The Great Gatsby: Living the Dream in the Valley of Ashes

In which John discusses critical readings of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, including metaphors and symbols like the color yellow, the green light at the end of the dock, the eyes of Doctor TJ Eckleburg, the valley of ashes, and the American dream.

I also write books. They are not as good as The Great Gatsby. My new one, The Fault in Our Stars, is available for preorder now: http://dft.ba/-tfios All preorders will be autographed.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• books
• reading
• heroism
• quests
• dreams
• fiction
• education
• literature
• english lit
• library
• writing
• the great gatsby
• classics
• daisy buchanan
• movies
• authors
• F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Jay Gatsby

[SamCruzPinay]

"And then Gatsby finally gets to use his pool."

A beautiful way to describe it, John. A beautiful, haunting, and sweet way to look at it.

[jaymeeboh]

John, I would argue that at least ONE of the characters in a novel has to be, if not likeable, at least fascinating in their unlikeableness (which is apparently not a word, but oh well). Gatsby is the only character in the story that drew even the most meager amount of curiosity from me, but it wasn't enough to make me enjoy the work...at all. At the end of it all I was chuckling gleefully at the various forms of demise with which these awful, awful people had met.

[mititzi]

I read this book to understand this video.

[importanceofbeing93]

@hezamoray it's chapter 7, in my penguin classics copy it's page 115.

[HaroldsCatMeowMeow]

hoory 4 tom bucanon my favorite character !!!

[DoABarrelRol1l]

We watched this in our Enlgish class, and you and Phillip De Franco should have a talk-fast contest.

[niHaRikAana]

wow!! he talks so fast!! amazing.....anyway thanks a lot it was really helpful as i'm preparing for my exams :))

[hezamoray]

errrrrg! this is funny XD and also very true! Does anyone know what page Gatsby says that Daisy's voice is full of money? I remember reading it, but now that I need to find it, I can't find it!!! T_T

[HaroldsCatMeowMeow]

@randomgirl22695 um Royboy wants me 2 tell u that he will respond 2 ur responding when he gets off u tube suspension 4 h8 speach...meow

[Daremusically13]

All that glitters is not gold

[finderfinder100]

Eckleburg = Sauron

[randomgirl22695]

@Somecrazyshish True. I wouldn't say I was saying whether they were good or bad, but Gatsby is sort of likeable, whereas Tom is designed to make the reader hate him. Like I said, none of them are heroes, and most aren't 'good' people- that's what the majority of people were like in that time, and most importantly, lifestyle. I do love the book though.