gray men shoveling 00:25:49.490 --> 00:25:52.670 gray dirt. It is an environmental and moral wasteland. 00:25:52.960 --> 00:25:55.359 The Valley of Ashes represents the devastating 00:25:55.359 --> 00:25:58.099 human cost of the wealthy's industrial excesses. 00:25:58.259 --> 00:26:00.779 It's the fallout. It is the by -product of the 00:26:00.779 --> 00:26:03.319 booming capitalism that makes Gatsby's parties 00:26:03.319 --> 00:26:06.400 and Tom's polo ponies possible. It is a physical 00:26:06.400 --> 00:26:08.579 manifestation of the working class being ground 00:26:08.579 --> 00:26:11.019 into dust to fuel the lifestyles of the elite. 00:26:11.240 --> 00:26:13.339 And the elites simply drive right through it 00:26:13.339 --> 00:26:15.440 on their way to the city, completely ignoring 00:26:15.440 --> 00:26:17.420 the suffering. They literally look right past 00:26:17.420 --> 00:26:19.680 it. Which brings us to the architect of that 00:26:19.680 --> 00:26:21.720 suffering, the ultimate representative of the 00:26:21.720 --> 00:26:25.400 elite. Tom Buchanan. Tom is just awful. He's 00:26:25.400 --> 00:26:28.069 the worst. Tom doesn't just ignore the Valley 00:26:28.069 --> 00:26:31.369 of Ashes, his entire lifestyle requires it to 00:26:31.369 --> 00:26:34.630 exist. Tom is the embodiment of the worst traits 00:26:34.630 --> 00:26:37.329 of the old money class. He went to Yale, he's 00:26:37.329 --> 00:26:40.450 physically imposing, he is casually cruel, and 00:26:40.450 --> 00:26:43.329 he's deeply fundamentally insecure about his 00:26:43.329 --> 00:26:45.490 position at the top of the food chain. And that 00:26:45.490 --> 00:26:49.029 insecurity manifests in a very dark, historically 00:26:49.029 --> 00:26:51.809 accurate way. Tell me more about that. Tom is 00:26:51.809 --> 00:26:53.849 explicitly portrayed as a white supremacist. 00:26:54.009 --> 00:26:56.269 Early in the novel, he goes on a tangent about 00:26:56.269 --> 00:26:58.390 a book he's reading called The Rise of the Colored 00:26:58.390 --> 00:27:00.789 Empires by a man named Goddard. Right, at the 00:27:00.789 --> 00:27:03.309 dinner party. Yes. He frantically warns the other 00:27:03.309 --> 00:27:05.369 characters that the white race will be utterly 00:27:05.369 --> 00:27:07.549 submerged if they aren't careful. I want to dig 00:27:07.549 --> 00:27:09.250 into this because this isn't just Fitzgerald 00:27:09.250 --> 00:27:11.230 making Tom look like a jerk for the sake of it. 00:27:11.589 --> 00:27:15.289 This is grounded in a very real, very terrifying 00:27:15.289 --> 00:27:17.789 historical movement in the 1920s. Absolutely. 00:27:18.289 --> 00:27:20.789 The book Tom references is a direct parody of 00:27:20.789 --> 00:27:23.670 a real widely read book from 1920 called The 00:27:23.670 --> 00:27:26.289 Rising Tide of Color Against White World Supremacy 00:27:26.289 --> 00:27:28.369 by Lothrop Stoddard. Oh, wow. So it was a real 00:27:28.369 --> 00:27:32.420 bestseller. Sadly, yes. The 1920s saw a massive 00:27:32.420 --> 00:27:35.299 resurgence of nativism, the rise of the Ku Klux 00:27:35.299 --> 00:27:38.259 Klan to millions of members, and the popularization 00:27:38.259 --> 00:27:40.900 of eugenics. It was a very xenophobic time. It 00:27:40.900 --> 00:27:43.980 was. The old money elite, who consider themselves 00:27:43.980 --> 00:27:47.819 old stock Americans of Nordic descent, were terrified. 00:27:48.009 --> 00:27:50.630 They were terrified of the massive influx of 00:27:50.630 --> 00:27:52.890 Eastern and Southern European immigrants, and 00:27:52.890 --> 00:27:54.990 they were terrified of the new wealth being generated 00:27:54.990 --> 00:27:57.309 by people they considered socially and racially 00:27:57.309 --> 00:27:59.910 inferior. They felt their grip slipping. Exactly. 00:28:00.230 --> 00:28:03.049 This anxiety culminated in the Real World Immigration 00:28:03.049 --> 00:28:06.430 Act of 1924, which severely restricted immigration. 00:28:07.230 --> 00:28:09.809 Tom Buchanan's racism is the defensive mechanism 00:28:09.809 --> 00:28:12.470 of a ruling class terrified of losing its monopoly 00:28:12.470 --> 00:28:15.230 on power. So this fundamentally changes the dynamic 00:28:15.230 --> 00:28:17.269 between Tom and Gatsby. I always used to wonder. 