Alternative Character Interpretation: People have written papers on the different interpretations (of course many of the interpretations below are not exclusive):
Is Gatsby a manipulative and scheming stalker; or a broken man who idealizes Daisy, and pursues that idealized version of her?
Jordan Baker; just as bad as everyone else, or a product of the times (explaining her cheating and lying)? Or is she just a cynical person from a wealthy background who isn't really friends with the Buchanans, and just snarks behind their backs? The 1974 version seems to support the last theory.
Tom Buchanan: a hypocrite who cheats on his wife while demanding monogamy from her, or a husband who assumes that they're both in an open marriage, but that their affair partners should always be kept separate from their social life, and never made to have dinner together? At Gatsby's party he leaves Daisy to go to someone getting off some "Funny stuff". Does he mean a comedian or drugs?
Daisy Buchanan: shallow and flighty? Materialistic and manipulative? Or a Broken Bird trapped in a marriage with a cheating man who possibly abuses her?
Nick: he spends the entire book talking about how kind and decent he is, how he doesn't judge people, and engaging in tragic-hero-worship of Gatsby, but when he knows someone's out to kill him (and is in a position to at least try to stop the death of this man he supposedly admires so much), he just stands by and lets it happen. Honest, decent Midwesterner, or just as much of a hypocrite as everyone else in the book? Not to mention being aware of the various affairs transpiring around him, but choosing to keep his mouth shut.
Myrtle: Is she a shallow Gold Digger who is obsessed with social climbing? Or is she a working class victim trapped in a snobbish society, who is married to a man she does not love and loves a man (Tom) who just uses her for sex?
Catherine, Myrtle's sister. When she testifies at the inquest Nick comments that he is impressed by her unexpected show of "character", not revealing the scandal to all and sundry. Or did Tom pay her off?
Anvilicious: The book's message is "No amount of glamour and/or money can ever get you back what you really want". As shown through the various decidedly unsympathetic rich characters, and how often it's beaten into the reader's head that their lives are miserable in spite of the indulgences.
Ending Fatigue: The plot moves very slowly until the main characters go to the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan around chapter seven, at which point it speeds up significantly, then it slows down again when they leave.
Fan-Preferred Couple: Nick/Gatsby, nicknamed "Natsby" by the fandom, is widely preferred over Daisy/Gatsby, Jordan/Nick, or just about any other possible pairing in the book, mainly due to the vast amounts of Ho Yay to back it up, and the fact that it's the only pairing that could conceivably be, you know, functioning and healthy.
Meyer Wolfsheim, the Jewish mobster, works in an office labeled "The Swastika Holding Company." The book was written in the 20s. Oh boy. Interestingly, the book was not well known until it was republished and hit the peak of its popularity immediately after WWII.
Not to mention Nick referring to the Murder-Suicide using the term 'holocaust'.
The book is also dedicated to Fitzgerald's wife, Zelda, who was later committed to an asylum. It was also later discovered that F Scott Fitzgerald plagiarised a lot of Zelda's writing - lifting passages from her letters and diaries and passing it off as his work.
Hilarious in Hindsight: Tom, Daisy, and the rest of the novel's idle rich might seem to get away with everything they do without consequence. But considering that the Great Depression is only a few years away, their inevitable fate of losing everything does grant the reader some closure and retroactively prevents them from pulling a Karma Houdini. However it is clear that both come from "Old Money" rather than relying on the financial markets so their fate remains uncertain.
Nick seems quite... obsessed with Gatsby, pretty much all the way through the novel. "There was something gorgeous about him"? Not to mention the Nick/McKee scene at the end of chapter 2.
Albeit it should be noted that much of this is the result of language drift since the novel was written—as per the example above, which uses "gorgeous" in its original sense of "splendid" and/or "showy".
Look at Nick's excuse for coming east, mentioned in his first meeting with the Buchanans. He used to spend a lot of time with a girl as Platonic Life-Partners, but everyone drew the wrong impression and started expecting him to propose, which he didn't want to do. Why not? The novel never answers, leaving readers to decide whether they were Like Brother and Sister or The Beard.
The video game drops all subtlety, having Nick as the hero and, most importantly, Gatsby as the Distressed Dude Nick has to save.
This scene, between Nick and Mr McKee ("a pale feminine man"), comes across as either a hookup or an attempted hookup foiled by drunkenness and Mr McKee preferring to show off his photography. Especially if you take the lever as a phallic symbol and the ellipses as a Sexy Discretion Shot:
"Come to lunch some day," he suggested, as we groaned down in the elevator.
