The Great Gatsby - Course Introduction

It's the 1920's, alcohol is prohibited, but everyone's still drinking mint juleps and partying until dawn. There are women in flapper dresses, men in bow ties and striped pants (wild); everyone's got a cool car, and everyone's got jazz fever. It is, in short, a rollicking good time—maybe that's what's so "great" about The Great Gatsby?

Alas, F. Scott Fitzgerald didn't write this book to make us feel nostalgic for those long cigarette holders that movie stars of old used to smoke through. This book isn't a celebration of the Jazz Age (although characters are a-celebrating left and right. For what? We dunno); it's a novel-length critique of 20s' materialism, superficiality, and immorality.

Which isn't to say that all, or even most, of the characters in this novel are terrible or dislikeable people. Many are sympathetic—caught in a storm of doomed love and excess that they don't know how to get away from—and all of them are compelling. Yep, even Tom. And we hate Tom.

Head on over to Lesson 1 to get started, and see if you hate Tom, too.

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