00:28:17.319 --> 00:28:19.640 Gatsby has a literal palace. He drives a custom 00:28:19.640 --> 00:28:21.799 car. He throws parties that the mayor of New 00:28:21.799 --> 00:28:24.380 York probably attends. Why does it matter so 00:28:24.380 --> 00:28:26.119 much to Tom and Daisy that his money is new? 00:28:26.380 --> 00:28:28.140 Because it threatens their entire worldview. 00:28:28.640 --> 00:28:31.019 Right. I mean, money spends exactly the same 00:28:31.019 --> 00:28:32.660 whether you made it yesterday into Speakeasy 00:28:32.660 --> 00:28:35.480 or your great -grandfather made it 50 years ago 00:28:35.480 --> 00:28:37.599 in railroads, right? In a pure capitalist system, 00:28:37.839 --> 00:28:40.960 yes. But Fitzgerald is illustrating the concept 00:28:40.960 --> 00:28:45.119 of class permanence. Class prominence. Yes. In 00:28:45.119 --> 00:28:48.380 America, class transcends mere wealth. You cannot 00:28:48.380 --> 00:28:51.940 simply buy your way into the upper echelon. Tom 00:28:51.940 --> 00:28:55.140 actively belittles Gatsby by calling him a Mr. 00:28:55.400 --> 00:28:57.460 Nobody from nowhere. It's like a country club. 00:28:58.349 --> 00:29:00.990 Gatsby bought the multi -million dollar house 00:29:00.990 --> 00:29:03.410 next to the golf course. He bought the most expensive 00:29:03.410 --> 00:29:05.869 custom -made clubs in the world. But Tom and 00:29:05.869 --> 00:29:07.609 Daisy are on the membership board, and they are 00:29:07.609 --> 00:29:10.009 changing the locks. That is an excellent analogy. 00:29:10.269 --> 00:29:11.930 You can buy the gear, but you cannot buy the 00:29:11.930 --> 00:29:14.750 bloodline. Exactly. Gatsby's origins are obscure. 00:29:15.049 --> 00:29:17.829 His ethno -religious identity is vague. His real 00:29:17.829 --> 00:29:21.210 name is James Gatz, implying recent German, perhaps 00:29:21.210 --> 00:29:23.849 Jewish immigrant roots. Which Tom would despise. 00:29:24.009 --> 00:29:27.450 Exactly. And his money is illicit. He completely 00:29:27.450 --> 00:29:29.430 lacks the pedigree of the established elite. 00:29:29.829 --> 00:29:32.190 So no matter how astronomically wealthy Gatsby 00:29:32.190 --> 00:29:34.930 becomes, he is trapped. He hits a glass ceiling. 00:29:35.349 --> 00:29:38.130 He is locked out of the inner sanctum. The American 00:29:38.130 --> 00:29:40.869 class system will never ever truly accept him 00:29:40.869 --> 00:29:44.769 as an equal. It's an iron wall. And it's a sobering 00:29:44.769 --> 00:29:48.410 thought that a century later, that invisible 00:29:48.410 --> 00:29:51.230 wall is still standing. It definitely is. Think 00:29:51.230 --> 00:29:53.569 about how hidden class systems operate today. 00:29:54.109 --> 00:29:57.269 How often are people judged, not by their actual 00:29:57.269 --> 00:30:00.150 output, or how hard they worked, or the brilliant 00:30:00.150 --> 00:30:02.589 ideas they have, but by where they came from? 00:30:02.769 --> 00:30:05.789 By their parents' know. Exactly. What zip code 00:30:05.789 --> 00:30:08.170 they grew up in, or whether they have the right 00:30:08.170 --> 00:30:11.220 degree from the right university. The game is 00:30:11.220 --> 00:30:13.259 rigged from the start. And in the novel, the 00:30:13.259 --> 00:30:15.259 pressure of that rigged system is building to 00:30:15.259 --> 00:30:17.400 a breaking point. You have a highly volatile 00:30:17.400 --> 00:30:19.900 mix. Yeah. Massive amounts of illegal wealth, 00:30:20.240 --> 00:30:23.259 a deeply corrupted American dream, and an unyielding 00:30:23.259 --> 00:30:25.880 prejudiced class system desperately trying to 00:30:25.880 --> 00:30:27.759 maintain its borders. It's the powder keg. It 00:30:27.759 --> 00:30:30.039 is a sociological powder keg. And in the novel's 00:30:30.039 --> 00:30:32.460 climax, it finally detonates. And what a detonation 00:30:32.460 --> 00:30:35.059 it is. The entire narrative collides in a suite 00:30:35.059 --> 00:30:37.079 at the Plaza Hotel in New York City. It's the 00:30:37.079 --> 00:30:40.980 famous hotel scene. It is a sweltering, unbearably 00:30:40.980 --> 00:30:44.079 hot summer day. Fitzgerald uses the oppressive 00:30:44.079 --> 00:30:46.259 heat to mirror the suffocating tension in the 00:30:46.259 --> 00:30:48.220 room. This isn't just two men fighting over a 00:30:48.220 --> 00:30:51.559 woman. This is a literal class war. It is. Tom 00:30:51.559 --> 00:30:54.339 finally corners Gatsby, and he doesn't use romance 00:30:54.339 --> 00:30:57.579 to win Daisy back. He uses opposition research. 