"Where?"
"Anywhere."
"Keep your hands off the lever," snapped the elevator boy.
"I beg your pardon," said Mr. McKee with dignity, "I didn't know I was touching it."
"All right," I agreed, "I'll be glad to."
. . . I was standing beside his bed and he was sitting up between the sheets, clad in his underwear, with a great portfolio in his hands.
Hype Backlash: Perhaps the biggest example in the realm of literature. Many classes at the college and high school level take offense at the "definitive American novel" title based on the stupidity of its characters and the soap opera nature of its plot. Just as many argue that Fitzgerald wanted to attack East Coast Idle Rich lifestyle with a thinly veiled Take That!.
Daisy could be considered this. While she does have both a troubled past and present life (stuck with a Jerkass husband), it still doesn't really excuse her casual dismissal of Gatsby following the latter's death.
George Wilson's not a good husband by any stretch of the imagination, but he still loves Myrtle, and his grief over her death is heartbreaking. He kills an innocent man and then himself, while Tom Buchanan (the guy who was actually sleeping with Myrtle) gets away with his actions.
The Green Light.ExplanationThe novel is bookended by the sight of a green beacon light at the end of Daisy's dock, which is visible from Gatsby's mansion. While the last chapter openly explains the symbolism of the light ("the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us"), the fact that teachers frequently treat it as the novel's linchpin resulted in those who resent its longtime Sacred Cow status using it as a byword for Faux Symbolism.
Muppets Great Gatsby.Explanation After the novel entered the Public Domain in January 2021, the idea of a film adaptation along the lines of The Muppet Christmas Carol or Muppet Treasure Island became very popular, both jokingly and seriously, owed to the contrast between the generally upbeat Muppets and the bleak tone of the novel.
The story viciously and repeatedly lampoons rich, upper-class American society. Guess what sort of parties are Great Gatsby-themed? (Ex: Greek, "The Great Cappie")
Also, those who feel inspired by the book to pursue their dreams of money and social status, ignoring how Gatsby amassed his wealth through criminal activity and the way it turns out that his image of Daisy, his real goal, was naught but an idealized dream.
Similarly, Lauren Conrad continually points out how much she loves the book because she's "obsessed with the style of the 20s!".
Kris Jenner, of all people, had a Gatsby themed 60th birthday party in 2015.
People hate on Daisy for rejecting Gatsby, when there are much worse characters than her in the book. Like for example, Tom, who beats women, cheats on his wife, ascribes to racist Nordicism, and is actually responsible for Gatsby's death. Not to mention, it's shown that Gatsby is Loving a Shadow with Daisy; he's more in love with the idea of her or the woman she was five years ago than how she is now. Gatsby even tries to force Daisy into the mold that he wants her to be in, and yet it's Daisy that gets all the hate for rejecting Gatsby, when she had every reason to.
Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: The only likable characters in the story either end up dead or are so despondent over the events their world views are forever changed for the worse. The unlikeable characters end up better off, but it is heavily implied not even they will be happy for long... Needless to say this is a very pessimistic story.
Values Dissonance: As strongly as the novel criticises white supremacy "theory," its portrayal of the Jewish Mr. Wolfsheim is sadly still infected with dated, antisemitic caricature. The only major Jewish character in the novel, Wolfsheim is negatively portrayed as a shifty, greedy type; even introducing him, the prose comments multiple times on his "expressive nose," a stereotype that would have been shot dead by most editors today.
With the few reviews Fitzgerald got in his lifetime he lamented that no one seemed to realize or focus on the critiques of the American Dream and exceptionalism. Nowadays basically everyone reasonable knows and agrees with this message, to the point that it’s quite ironic when this is called The Great American Novel.
The Great Gatsby treats Tom's racism and Nordicism as another aspect of his jackassery, in a time when eugenics was still very popular, especially in the US. This probably held even more power after WWII, which was when the novel got Vindicated by History.
Vindicated by History: The novel was forgotten during the Great Depression and WWII, and didn't sell that well when it was first released. To the point that once F. Scott Fitzgerald tried to find his books in the store, when it carried no copies of it at all. Over the years it has become standard reading material in academics, although hefty amounts of Hype Backlash has started to diminish this.
, "WHAT BABY" and "Old as balls".