Several years ago, I read The Great Gatsby, and loved it. Upon viewing Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation in 2013, I couldn’t help but feel outraged. I have had many problems with Luhrmann’s over-the-top style that has made him so famous, but it was almost excusable with Romeo and Juliet as the play itself did not have many stage directions and Luhrmann’s was simply a modern version of the tale. But how did he manage to reduce this story to a not-so-great-Gatsby? My main problem; setting. In this post I will examine the different vital parts setting plays in the story, as it does in any story. Whether you liked the Luhrmann version or not, setting plays an undeniably  large role in The Great Gatsby, and I hope to reflect on how important it is to be conveyed properly in a movie adaptation for the original story to retain the symbolic meaning. My aim is to highlight how important a facet setting is in any story in reference to a widely popular one, but I admit I do verge on ranty trail (sorry Baz).

Praised as a contender for the title of “Great American novel”, The Great Gatsby was written by F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1925. The story follows the narration of a young man’s summer experience in 1922, and uses location to highlight aspects of the story such as love, dreams versus reality, social class, wealth and virtue.

THE ROLE OF SETTING PART ONE: SOCIAL CLASS

 Social class is contrasted through location in The Great Gatsby. The narrator is the character of Nick Carraway, who begins his tale by recounting his move to West Egg, one of the two formations of land that make up Long Island South, New York’s east coast. Situated twenty miles from the city, the two formations are separated by a bay and have been appropriately titled East and West egg due to their shape. Luhrmann did not emphasize the importance of the difference between the ‘eggs’ (or more clearly; location) in his adaptation, which is already a warning sign that a lot of symbolism was to be lost.

In the era of the Great Gatsby, the American Dream was a philosophy that promised a happy life to those who worked hard to get there. It is evident there is a superiority complex present in those who live on East Egg that those residents are living this dream. The novel is set post world war one after the possession of alcohol had been prohibited resulting in a high level of illegal distribution. Having developed from traditional customs, this consumer driven time of relaxed social values became an era driven by bootlegging and money.

While both on West and East Egg are very wealthy, there is a predetermined expectation for both classes. The West are known for their lavish living style, their disregard for traditional morals and the intense parties thrown by Mr. Jay Gatsby, who many of the attendees of said parties never cared to meet, but rather, made use of his hospitality without concern. The East were also indulgent and took excessive pleasure in materials and possessions, but considered themselves more sophisticated about it. Instead of wild parties where hundreds would flock and get drunk to the point where they would try to drive a car after one of the wheels has burst off, the East Egg residents sipped expensive champagne at modest dinner parties where they would show off their possessions.

We see the American dream rapidly decaying throughout Fitzgerald’s work as residents of East Egg discriminate against West Egg for their reckless spending on unnecessary indulgences, which is ironic as none of the main characters that represent both East and West Egg actually earned their money fairly and are partaking in activities of the same nature. “I lived in West Egg, the-well, the less fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them” Nick quotes on page 10. This quote proves that Nick knows of the reputation of social standards on both West and East Egg and like Margaret, learns about stereotypes and prejudice versus reality between two different classes of people separated by land, or his case, a bay, while the below quote from about Daisy proves that her distaste of the West was made blatantly obvious; “She was appalled by West Egg, this unprecedented ‘place’ ….appalled by its raw vigour that chafed under the old euphemisms and by the to obtrusive fate that herded its inhabitants along a short-cut from nothing to nothing. She saw something awful in the very simplicity she failed to understand”.  These two quotes (for me anyway) were very important, and not only were the left out of the screenplay but I personally felt like the difference between locations would have been barely noticeable if it weren’t for the narration in Lurhmann’s adaptation.

WHERE WAS THIS LUHRMANN? WHERE? In the end all the locations looked like they were the same place. It was as if there was no difference in East or West egg, in any hotel they visited or between the city and the country. Everyone was dressed the same. The only obviously different place was the Valley of Ashes, which was even more dramatised than the coal mining district 12 in The Hunger Games… Perhaps I missed it under the dizzying camera pans and copious amounts of glitter that I could almost feel in my throat….

THE ROLE OF SETTING PART TWO: CONTRASTING WORLDS

The second dramatic use of location or setting we see in the story is the contrast of the “worlds” of each character, making meetings and visits symbolic. Jay Gatsby bought a house on West Egg, just across the bay and directly opposite Daisy’s. The only reason Daisy had not met Mr.Gatsby since he moved there is because the East Egg residents don’t associate themselves with the West Egg residents unless they have to. Readers may ponder as to why Gatsby didn’t buy a house closer to Daisy, and this is perhaps because he did not consider himself as worthy as her. He was never as well off as her, and even after earning awards for his service in the war, and after building his wealth to astronomical heights, he still did not consider himself one of the people Daisy would be used to associating with. Gatsby wanted Daisy to move in with him, to not only show her love for him now, but to promise that she never loved her husband Tom. Only when she did this could Gatsby truly call her his, and they could be together, away from everything she had been a part of without him, away from the place she lived in without him. Although Gatsby had lived so close to Daisy for years, he never tried to visit her, even after he had built a new life for himself. By frequently throwing elaborate parties, Gatsby always hoped that Daisy would stroll in, like all his other un-officially invited guests.  Gatsby then convinces a friend to ask Nick, his neighbour, to have Daisy over for tea, with plans to show up and surprise Daisy, and then invite her to tour his house. Later on, Daisy attends one of Gatsby’s wild parties, but is accompanied by Tom who is suspicious of her recent behaviour. Gatsby never tries to visit Daisy in her natural environment until he is convinced she is going to end her relationship with Tom. This is all yet another example of how the characters within the text feel like their difference of location separates them as people. Gatsby associates East Egg with an ongoing longing for the life with Daisy he believes he should be living and that she must leave and forget everything about it, while Daisy is forced to act as a lower classed woman and visit West Egg, where she instead sees cheated wealth, and is pressured by Gatsby to not only forget her husband, but her daughter and her whole life as a proud, upper class woman, which is ultimately the problem and setback in rekindling her relationship with Gatsby.