00:30:57.720 --> 00:31:01.500 He plays dirty. Very dirty. He brutally, surgically 00:31:01.500 --> 00:31:04.680 exposes Gatsby's bootlegging operations to Daisy. 00:31:04.940 --> 00:31:08.480 Notice how Tom wins this confrontation. He doesn't 00:31:08.480 --> 00:31:11.440 appeal to Daisy's heart. He appeals to her ingrained 00:31:11.440 --> 00:31:14.539 need for class security. He scares her. He does. 00:31:14.900 --> 00:31:18.220 By exposing Gatsby as a common criminal, a bootlegger, 00:31:18.640 --> 00:31:21.180 Tom violently strips away the glamorous facade 00:31:21.180 --> 00:31:23.720 Gatsby has spent five years building. He reminds 00:31:23.720 --> 00:31:26.319 Daisy that Gatsby is not and never will be one 00:31:26.319 --> 00:31:28.799 of them. And Daisy shatters. She completely folds. 00:31:28.900 --> 00:31:30.859 Forced to actually choose between the romantic, 00:31:30.980 --> 00:31:33.579 deeply unstable fantasy of Gatsby and the cold, 00:31:33.779 --> 00:31:36.619 hard, socially acceptable reality of Tom. She 00:31:36.619 --> 00:31:39.380 chooses this She retreats to the financial and 00:31:39.380 --> 00:31:41.779 social security of her marriage. The dream basically 00:31:41.779 --> 00:31:43.980 dies right there in that hotel room. Yeah. But 00:31:43.980 --> 00:31:46.359 the tragedy is just getting started. Because 00:31:46.359 --> 00:31:48.740 the emotional destruction of the hotel room immediately 00:31:48.740 --> 00:31:51.460 spills out into physical destruction in the Valley 00:31:51.460 --> 00:31:55.000 of Ashes. Right. Fleeing the city, Daisy is driving 00:31:55.000 --> 00:31:58.220 Gatsby's yellow car back to Long Island. Gatsby 00:31:58.220 --> 00:32:00.839 is in the passenger seat. They're speeding through 00:32:00.839 --> 00:32:02.859 the Valley of Ashes in the dark. It's a lesiped 00:32:02.859 --> 00:32:05.970 for disaster. Myrtle Wilson. Tom's mistress who 00:32:05.970 --> 00:32:08.369 lives in the ashes has just had a violent fight 00:32:08.369 --> 00:32:10.829 with her husband. She sees the yellow car, thinks 00:32:10.829 --> 00:32:13.230 it's Tom coming to save her, and runs out into 00:32:13.230 --> 00:32:15.349 the road. And Daisy hits her. The description 00:32:15.349 --> 00:32:18.750 of the book is brutal. And then Daisy just keeps 00:32:18.750 --> 00:32:21.150 driving. She hits a woman and flees the scene. 00:32:21.289 --> 00:32:24.710 A hit and run. And Gatsby, still tragically clinging 00:32:24.710 --> 00:32:27.589 to his delusion of noble love, decides he will 00:32:27.589 --> 00:32:29.750 take the blame to protect Daisy. Which sets off 00:32:29.750 --> 00:32:32.470 a horrific chain reaction. Tom arrives at the 00:32:32.470 --> 00:32:35.150 scene shortly after. He finds out Myrtle is dead, 00:32:35.690 --> 00:32:37.930 and he knows exactly whose yellow car hit her. 00:32:38.009 --> 00:32:41.269 He recognizes the car. Yes. But Tom, protecting 00:32:41.269 --> 00:32:44.309 his wife and himself, deliberately misdirects 00:32:44.309 --> 00:32:47.490 George Wilson, Myrtle's grieving, unstable husband. 00:32:47.950 --> 00:32:50.630 Tom points the finger directly at Gatsby. Tom 00:32:50.630 --> 00:32:52.750 essentially loads the gun and hands it to George. 00:32:52.910 --> 00:32:55.910 He does. George Wilson, a working class man who 00:32:55.910 --> 00:32:58.150 has been ground down by the system his entire 00:32:58.150 --> 00:33:01.210 life, assumes Gatsby is the man who was sleeping 00:33:01.210 --> 00:33:03.750 with his wife and who killed her. So he seeks 00:33:03.750 --> 00:33:06.769 revenge. He sneaks onto Gatsby's West Egg estate. 00:33:07.369 --> 00:33:10.069 He finds Gatsby floating in his extravagant swimming 00:33:10.069 --> 00:33:12.650 pool, waiting for a phone call from Daisy that 00:33:12.650 --> 00:33:16.390 is never going to come. George shoots Gatsby, 00:33:16.490 --> 00:33:18.690 killing him and then turns the gun on himself. 