Talk:The Great Gatsby

Regarding 'Nicholas'

Just for future reference, the novel never says that Nick is a nickname. "Nicholas" never appears in the book although "Nicolas" does (for another person). So the simple fact is that we don't know that Nick is a nickname, or the spelling of the full name if it were. It is extrapolation to assume it is "Nicholas" and we should not use it. Jason Quinn (talk) 02:23, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Daisy Fay

A recent edit changed Daisy's name to "Daisy Fay Buchanon" from "Daisy Buchanon (née Fay)". I have found only one instance in the novel in Chapter 4 where "Fay" is used: "The largest of the banners and the largest of the lawns belonged to Daisy Fay's house." [This is Jordan speaking about Daisy when Daisy was only 18 and was seeing Gatsby. Daisy lived in Louisville at the time.] It's ambiguous here whether "Fay" is her middle or maiden name. I suppose the most obvious and likely interpretation is that "Fay" is Daisy's middle name (after all the whole two name-name thing is a Southern cliché) and that the edit corrected an error that said it was her maiden name. It not unreasonable, however, to believe that "Daisy Fay" is her first and maiden name. I am unaware if there are any other statements that make implication's over Daisy's name. If I have missed some, please comment. I will re-add the change to make "Fay" her middle name but it would also be good to collect some sources that say one way or another. Jason Quinn (talk) 16:21, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

No, it's impossible to know one way or another, and any source saying otherwise we should likely question the reliability of otherwise they'd KNOW it is impossible to know with certainty. The form you changed to is acceotable use regardless of Fay being middle or maiden. That said, i am pretty sure 'Fay' as a surname is extremely rate; OTOH 'Fay' is a VERY common middle name, especially when paired with first name as a double-name, and as for the first name in such name pairs, "Daisy" is about as cliche as is possible. 2600:1702:4960:1DE0:6CB7:62BD:5DB:4891 (talk) 01:04, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

Posthumous fame

Is it true that the revival of interest in Gatsby (and Fitzgerald himself) was sparked by the dramatic death of Zelda in the house-fire? Valetude (talk) 20:25, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

No. According to both Mizener (1965) and Bruccoli (2002), the Fitzgerald revival was at its zenith in 1944. Zelda died years later in March 1948. Also, the 1949 Gatsby film was already in pre-production when Zelda died, and the film did more to boost Fitzgerald's reputation than Zelda's death. -- Flask (talk) 18:59, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

Jordan Baker

People claim that Jordan Baker is a professional golfer. In the 1920s there were no woman professional golfers and the upper-class Buchanans would not have associated with professional golfers. It was a lowly trade then. Professional golfer[1] The first woman professional golfers played in the 1930s:Helen Hicks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.205.240.228 (talk) 14:45, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

If the book claims that she is a professional golfer, then that's what we should declare her to be. If sources have noted that this is at variance with historical fact, that may be worth noting. DonIago (talk) 17:20, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

The book says only that Jordan Baker "was a golf champion and everyone knew her name." I think that the "sources" that say she was a professional golfer are forgetting the differences between 1922 and now and assuming that golf champions must have been professional golfers then. Many of them probably relied on Wikipedia as justification for saying she was a professional golfer! In 1922 nearly all the golf championships were for amateurs only. In the USA golf was then an upper-class or upper-middle-class game. That's why people aspiring for success wanted to learn golf and join golf clubs. There's an irony - conscious or unconscious - in Nick's claim that "everyone knew her name". "Everyone" has a limited meaning there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.205.240.239 (talk) 10:36, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

She was Amelia Earhart but F. Scott couldn't quite figure how to put it . --Laurencebeck (talk) 06:45, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

GA Reassessment

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This discussion is transcluded from Talk:The Great Gatsby/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the reassessment.

