In the grand, chaotic theater of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, minor characters often reflect the novel’s core themes with startling clarity. Catherine, Myrtle Wilson’s sister, is one such figure. Although she appears only briefly in a cramped New York apartment, her performance of worldliness and her final act of loyalty offer a powerful […]

In the desolate Valley of Ashes, a landscape of industrial refuse and suffocated dreams in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Michaelis is a quiet but crucial figure of human decency. Michaelis is the Greek immigrant who runs the coffee shop next to Wilson’s garage. His life intersects with the novel’s central tragedy, casting him

In the grand, chaotic theater of Jay Gatsby’s mansion, amidst the “men and girls [who] came and went like moths,” one figure lingers long after the music stops: Ewing Klipspringer, known simply as “the boarder.” He’s a man who came to a party and seemingly never left. While often dismissed as a mere freeloader, Klipspringer

In the final pages of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, after the last party guest departs, Henry C. Gatz arrives from Minnesota, a figure from a past his son sought to escape. As Gatsby’s estranged father, his brief, grief-stricken appearance grounds the magnificent myth of “Jay Gatsby” in the humble, human reality of “Jimmy Gatz.”

In the glittering, morally veiled world of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, a peculiar figure known only as Owl Eyes offers fleeting but arresting glimpses beyond the novel’s dazzling surfaces. Although his appearances are few, his “enormous owl-eyed spectacles” provide him with a unique, sometimes contradictory perspective, prompting us to question what is genuinely