00:33:18.910 --> 00:33:21.970 It is the ultimate searing critique of the wealthy 00:33:21.970 --> 00:33:25.920 elite. The tragedy is entirely orchestrated by 00:33:25.920 --> 00:33:28.339 class dynamics. Look at who ends up dead on the 00:33:28.339 --> 00:33:31.359 lawn. Exactly. The new money upstart Gatsby and 00:33:31.359 --> 00:33:34.099 the working class mechanic George Wilson. The 00:33:34.099 --> 00:33:36.059 two men desperately trying to climb the ladder 00:33:36.059 --> 00:33:39.000 literally destroy each other based on lies and 00:33:39.000 --> 00:33:40.960 manipulations fed to them by the established 00:33:40.960 --> 00:33:43.920 elite. It's extraction. The old money class extracts 00:33:43.920 --> 00:33:46.160 what it wants and disposes of the rest. They 00:33:46.160 --> 00:33:48.599 leave everyone else to bleed. Nick Carraway says 00:33:48.599 --> 00:33:51.339 it best at the very end of the book. He realizes 00:33:51.339 --> 00:33:54.019 that Tom and Daisy are careless people. They 00:33:54.019 --> 00:33:56.980 smash up things and creatures and then they retreat 00:33:56.980 --> 00:33:59.440 back into their money or their vast carelessness 00:33:59.440 --> 00:34:01.720 and they let other people clean up the mess they 00:34:01.720 --> 00:34:04.440 made. They are completely insulated. They are 00:34:04.440 --> 00:34:06.460 metaphorical hit -and -run drivers through life. 00:34:06.619 --> 00:34:08.940 They leave a trail of bodies, pack their bags, 00:34:09.039 --> 00:34:11.260 and go on vacation. They walk away completely 00:34:11.260 --> 00:34:13.659 unscathed. The system is designed to protect 00:34:13.659 --> 00:34:16.300 them at all costs. And the injustice of it is 00:34:16.300 --> 00:34:18.800 hammered home at Gatsby's funeral. For an entire 00:34:18.800 --> 00:34:22.059 summer, Gatsby's lawn was packed with hundreds 00:34:22.059 --> 00:34:24.880 of people. Senators, Broadway stars, mobsters, 00:34:25.260 --> 00:34:27.139 socialites. They all wanted a piece of him. They 00:34:27.139 --> 00:34:30.039 drank his liquor, ate his food, used his boats, 00:34:30.500 --> 00:34:33.559 and when he dies, nobody shows up. It's incredibly 00:34:33.559 --> 00:34:36.420 bleak. It's just his elderly father who travels 00:34:36.420 --> 00:34:39.440 from the Midwest, Nick, and a few servants standing 00:34:39.440 --> 00:34:41.239 in the rain. It is absolutely heartbreaking. 00:34:41.340 --> 00:34:43.260 It forces you to look right at the rig system. 00:34:43.360 --> 00:34:46.039 It really does. It makes you reevaluate a comment 00:34:46.039 --> 00:34:48.659 Daisy makes in the very first chapter. She has 00:34:48.659 --> 00:34:51.380 a baby daughter, and she said she hopes the girl 00:34:51.380 --> 00:34:54.619 will be a beautiful little fool because that's 00:34:54.619 --> 00:34:56.860 the best thing a girl can be in this world. When 00:34:56.860 --> 00:34:59.500 you first read that line, it sounds incredibly 00:34:59.500 --> 00:35:02.400 cynical, perhaps just the lament of a bored socialite. 00:35:02.519 --> 00:35:06.000 Yeah, just rich girl angst. Exactly. But by the 00:35:06.000 --> 00:35:08.739 end of the novel, you realize it is a deeply 00:35:08.739 --> 00:35:12.360 pragmatic survival strategy. How so? In a world 00:35:12.360 --> 00:35:15.360 completely dominated by ruthless, powerful, and 00:35:15.360 --> 00:35:17.960 careless men like Tom Buchanan, intelligence 00:35:17.960 --> 00:35:20.539 and sensitivity are liabilities. They will only 00:35:20.539 --> 00:35:23.579 cause you pain. Ignorance is bliss. Playing the 00:35:23.579 --> 00:35:26.320 beautiful little fool is the only way a woman 00:35:26.320 --> 00:35:29.360 in Daisy's precarious position, completely dependent 00:35:29.360 --> 00:35:32.219 on her husband's wealth and status, can survive 00:35:32.219 --> 00:35:34.480 the crushing reality of her own life. It's a 00:35:34.480 --> 00:35:36.440 remarkable. bleak assessment of the American 00:35:36.440 --> 00:35:38.900 social contract. Fitzgerald is basically saying, 00:35:39.219 --> 00:35:41.320 the game is rigged, the dream is dead, and the 00:35:41.320 --> 00:35:43.440 people in charge are monsters. It's a very dark 00:35:43.440 --> 00:35:46.980 book. It is. And given the sheer depth and brilliance 00:35:46.980 --> 00:35:49.440 of this critique, you would naturally assume 00:35:49.440 --> 00:35:51.260 that when the book hit the shelves, the world 00:35:51.260 --> 00:35:54.369 stopped and applauded. One would assume. You 00:35:54.369 --> 00:35:57.289 would think The Great Gatsby was instantly recognized 00:35:57.289 --> 00:36:00.769 as a literary masterpiece. But the actual reality 00:36:00.769 --> 00:36:03.630 of the novel's publication is almost as surprising 00:36:03.630 --> 00:36:07.150 and tragic as the plot itself. Like we mentioned 00:36:07.150 --> 00:36:10.030 at the start. Right. When Charles Scribner's 00:36:10.030 --> 00:36:12.789 Sons published the book in April 1925, it was 00:36:12.789 --> 