The article has copyright violation issues that need to be resolved. I was the person who got the article up to GA status. I believe it should be delisted and quickly. Jason Quinn (talk) 04:37, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

@Jason Quinn: Just a reminder that this is still open. AIRcorn (talk) 09:36, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Looking at the talk page the main issue with the plot seems to have been sorted. I ran Earwigs tool over it to be safe and it had a higher than I would like return. However most are fine as they are quoted or simple enough phrases. This is probably the dodgiest. We have our article vs a New York Times one (so unlikely they copied us)

• Despite this, he refused an offer of $10,000 for the serial rights in order not to delay the book's publication vs At the same time he refused an off of $10,000 for the serial rights in order not to delay the book's publication.
• By October, when the original sale had run its course, the book had sold fewer than 20,000 copies. Despite this, Scribner's continually kept the book in print; they carried the original edition on their trade list until 1946, by which time Gatsby was in print in three other forms and the original edition was no longer needed. vs Nor did the sales of "Gatsby" suggest any general recognition of its nature: by October, when the original sale had run its course, it was still short of 20,000. and Scriber's kept it in print; they carried the original edition on their trade list until 1946, by which time "Gatsby" was in print in three other forms and the original edition was no longer needed.

• The republication of Gatsby in Edmund Wilson's edition of The Last Tycoon in 1941 produced an outburst of comment, vs This was about the state of opinion when Fitzgerald's death late in 1940 and the republication of "Gatsby" in Edmund Wilson's edition of "The Last "Tycoon" in 1941 produced an outburst of comment.

These are not terribly bad, but given the plot copying I would not feel comfortable keeping this good unless they are resolved. AIRcorn (talk) 21:06, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Okay. Delist it shall be. Jason Quinn (talk) 23:41, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Jason Quinn (talk) 04:38, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure how much this helps regarding reassessment of the article, but I've attempted to fix the specific plagiarism issues you've outlined here, User: Jason Quinn. I also put this original message in the wrong place (below). Sorry about that. --Hobomok (talk) 23:40, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

GA Nomination?

Seems a bit ago that the article went up for reassessment and lost its Good Article status. I know when this happened I corrected the problems that resulted in its losing such status... It seems that it might be a good time to revisit assessment given the novel heading into public domain next year. I'm sure there will be an uptick in news and attention (believe there already has been r/t this), and the novel seems to continue to be as timely as ever given the critical/scholarly analyses listed on the page. Anyone have any thoughts on this? --Hobomok (talk) 21:09, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

I think the Critical analysis section needs to be fleshed out a bit more before GA Nomination. I can try to work on it in early December. -- Flask (talk) 20:56, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