Sure, our pal Baz didn’t change the story of these characters contrasting in their environments, but he didn’t exactly portray the characters as uncomfortable as they were written when in differing environments either.

THE ROLE OF SETTING PART THREE: REPOSITORY FOR MEMORY AND IDEOLOGY 

A third aspect regarding location and setting in the texts is certain areas becoming a repository for memory or ideology. Nick Caraway moved to West Egg in hope for a quiet seaside life to begin a new career, and instead was caught up in other reckless people’s problems. When Nick meets Jordan Baker, he states that she does not like reckless people, and he also feels this way, but as the novel draws to a close, Nick states that in the end, they were all reckless people, even Jordan for faking her way to the top and having total disregard for the feelings of others, and himself for becoming involved. Because of this, Nick moves back to Chicago, as readers know from the first few pages of the text. “Conduct may be rounded on the hard rock or the wet marshes, but after a certain point I don’t care what it’s founded on. When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world  to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with the privileged glimpses into the human heart.” Nick states, on page eight. From this we can see that Nick also uses location as a repository for memories, which is why he feels he must move from the place where he endured the trauma of what occurred that summer, and why Gatsby believes Daisy must move physically and emotionally away from her life without him on East Egg.

Meanwhile, New York city acts as the place where truth unfolds; Tom keeps a room in a hotel there for him and his mistress, Daisy suggests they all take a trip there when she is confronted by having to break her relations with Tom, Tom reveals how Gatsby earned his fortune while on said visit, Nick remembers that it is actually his birthday, as if turning thirty was a minor event that New York brought to the surface from the bottom of a pile of concerns, and halfway between reality (New York) and their homes of fantasy and dreams (West and East Egg, where Gatsby dreams of Daisy, Nick dreams of a new career, Daisy dreams of something more and Tom is under the impression that the Nordics need to push back other races because they are superior), the Valley of Ashes is a painful reminder that while the characters can move between both worlds, they cannot combine the two, because people get hurt, as symbolically demonstrated by the death of Myrtle, Tom’s mistress, from the force of the car Daisy was driving between reality and dreams. “ ‘Anything can happen now that we’ve slid over this bridge,’ I thought; ‘anything at all…’ Even Gatsby could happen, without particular wonder”. (Nick on his way to New York with Gatsby, page 67).

Yes, Bazzy did stay true to depicting scenes in the physical location in which they were written, so I’ve got to hand it to him there, but for the sake of my rant on the importance of setting I wanted to include this.

THE ROLE OF SETTING PART FOUR: PSYCHOLOGICAL STATE OF CHARACTERS

The fourth, and perhaps most obvious example of the dramatic use of location in both texts is each place acting as a parallel to the psychological state of the protagonist, eg. the traveling between East Egg and New York when Daisy is to break up with Tom parallels her confused state.

This one is a bit of a no-brainer, but again, the psychological state of the characters reflected in landscape in the remake was often concealed by glitter and hyper contrasted colour so it was lost on me.

THE ROLE OF SETTING PART FIVE: SYMBOLIC RESONANCE

And finally, a fifth example of the symbolic resonance of location within the novel is the comparison of the natural and artificial. Gatsby himself tries to make Nick’s house impressive with over the top arrangements of flowers to make it a suitable place to meet Daisy, which shows how he was trying to bring the comfort of natural flora into Nick’s house before showing Daisy his own, a very artificial world, where everything is over the top.    

While the flower-bomb scene was done accurately in the remake, Gatsby’s house was done as a different kind of OTT. I’m sorry but there were no inflatable latex ponies in the 20s…

Thus, in conclusion, the symbolism of location plays an important part in the text by displaying the significance of the natural and the artificial, while highlighting contrast between classes and social structure, opposing character’s “worlds” and how they intertwine, and becoming a repository for memory or ideology and a parallel to the psychological state of characters. I did not see any of this in the remake, and for me it is what makes the story so powerful. Combining the lack of this representation and the annoying jazz/R&B reboot music with the completely era-incorrect props  and it was enough to make me very displeased with the movie.

And yes, Leonardo DiCaprio is a beautiful man and very talented, but…

HE WAS TOO OLD TO PLAY GATSBY I’M SORRY PLEASE DON’T HURT ME

*runs away*