00:36:15.389 a massive commercial disappointment. It completely 00:36:15.389 --> 00:36:17.650 belly flopped. It did. The critics were highly 00:36:17.650 --> 00:36:20.780 divided. While some praised Fitzgerald's elegant 00:36:20.780 --> 00:36:24.000 poetic prose style, many prominent reviewers 00:36:24.000 --> 00:36:26.679 completely missed the thematic depth. They just 00:36:26.679 --> 00:36:28.699 didn't get it. H .L. Mencken, one of the most 00:36:28.699 --> 00:36:31.480 influential critics of the era, famously dismissed 00:36:31.480 --> 00:36:34.300 the book as a glorified anecdote, finding the 00:36:34.300 --> 00:36:36.820 plot highly improbable. A glorified anecdote. 00:36:36.940 --> 00:36:39.039 That's harsh. And the public agreed with the 00:36:39.039 --> 00:36:42.340 critics. By October of 1925, the book had sold 00:36:42.340 --> 00:36:46.260 fewer than 20 ,000 copies. To put that in perspective, 00:36:46.639 --> 00:36:48.599 his earlier works had sold tens of thousands 00:36:48.599 --> 00:36:51.260 of copies almost immediately. Fitzgerald must 00:36:51.260 --> 00:36:54.059 have been devastated. He put his entire soul 00:36:54.059 --> 00:36:56.659 into this text. The archival letters between 00:36:56.659 --> 00:36:59.659 Fitzgerald and his editor, Maxwell Perkins, are 00:36:59.659 --> 00:37:02.699 genuinely difficult to read. Fitzgerald was deeply 00:37:02.699 --> 00:37:05.219 dispirited. I can imagine. He complained bitterly 00:37:05.219 --> 00:37:07.539 that of all the reviews, not a single critic 00:37:07.539 --> 00:37:09.760 had the slightest idea what the book was actually 00:37:09.760 --> 00:37:11.480 about. They just thought it was about parties. 00:37:11.800 --> 00:37:14.800 Right. He hadn't intended it to be a realistic, 00:37:14.940 --> 00:37:17.719 journalistic documentary of the jazz age. He 00:37:17.719 --> 00:37:20.619 wrote it as a scenic, symbolic romance. He wanted 00:37:20.619 --> 00:37:24.260 it to be an artistic triumph, a tragedy. But 00:37:24.260 --> 00:37:26.739 the 1920s public who were currently living in 00:37:26.739 --> 00:37:29.960 that excess just saw a somewhat implausible, 00:37:30.059 --> 00:37:31.880 depressing story about a bootlegger. They were 00:37:31.880 --> 00:37:34.360 too close to it. You can't see the hurricane 00:37:34.360 --> 00:37:36.559 when you're standing in the eye of it. And then 00:37:36.559 --> 00:37:38.880 it goes from bad to worse, because a few years 00:37:38.880 --> 00:37:42.260 later, the stock market crashes. The Great Depression 00:37:42.260 --> 00:37:44.920 hits. The mood of the country shifts overnight. 00:37:45.519 --> 00:37:47.340 Millions of people are out of work, starving 00:37:47.340 --> 00:37:50.599 in bread lines. The absolute last thing anyone 00:37:50.599 --> 00:37:54.000 in the 1930s wants to read is a book about extremely 00:37:54.000 --> 00:37:57.139 wealthy, entitled people drinking champagne on 00:37:57.139 --> 00:37:59.079 Long Island and complaining about their lives. 00:37:59.500 --> 00:38:02.039 Exactly. The book was totally dismissed as a 00:38:02.039 --> 00:38:04.820 nostalgic, irrelevant piece of fluff about a 00:38:04.820 --> 00:38:07.300 decadent and irresponsible time that the country 00:38:07.300 --> 00:38:09.760 was actively trying to forget. It became a symbol 00:38:09.760 --> 00:38:13.280 of the problem. And as the book faded into obscurity, 00:38:13.679 --> 00:38:16.480 Fitzgerald's own life mirrored Gatsby's tragic 00:38:16.480 --> 00:38:19.719 descent. His career spiraled. His wife Zelda 00:38:19.719 --> 00:38:21.960 suffered a series of severe mental breakdowns 00:38:21.960 --> 00:38:24.940 and was institutionalized. That is so sad. Fitzgerald 00:38:24.940 --> 00:38:27.500 struggled with crippling alcoholism, at times 00:38:27.500 --> 00:38:30.050 drinking massive quantities of gin and beer daily 00:38:30.050 --> 00:38:32.289 just to function. He ends up moving to Hollywood 00:38:32.289 --> 00:38:35.030 to be a script doctor, a job he considered intellectually 00:38:35.030 --> 00:38:37.670 beneath him and absolute hated. Yeah. And in 00:38:37.670 --> 00:38:40.929 1940, at the incredibly young age of 44, he dies 00:38:40.929 --> 00:38:44.230 of a heart attack. So young. And he dies genuinely 00:38:44.230 --> 00:38:46.969 believing he is a total failure. He thinks his 00:38:46.969 --> 00:38:49.610 legacy is a joke and his greatest book is out 00:38:49.610 --> 00:38:52.550 of print and forgotten. I mean, at his funeral, 00:38:52.929 --> 00:38:55.050 Dorothy Parker, another famous writer of the 00:38:55.050 --> 00:38:57.510 era, looked at his casket and quoted the book 00:38:57.510 --> 00:39:00.449 saying, the poor son of a bitch. A tragic end 00:39:00.449 --> 00:39:03.070 that Jay Gatsby himself would deeply recognize. 