I can see where that would be necessary. More information r/t contemporary criticism beyond the ecocritical one listed, and/or more readings of popular themes like class and gender? I'm happy to put some time that I might also have in December toward this if you would like some help! Hobomok (talk) 21:00, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Flask, I really like the work done on the Critical Analysis section--important stuff that needed/needs to be done, I think. Per edit summary, might I suggest we find another source for Class Inequality discussion besides the Gillespie article? While Gillespie does have a graduate degree in Lit. studies, it would seem to me that an article in a popular magazine (wherein the author uses the text to make a point about libertarianism) doesn't belong alongside peer reviewed articles... Just a thought, as I know there are many, many scholarly articles that discuss class in Gatsby that could take its place. Could also fill-out other contemporary work on the novel below it, but I do think the final article in the "Other Interpretations" section works well, as it provides an idea of current scholarship and Gatsby's staying power r/t contemporary issues a century after the novel's publication. Just my two cents. --Hobomok (talk) 01:07, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, Hobomok. Yes, I concur that more scholarly sources than Gillepsie are needed for that section. JSTOR seems to have several scholarly articles that can be cited. I hope to have the Class Inequality section rewritten and resourced within the next few days. On a side note: I also will replace the SparkNotes citations with ones from Mizener's biography of Fitzgerald. It seems odd to cite a SparkNotes pamphlet when more authoritative sources are available. -- Flask (talk) 01:31, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Hi, Hobomok. Yesterday, while rewriting the Critical Analysis section, I realized that the bottom half of the American Dream section already discussed class disparities so I combined that with the Class Inequality section to create the Class permanence section. I felt this was a more accurate section title since the critics/scholars emphasized that Gatsby is more than about just class inequality but the fact that such inequalities cannot be transcended. -- Flask (talk) 03:32, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Hi Flask, I think this is an excellent and much-needed update to the critical analysis section—especially the race section you’ve created and extended. It is always an important section, but particularly exigent in our current moment. I’m not sure what the current state of environmental criticism related to Gatsby is, but a quick skim of the cited article shows the novel mentioned in Leo Marx’s The Machine in the Garden and Matthew Little’s article “I could Make Some Money: Cars and Currency in the Great Gatsby.” These might be worth adding? On the other hand, as ecocriticism continues to expand, perhaps more explicitly environmentally-minded Gatsby articles will appear, and it is best to leave the section as-is for now as an example of Gatsby’s enduring power as social, political, and now environmental commentary. Hobomok (talk) 17:28, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Hi Hobomok. I implemented your suggestions and rewrote the environmental criticism section. I added Marx (1964) as a full paragraph as well as included Matthew Little as a bundled citation. I also rewrote the argument by Keeler (2018) to include more detail. The old version seemed so reductionist as to be almost a straw man. Let me know what you think or if you have any other suggestions. -- Flask (talk) 00:14, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Hi Flask, I think this is an excellent rundown of (Leo) Marx and the presented article. Both of which provide a good overview of the ecocritical ideas around Gatsby past and present. Overall, I think this newly strengthened criticism section is an excellent encyclopedic rundown of various forms of criticism on Gatsby. As always, this rabbit hole could go deeper and deeper, but I think this is an excellent place to close the critical analysis section. Perhaps there will be more to add at a later date, but I think these containers and their representative scholarly works do a great job of providing an overview. Hobomok (talk) 01:56, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Hi Hobomok. I agree. I think the article is now ready for GA reassessment. Flask (talk) 03:28, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Agreed, Flask. I’ll leave the honors to you, as you’ve done most of the heavy lifting here. I can always make the call though, since you have done so much already! Hobomok (talk) 06:03, 16 December 2020 (UTC).

Hi Hobomok. Thanks for kind offer. As I am dealing with coronavirus fatigue at the moment, I'm going to take you up on it and would appreciate it if you nominated the article for reassessment. -- Flask (talk) 23:02, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Flask, the least I can after all of your hard work! Hobomok (talk) 00:03, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

Toward Featured Article

So now that we've reached GA, I believe the next step is FA after a peer review. Going off of comments from the GA assessment, it would seem the first steps before taking the article to peer review and eventually FA assessment are streamlining the lead so that it better reflects the whole of the article, which I've just taken a crack at, and then changing the adaptations section over to prose, so that both sections read more like Hamlet. In terms of the adaptations section, I'm not sure we'd want to break it up chronologically like Hamlet's, but I could see breaking the selected works up amongst these sections:
1. Stage (Ballet, Opera, and Theater)
2. Film and Television (...)
3. Other Media (Radio/Video Games/Literature)
I'd be interested to see what others think here before I go into a wholesale reformatting of the adaptations section. Another question--is Bohjalian's The Double Blind necessary for inclusion? It is the only literary piece here, and I'm not sure it fits with the other sections that have at least three examples. If we found more examples of popular literature that built off of Gatsby perhaps this would flesh out the literature section? Not sure, up to hearing thoughts on the topic, but I am sure there are other literary texts out there that build on Gatsby, I'm just at a loss for what/where they are. As one of my previous colleagues used to say, "It's Fitzgerald for Chrissakes!".
At any rate, I'd say we're really close here after Flask and ImaginesTigers hard work last week. If anyone has any thoughts on the reformatting above, or any other aspect of the page, please, do comment!--Hobomok (talk) 18:53, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

@Hobomok: I want to point out that Flask should be the primary nominator (if they have the time), given their huge and incredible contribution. They are by far the primary writer, responsible for over 62% of the article's content; second is Jason Quinn at 6%; you have about 0.8% (in eighth place). You can see all that here.

Regarding literary adaptations, it wouldn't surprise me if they were very few given that it just entered PD. As a general rule of thumb regarding adaptations: someone once said that, if Albert Einstein was featured in an episode of Doctor Who, that would be worth including on the episode's page; it might be worth mentioning on the main Doctor Who page, but it wouldn't be worth mentioning on Einstein's page. An adaptation section can be pretty tricky to write because of the cruft they gather over time. This essay outlines a lot of the common problems with those sections (although the subject matter is different, I think it applies). An adaptation's pure existence might not be enough for it to warrant inclusion; there has to be some sustained reasoning there. If it starts getting out of hand, I recommend saving all of the information on this Talk page so that, if someone is interested, they could make Adaptations of The Great Gatsby. If Flask or yourself have any questions, feel free to ping me or ask at Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates (they don't bite!), or just have a look at the FA criteria. — ImaginesTigers]

Thanks for the info, and sustained help, ImaginesTigers. I’ll have a look at the linked essays and see what might be included and what might be cut as I edit the section. R/t nomination, absolutely, I agree Flask should nominate the article. At this point I’m just trying to give them a bit of a break by doing residual work from the GA nomination until they return later this month, per their talk page. I will be sure to ping you in the meantime if I have any questions. Thank you again for all of your help! Hobomok (talk) 15:04, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

No problem! There's no rush; it can definitely wait till Flask comes back. Glad that Flask managed to deal with everything quickly on the GAR; the article did get a jump in traffic when it entered public domain! — ImaginesTigers (talk)

Hi Hobomok and ImaginesTigers. Having taken a short breather from this article, I have returned to focus on it. Since Hobomok has greatly improved upon the lead section and converted the adaptions section from a bulleted list to prose, I believe the next step is peer review (per ImaginesTigers' suggestion). In the next few days, I will re-read the article from top to bottom and—unless there is a particular section that seems lacking—I will submit it for peer feedback. -- Flask (talk) 01:07, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Happy to have you back, Flask! I agree, and I look forward to seeing what you come up with over the next couple of days. After that I'll wait for feedback from peer review. Looking forward to it. --Hobomok (talk) 01:18, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Public domain

The Great Gatsby entered into public domain as of January 1, 2021. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 05:12, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

That is reflected on the page. — ImaginesTigers (talk) 14:11, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. Yes, I see that now. Did not see it before. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 15:59, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Cover art

Original version cover art, before any text was superimposed on it, is now available at commons Commons:File:Celestial eyes-The Great Gatsby cover-Francis Cugat-1925.tif It is definitely notable enough that it could be used here, although this page is already so full of illustration that there might be no more room for it.

Could also somebody verify that that the original cover art is really in public domain? It was published together with the book in 1925, however its author Francis_Cugat has died only in 1981, so I'm not entirely sure. The drafts for the cover [2] that are already on this page are still marked as copyrighted, although their page was last edited in 17 July 2019, so this might be just outdated information. If they have already entered public domain, higher resolution version should be probably uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. Yaqub Kabanoki 23:34, 31 May 2021‎

Hi, Yaqub Kabanoki. Unless I'm mistaken, the two sketches of the cover by Francis Cugat included in this article likely remain under copyright because they were not published until recently. In order for those sketches to be in the public domain, we would need to verify they were published prior to 1926. However, in the case of the cover art lacking only the book title and author name, I believe that image is in the public domain as this was the final version of the artwork that was published in 1925. As such, I added the image to the article. If I'm wrong, I'll remove it. -- Flask (talk) 01:42, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for a quick reply Flask. I like the way that you included the cover in the article. I was trying to find the original source for the draft illustrations to learn more about their copyright status but I was only able to find link to their black and white version Celestial Eyes: From Metamorphosis to Masterpiece (the source link to University of South Carolina on the File:Francis_Cugat_Gatsby_Cover_Drafts_1925.jpg is now defunct). Yaqub Kabanoki (talk) 18:49, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Hi, Yaqub Kabanoki. Thank you for the additional research. Based on what you linked, it appears the color versions of the sketches reside in the Matthew J. Bruccoli Collection at Princeton University Library, but they have not been digitally scanned and uploaded by the Princeton librarians. I assume those sketches likely still remain under copyright. -- Flask (talk) 19:35, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Seeking more reviewers for Featured Article Candidate nomination