00:39:03.190 --> 00:39:05.210 Oh, without a doubt. But as we discussed at the 00:39:05.210 --> 00:39:07.230 very beginning, history had a completely different 00:39:07.230 --> 00:39:09.809 plan for the novel. The resurrection of the great 00:39:09.809 --> 00:39:11.989 Gatsby is one of the most extraordinary events 00:39:11.989 --> 00:39:14.929 in publishing history. It really is. And it begins 00:39:14.929 --> 00:39:17.849 during World War II. This is the part that absolutely 00:39:17.849 --> 00:39:20.099 blows my mind. So we're in the middle of a global 00:39:20.099 --> 00:39:23.119 war. The U .S. military and a group called the 00:39:23.119 --> 00:39:25.960 Council on Books and Wartime launch an initiative 00:39:25.960 --> 00:39:28.219 to boost morale. Right. They decide they need 00:39:28.219 --> 00:39:30.599 to boost the morale of the troops overseas. So 00:39:30.599 --> 00:39:33.059 they create the Armed Services editions, these 00:39:33.059 --> 00:39:35.639 small, cheap paperback versions of various books 00:39:35.639 --> 00:39:38.139 designed to fit exactly into the cargo pocket 00:39:38.139 --> 00:39:40.699 of a standard military uniform. It was a huge 00:39:40.699 --> 00:39:43.840 logistical effort. And out of total obscurity, 00:39:44.079 --> 00:39:45.860 the Great Gatsby is selected for the program. 00:39:46.030 --> 00:39:49.869 Between 1942 and 1945, the government printed 00:39:49.869 --> 00:39:53.869 and distributed roughly 155 ,000 copies of the 00:39:53.869 --> 00:39:56.289 novel. A hundred and fifty -five thousand. Yes. 00:39:56.829 --> 00:39:59.889 Handed out to soldiers in foxholes, on battleships, 00:40:00.070 --> 00:40:02.730 and in field hospitals across Europe and the 00:40:02.730 --> 00:40:06.210 Pacific. A book that couldn't sell 20 ,000 copies 00:40:06.210 --> 00:40:09.090 to the civilian public is suddenly dropped into 00:40:09.090 --> 00:40:11.090 the laps of all these young men facing death. 00:40:11.130 --> 00:40:15.429 And the crazy thing is the troops resonated with 00:40:15.429 --> 00:40:18.489 it. on a molecular level. It makes perfect psychological 00:40:18.489 --> 00:40:20.650 sense when you analyze the demographics. Why 00:40:20.650 --> 00:40:22.570 is that? Think about who is reading the book. 00:40:23.110 --> 00:40:25.409 Young men who had been pulled from their homes, 00:40:25.590 --> 00:40:28.489 sent to a foreign land, fighting for a profound, 00:40:28.789 --> 00:40:31.309 idealized concept of America. They were fighting 00:40:31.309 --> 00:40:33.530 for a dream. And they read a story about Jay 00:40:33.530 --> 00:40:36.309 Gatsby, a young soldier in the previous war who 00:40:36.309 --> 00:40:38.690 went off to fight, fell in love, and spent the 00:40:38.690 --> 00:40:40.510 rest of his life fighting to get back to the 00:40:40.510 --> 00:40:42.909 dream and the girl he left behind. Oh, wow. The 00:40:42.909 --> 00:40:45.989 GIs deeply, intimately understood Gatsby's yearning. 00:40:46.329 --> 00:40:48.489 Gatsby was one of them. He was a veteran trying 00:40:48.489 --> 00:40:50.670 to find his place in a world that had moved on 00:40:50.670 --> 00:40:54.530 without him. The novel literally had to outlive 00:40:54.530 --> 00:40:57.050 its own era to be fully understood. It needed 00:40:57.050 --> 00:40:59.909 distance. In the roaring 20s, it was too close 00:40:59.909 --> 00:41:02.989 to reality. In the depressed 30s, it was resented. 00:41:03.190 --> 00:41:05.949 It took the crucible of World War II and the 00:41:05.949 --> 00:41:08.090 distance of a few decades for the dust to settle. 00:41:08.469 --> 00:41:11.050 The veterans returned home, bringing their appreciation 00:41:11.050 --> 00:41:14.449 of the novel with them. This groundswell of popularity 00:41:14.449 --> 00:41:17.250 coincided with a massive critical reevaluation 00:41:17.250 --> 00:41:21.030 in the 1950s and 60s, led by prominent literary 00:41:21.030 --> 00:41:24.269 critics like Edmund Wilson. So the critics finally 00:41:24.269 --> 00:41:27.449 woke up. They did. They revisited the text without 00:41:27.449 --> 00:41:30.030 the prejudice of the 1920s and realized that 00:41:30.030 --> 00:41:32.860 Fitzgerald had not written a party manual. He 00:41:32.860 --> 00:41:35.619 had written a timeless surgical social document 00:41:35.619 --> 00:41:38.460 dissecting the American psyche. It changed everything. 