The Great Gatsby article has been nominated as a Featured Article Candidate. As any Wikipedia editor can participate in a review of a FAC nomination, it would be appreciated if any willing persons would please contribute their evaluations of this article, whether pro or con. → Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/The_Great_Gatsby/archive2 — Flask (talk) 20:49, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

Coverage of Gatsby's race

Xebec75, I noticed you have been trying to add information about Janet Savage's recent work on Jay Gatsby's race. In general, this article has only made space for the interpretations which have been discussed by multiple scholars and ideally over an extended period of time. At most a single sentence would be proportionally appropriate for the information you propose. Perhaps the following section could be rewritten slightly to emphasize the ambiguity of his origins, allowing for a brief mention in the text or a footnote of the biracial theory:

Although his ethnicity is vague, his last name Gatz and his father's adherence to the Lutheran religion indicate his family are recent German immigrants.[209] This would preclude them from the coveted status of Old Stock Americans.[209] Consequently, Gatsby's socio-economic ascent is deemed a threat not only due to his status as nouveau riche, but because he is perceived as an outsider.[210]

You might also consider editing the article on Jay Gatsby instead, where this interpretation is more directly/centrally related to the article topic. That article looks like it could benefit from some polishing, especially getting away from a pretty MOS:INUNIVERSE perspective. Just my thoughts. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 02:40, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

I concur with LEvalyn that one or two sentences assaying hypotheses about Gatsby's race would suffice. The sentence should encompass multiple racial hypotheses about Gatsby. To my knowledge, Mizener (1951) was among the first Fitzgerald scholars to posit that Gatsby could be a Jew "passing" as white due to his belief that Jewish gangster Max Fleischman was the literary model. Other scholars such as Pekarofski (2012) have further expanded upon this theory. There also have been interpretations of Gatsby by scholars positing his race as African-American, Irish, Armenian, etc. I do think the fact that Fitzgerald overtly included mixed-raced characters "passing" in his other fiction such as Bernice in Bernice Bobs Her Hair (1920) could be mentioned as a footnote to bolster such interpretations.

However, I must object to either Janet Savage's self-published book (2017) or The Wrap news article as the primary citation for Gatsby being an African-American who is passing as white. There are many reputable papers from earlier scholars who proposed this interpretation long before Savage. According to Moynihan (2014), the earliest individual to interpret Gatsby or other characters in the novel as an African-American "passing" as white was likely writer Nella Larsen. Moynihan argues that Larsen's 1929 novel Passing was written in response to her reading of The Great Gatsby.

In the past twenty years, many works have continued this line of argument. Goldsmith's "White Skin, White Mask: Passing, Posing and Performing in The Great Gatsby" (2003), Rohrkemper's "Becoming White: Race and Ethnicity in The Great Gatsby" (2003), Will's "The Great Gatsby and the Obscene Word" (2005), Kirby's "Shades of Passing: Teaching and Interrogating Identity in Roth's The Human Stain and Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby" (2006), and Schreier's "Desire's Second Act: 'Race' and The Great Gatsby's Cynical Americanism" (2007), etc. All of these works were published in reputable journals by scholars and, therefore, are superior to Savage's self-published book as a source. — Flask (talk) 03:17, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

In agreement with both editors above here--the scholarly lineage that Flask outlines and the discussion that comes from that scholarship should be included to round out this section, but Savage's self-published book and any literature around it should not be included. I'd also just like to say in response to edit summaries that edits to this page over the course of the last year were not done to "downplay any discussion of race." --Hobomok (talk) 23:49, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Thank you, Flask, for that thorough summary of the literature-- having looked more closely at Savage's work I also agree that the sources you cite are much more suitable, both here and at Jay Gatsby. I just wanted to open a more thorough conversation on the Talk page since I thought a better version of the attempted edits on this topic could indeed be an improvement. I may have time myself to try for a sentence-sized tweak here in the next week. (Also, that connection to Passing is fascinating! That would be a great footnote...) ~ L 🌸 (talk) 04:16, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Were there not also - at least some - German immigrants amongst the "Old Stock Americans"? Or would the surnames of Germans during the early period her different enough in form from the latter waves so as to be easily distinguishable? 2600:1702:4960:1DE0:6CB7:62BD:5DB:4891 (talk) 00:50, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

This is a complex question that would require an essay to answer fully. Could there have been some German immigrants among the "Old Stock Americans"? Certainly. Would that have mattered to straw-hatted bigots in the 1920s? Not at all. Throughout American history, the ethnic and racial assumptions that people inferred based on one's surname could seal one's fate regardless if the assumptions were accurate or not. Your family could have been in the United States for generations, but it was the mere assumption that you were a recent immigrant and "an outsider" that could harm you, especially during what sociologists term "the Tribal Twenties." Much like during the 1840s, immigration was a hot button topic during in 1920s America, and the defining question of the period was who constituted "a real American"

In the particular case of German-Americans living in the United States amid the peak of anti-German sentiment during World War I, many German-American families who had lived in the United States for generations nonetheless anglicized their names to avoid the stigma of being assumed to be recent immigrants and thus "disloyal." This also happened in the United Kingdom and other countries.

Concurrently, many immigrants from Central Europe to America during this time period were Jewish refugees, and the ingravescent antisemitism in the United States in the wake of the 1915 Leo Frank lynching was another reason why older German-American families did not want to be mistaken as "recent immigrants" from Central Europe. — Flask (talk) 02:11, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

Main characters

So far as plot summaries and the character list go, editors are bound by MOS guidelines and these sections have been shortened accordingly. The list of characters should never be used to supplement the necessarily concise plot summary. WP's function is not to serve as a study guide but to present a sourced discussion of all aspects of (in this case) the novel. There is valuable information gathered in the character list, but that should be rewritten as a seperate and connected section, not (per guidelines) as a list. There are already seperate articles on two of the main characters and it might be a good idea not to duplicate them in the general article on the novel but to decide here what themes are best followed up to make a coherent overview in a rewritten subsection. Sweetpool50 (talk) 10:34, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Hello Sweetpool50. In your edit, you cited WP:FILMPLOT as the rationale to remove the near entirety of the Major Characters section. However, this is an article about a novel, not a film. As such, I'm uncertain why WP:FILMPLOT was the linked rationale for the edit.

Assuming that rationale was mistakenly cited, I will instead address the current rationale given in your comment: You have stated the deleted text "supplements" the plot summary, but the vast majority of the details you deleted do not "supplement" or "serve" the plot summary. In fact, the majority of the details in that section instead explore the historical persons on which the characters were based. These details are irrelevant to the plot summary—the very opposite of "supplementing" which is your cited rationale for their deletion. Whether Jordan Baker was based on Edith Cummings does not "supplement" or "serve" the plot summary at all. As such, I do not see how this stated rationale justifies such a total deletion of the cited text.

In regards to your assertion that the historical details in the Major Characters somehow serves as a "study guide," I am equally baffled. No current English Literature exam in America focuses upon whether Jay Gatsby was based on Max Gerlach. Instead, they focus on themes. Hence, if your rationale is to cut any text that would likely appear in a study guide, we would have to cut the entire Critical Analysis section on the American Dream and Gender Relations as these are very much the usual content found in study guides.