00:41:38.800 --> 00:41:40.719 This realization propelled the book into high 00:41:40.719 --> 00:41:43.139 school and university curricula across the country, 00:41:43.340 --> 00:41:46.340 turning Fitzgerald posthumously into a legendary 00:41:46.340 --> 00:41:49.039 figure in the American literary canon. It is 00:41:49.039 --> 00:41:51.400 the ultimate vindication, even if he wasn't around 00:41:51.400 --> 00:41:54.079 to see it. It really makes you think about how 00:41:54.079 --> 00:41:57.480 art or any work really is consumed in its own 00:41:57.480 --> 00:42:00.219 time versus how history judges it. Success is 00:42:00.219 --> 00:42:02.710 almost never immediate. Sometimes true greatness 00:42:02.710 --> 00:42:05.809 requires the context of time to be recognized. 00:42:06.150 --> 00:42:09.719 Indeed. The journey of the novel from a discarded 00:42:09.719 --> 00:42:11.760 misunderstood manuscript to the great American 00:42:11.760 --> 00:42:14.619 novel is a testament to the enduring universal 00:42:14.619 --> 00:42:17.340 power of its themes. Absolutely. But as we wrap 00:42:17.340 --> 00:42:20.440 up our analysis today, there is one final almost 00:42:20.440 --> 00:42:22.820 surreal piece of the book's production history 00:42:22.820 --> 00:42:25.820 that perfectly encapsulates everything we've 00:42:25.820 --> 00:42:28.679 discussed about illusion and reality. Yes. Okay. 00:42:28.679 --> 00:42:30.679 This is my favorite piece of trivia about the 00:42:30.679 --> 00:42:33.420 book. Long before the book was published, Fitzgerald 00:42:33.420 --> 00:42:35.340 really struggled with the title. He was very 00:42:35.340 --> 00:42:37.659 indecisive. He hated the title The Great Gatsby. 00:42:37.920 --> 00:42:40.059 He was throwing around crazy titles like Tremolchio 00:42:40.059 --> 00:42:42.139 and West Egg, which is a super obscure reference 00:42:42.139 --> 00:42:45.760 to a crude, wealthy upstart from ancient Roman 00:42:45.760 --> 00:42:48.079 literature and under the red, white and blue. 00:42:48.280 --> 00:42:51.860 Both terrible titles, frankly. Awful. His publisher 00:42:51.860 --> 00:42:54.179 finally had to force him to stick with The Great 00:42:54.179 --> 00:42:57.099 Gatsby. But the title isn't the craziest part. 00:42:57.380 --> 00:43:00.840 It is the iconic dust jacket art of the very 00:43:00.840 --> 00:43:03.300 first edition. If you have ever seen an original 00:43:03.300 --> 00:43:06.059 copy or even a modern reprint of the first edition, 00:43:06.360 --> 00:43:08.739 you know the image immediately. It's unforgettable. 00:43:08.960 --> 00:43:12.239 It is a painting titled Celestial Eyes, created 00:43:12.239 --> 00:43:15.300 by a Barcelona artist named Frances Cugat. It 00:43:15.300 --> 00:43:18.480 features a flapper's disembodied, profound Losat 00:43:18.480 --> 00:43:21.440 eyes and bright red lips hovering in a dark blue, 00:43:21.619 --> 00:43:24.539 almost bruised looking sky. And below the eyes 00:43:24.539 --> 00:43:27.360 is a glittering neon carnival landscape that 00:43:27.360 --> 00:43:29.900 looks like Coney Island. It is haunting. It is 00:43:29.900 --> 00:43:32.679 arguably the most famous celebrated book cover 00:43:32.679 --> 00:43:34.699 in American literature. But what makes it truly 00:43:34.699 --> 00:43:37.079 unique isn't just the aesthetic. It is the timeline 00:43:37.079 --> 00:43:40.719 of its creation. Cugit designed, painted and 00:43:40.719 --> 00:43:43.170 finished this cover. before Fitzgerald had actually 00:43:43.170 --> 00:43:45.429 finished writing the novel. Which is highly unusual 00:43:45.429 --> 00:43:47.570 in the publishing industry. Usually the art department 00:43:47.570 --> 00:43:49.769 waits for the final manuscript to interpret the 00:43:49.769 --> 00:43:52.949 author's vision. Right. But here, the art came 00:43:52.949 --> 00:43:56.630 first. Fitzgerald was shown Cugat's early sketches 00:43:56.630 --> 00:43:59.389 for the cover before he sailed to France to write 00:43:59.389 --> 00:44:01.889 the final chapters of the manuscript. And he 00:44:01.889 --> 00:44:04.090 loved it. He was utterly blown away by the imagery. 