Finally, since this FA article's sections were arrived at via editorial consensus through lengthy GA and FA reviews over many months, I would like to hear other editors' input before we make any significant deletions to the content, especially as the cited rationale seems a bit of a stretch. @LEvalyn:, @Hobomok: and @Jason Quinn: What are your thoughts on these changes? — Flask (talk) 02:01, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

In agreement 100% with Flask on this.-Hobomok (talk) 05:27, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for coming back to me on this, Flask. I had noticed that the article had twice achieved GA status, with a hiccup in between. My changes were to the two sections that were most liable to interference in the 18 months or so between. I did do a wordcount on the plot section and must not have cleared quite all the stuff in the links since by my count it came to 736. As an experienced editor myself (where we used the Chicago guidelines, incidentally) I'd be cautious about running the count (I'll accept it may really be 702) so close to the absolute maximum. Having some slack is always a good idea. Anyway, I still have two outstanding objections to the present plot section.

• First is the use of the word 'soirée' which has a misleading aura of sophistication about it and does not accurately describe the reality. Merriam Webster, in tracing the original French meaning, suggests that the sense is of an invited gathering (sometimes with a specific focus) in the evening. The book makes clear that the people that come are often uninvited and the party length runs into the small hours. I suggest a less pretentious word to describe Gatsby's parties.
• The phrase at the end - "the green light emanating from the end of Daisy's dock" - is similarly pretentious. The word 'emanating' is totally unnecessary; what is more it is the Buchanan dock that has the green light. Daisy is dependent on Tom, as the novel establishes. It may have seemed to be Daisy's in Gatsby's mind ("the green light at the end of Daisy's dock" as Nick puts it in the penultimate para), but he's now dead and a different understanding of 'Eastern' realities is what Nick has arrived at in the final para.

Incidentally, I cited the film plot guidelines because that's where MOS sends you when talking of summarizing novel plots, suggesting that the same restrictions apply. Before passing on to the next section, may I suggest that you GA editors seriously consider making the changes outlined above?

Now we come to the Main Characters section itself. Frankly, I cannot see how this was passed by whoever assessed the article in 2021 since it is totally at variance with MOS:CHARACTERS. Whatever Flask says, extra elements of plot are introduced in such a way as to supplement the plot section, which is deprecated elsewhere. It is also bulleted, where suggested good practice throughout WP is that there should be 'joined up' paragraphing. Finally, there is an uncomfortable backwards and forwards movement between the characters' place in the novel and their reflections of real-life people. I also noticed that the theme of the people on whom characters are based is not confined to this list but appears in other sections. To summarize, the section in question is muddled and unhelpful and is very distant from contributing to GA status - exactly the opposite, in fact.

My suggestion here is to slim down the section back to my version and then write a differently titled section that concentrates solely on who is based on whom; included in this should be moving considerations of this from other sections to this unifying theme. I'd be ready to join the editorial caucus on this one if needed. Sweetpool50 (talk) 13:06, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

I see no issue with the changes to phrasing in the plot section, although the differences seem negligible in terms of encyclopedic phrasing. I think this, like much of the critiques levied here, is a stylistic issue.

The quibbles with the Main Characters section I totally disagree with, and they seem to be stylistic as well. The summaries of characters fit well, describe what's necessary about the characters, and do not provide "extra elements" of plot. The bullet formatting, as I remember it, was utilized because of other FA literature articles doing the same, and it makes the section much easier to read. Finally, I do not see "uncomfortable backwards and forwards movement between the characters' place in the novel and their reflections of real-life people." It clearly provides character description, provides possible real-life basis based on peer-reviewed work, and then moves to the next character. It fits a clear, easy-to-read pattern. I do not see how this section is "very distant from contributing to GA status."

I'm interested to hear what other editors think, especially the ones Flask named, but as a whole these issues seem like differences in stylistic preferences. They do not, at all, necessitate an "urgent rewrite," nor do they put the article's FA or GA status in jeopardy.--Hobomok (talk) 21:56, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

I concur with Hobomok. However, I disagree with several proposed changes in the Plot Summary rewrite as I feel certain alterations (particularly the rewrite of the final sentences) change the ambiguity of the novel's ending. For the sake of clarity, perhaps we should discuss that proposed change in a separate discussion section? Otherwise, this discussion might become chaotic. — Flask (talk) 04:20, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

For clarity’s sake, just want to say that I only had no issues with the plot revisions as proposed here at talk. I do not agree with the wholesale revisions as they were in the original edit that Flask links to, for the reasons Flask provides. As Flask says, it might be best to bring those to discussion in a separate topic. —Hobomok (talk) 05:01, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

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The Plot Recap Makes An Unlikely Assumption

The plot recap in the article states as fact that Gatsby and Daisy, when reunited "embarked upon a sexual affair." But this is never explicitly stated or even hinted at in the actual novel. We are told only that they were lovers in the past, when they first knew each other, "and Gatsby felt married." Hemingway admired the manuscript greatly when Fitzgerald showed it to him. However, he told Fitzgerald that the novel never makes clear whether Daisy and Gatsby are sleeping together in the present. He found this a weakness. Fitzgerald replied that he agreed, but he had never made his mind up as to whether they were or not.So much of Gatsby's feeling for Daisy was a tragic version of courtly love. Fitzgerald found it entirely believable that this emotion could have remained in his head, like his own for Ginevra King. Younggoldchip (talk) 19:28, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

@Younggoldchip: Thank you for your insightful and knowledgeable comment. I concur the phrase should be changed. How shall we update the phrasing? I fear that replacing it "embarked upon a romance" would be misleading since we don't know if Daisy returns Gatsby's affections. We could delete the word "sexual" and leave it as "embarked upon an affair"–thus slightly more ambiguous? Let me know if you have a particular replacement in mind. — Flask (talk) 22:06, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Which was the first musical adaptation?

I noticed that the section on stage adaptations mentions the second and third musical adaptations, but I can't quite work out which is meant to be the first. Is it the opera? I suppose an opera is musical in the sense of having music, but I don't usually think of an opera as a musical. Could this wording be refined for clarity? I don't want to dive in myself because I'm not actually confident what is intended as the first. (e.g., did Gatz have music??) ~ L 🌸 (talk) 18:14, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

@LEvalyn Based on my research undertaken in the past hour, the "Stage" section is inaccurate and needs to be rewritten. A quick search of Newspapers.com indicates numerous musical adaptations of The Great Gatsby dating back to at least 1956. According to The Reporter Dispatch (Thursday, June 28, 1956, p. 6), the Yale Dramatic Association performed a musical production of The Great Gatsby in Summer 1956. The Wilmington News-Journal (May 7, 1956, p. 11) identifies this production as "the first musical adaptation of the novel."

And there are many other musical adaptations not mentioned in this article. There was a ballet adaptation in 1991 (The Cincinnati Post, October 25, 1991, p. 28) and a UK musical adaptation by Stage One in 1998 that received considerable press coverage (The Chronicle, April 17, 1998, p. 100). There also appears to be earlier opera adaptations among the number of earlier stage and musical adaptations prior to 2000.

Ultimately, I think we might do what ImaginesTigers suggested during the Featured Article review: We could create a separate Wikipedia article titled "Adaptations of The Great Gatsby." Now that the novel has fallen into the public domain, the number of adaptations will multiply in the coming decades, and there will be many future editors trying to add them to this article. — Flask (talk) 19:33, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Oh dear, that is a bit of a can of worms. I agree that it is probably time for a dedicated adaptation article. I took the liberty of starting one at Draft:Adaptations of the Great Gatsby, which spins out the current article content plus clumsy additions of the ones you mentioned here. I may have limited attention to work on it but will try to help! Once the spinoff is ready for mainspace, we could consider cutting down the main article to only mention adaptations which have their own articles. (I also find myself wondering if a chronological list would be worth assembling...) ~ L 🌸 (talk) 06:55, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for creating the article draft. Once my schedule clears up, I should have time to work on the draft in mid-March. — Flask (talk) 19:27, 8 February 2024 (UTC)