00:44:04.289 --> 00:44:07.010 These massive, floating, melancholic eyes staring 00:44:07.010 --> 00:44:10.179 down over a wasteland. He wrote a panicked letter 00:44:10.179 --> 00:44:13.340 to his editor, Maxwell Perkins. He explicitly 00:44:13.340 --> 00:44:15.659 demanded that Perkins not give the cover art 00:44:15.659 --> 00:44:18.380 to any other author because, as Fitzgerald wrote, 00:44:18.760 --> 00:44:20.699 for Christ's sake, don't give anyone that jacket 00:44:20.699 --> 00:44:22.380 you're saving for me. I've written it into the 00:44:22.380 --> 00:44:25.280 book. It is a brilliant, undeniable instance 00:44:25.280 --> 00:44:28.320 of art imitating art. It really is. The famous, 00:44:28.500 --> 00:44:31.719 haunting eyes of Dr. T .J. Eckelberg, the faded 00:44:31.719 --> 00:44:34.239 optometrist's billboard that watches over the 00:44:34.239 --> 00:44:36.579 Valley of Ashes like an uncaring, commercialized 00:44:36.579 --> 00:44:39.019 god, were not originally in the plot. That is 00:44:39.019 --> 00:44:41.420 just crazy to me. They were likely inspired directly 00:44:41.420 --> 00:44:43.940 by the book's own promotional cover art. The 00:44:43.940 --> 00:44:46.280 physical imagery of the object became a central, 00:44:46.559 --> 00:44:48.719 highly symbolic element of the narrative itself. 00:44:49.039 --> 00:44:51.260 I want you to really sit with that mind -bending 00:44:51.260 --> 00:44:54.659 reality for a second. The image used to sell 00:44:54.659 --> 00:44:57.510 the book literally created the substance of the 00:44:57.510 --> 00:44:59.889 story inside the book. It's a perfect metaphor. 00:45:00.150 --> 00:45:04.000 In a novel that is entirely 100 % about the dangers 00:45:04.000 --> 00:45:06.420 of projecting false images and chasing illusions. 00:45:07.019 --> 00:45:10.079 From Gatsby's completely fake, meticulously constructed 00:45:10.079 --> 00:45:14.260 background to Daisy's hollow projection of perfection 00:45:14.260 --> 00:45:17.780 to the entire facade of the American dream, the 00:45:17.780 --> 00:45:20.260 book itself was fundamentally shaped by a projected 00:45:20.260 --> 00:45:22.900 image. It perfectly blurs the line between the 00:45:22.900 --> 00:45:25.099 reality we live in and the reality we construct 00:45:25.099 --> 00:45:28.099 for others to see. Exactly. So as you close your 00:45:28.099 --> 00:45:30.380 textbook or pull into your driveway or go about 00:45:30.380 --> 00:45:32.000 the rest of your day, We'll leave you with a 00:45:32.000 --> 00:45:34.219 challenge. A final thought. Think about Francis 00:45:34.219 --> 00:45:36.820 Kugit's painting. Think about Gatsby staring 00:45:36.820 --> 00:45:39.280 at the green light. And ask yourself, how much 00:45:39.280 --> 00:45:41.400 of your reality is being shaped by the images 00:45:41.400 --> 00:45:43.559 you were trying to project to the world? Are 00:45:43.559 --> 00:45:46.239 your goals actually yours? Right. Are you living 00:45:46.239 --> 00:45:48.880 your truth? Or are you just exhausting yourself 00:45:48.880 --> 00:45:50.920 trying to match the cover art of the life you 00:45:50.920 --> 00:45:53.550 think you were supposed to have? It is a profound 00:45:53.550 --> 00:45:56.630 psychological question. It is the question that 00:45:56.630 --> 00:45:59.110 Fitzgerald grappled with his entire agonizing 00:45:59.110 --> 00:46:01.869 life, and it is the question that Jay Gatsby 00:46:01.869 --> 00:46:04.469 died trying to answer. Because those invisible 00:46:04.469 --> 00:46:08.289 rules of that 1922 Long Island party, the desperate 00:46:08.289 --> 00:46:11.269 need for status, the illusions we build to survive, 00:46:11.909 --> 00:46:14.929 they are perhaps not so invisible or so ancient 00:46:14.929 --> 00:46:17.369 after all. They are right here with us. Thank 00:46:17.369 --> 00:46:19.190 you for stepping into the time machine and joining 00:46:19.190 --> 00:46:21.809 us on this deep dive. We hope this exploration 00:46:21.809 --> 00:46:23.989 into the history of the author and the brutal 00:46:23.989 --> 00:46:26.170 realities of the Jazz Age gives you a completely 00:46:26.170 --> 00:46:28.050 new lens through which to view this classic. 00:46:28.210 --> 00:46:30.130 Keep reading and keep questioning the systems 00:46:30.130 --> 00:46:33.050 around you. And remember, don't let the green 00:46:33.050 --> 00:46:34.909 light blind you to what is actually right in 00:46:34.909 --> 00:46:35.250 front of you.