In 2018, scholar Kyle Keeler argued that the voracious pursuit of wealth as criticized in Fitzgerald’s novel offers a warning about the perils of environmental destruction in pursuit of self-interest. According to Kyle Keeler, Gatsby’s quest for greater status manifests as self-centered, anthropocentric resource acquisition.
Inspired by the predatory mining practices of his fictional mentor Dan Cody, Gatsby participates in extensive deforestation amid World War I and then undertakes bootlegging activities reliant upon exploiting South American agriculture.
Gatsby conveniently ignores the wasteful devastation of the valley of ashes to pursue a consumerist lifestyle and exacerbates the wealth gap that became increasingly salient in 1920s America. For these reasons, Keeler argues that—while Gatsby’s socioeconomic ascent and self-transformation depend upon these very factors—each one is nonetheless partially responsible for the ongoing ecological crisis.
Antisemitism
The Great Gatsby has been accused of antisemitism because of its use of Jewish stereotypes. One of the novel’s supporting characters is Meyer Wolfsheim, a Jewish friend and mentor of Gatsby.
A corrupt profiteer who assists Gatsby’s bootlegging operations and who fixed the 1919 World Series, he appears only twice in the novel, the second time refusing to attend Gatsby’s funeral. Fitzgerald describes Wolfsheim as “a small, flat-nosed Jew”, with “tiny eyes” and “two fine growths of hair” in his nostrils.
Evoking ethnic stereotypes regarding the Jewish nose, he describes Wolfsheim’s nose as “expressive”, “tragic”, and able to “flash … indignantly”.
The fictional character of Wolfsheim is an allusion to real-life Jewish gambler Arnold Rothstein, a notorious New York crime kingpin whom Fitzgerald met once in undetermined circumstances. Rothstein was blamed for match fixing in the Black Sox Scandal that tainted the 1919 World Series.
Wolfsheim has been interpreted as representing the Jewish miser stereotype. Richard Levy, author of Antisemitism: A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution, claims that Wolfsheim serves to link Jewishness with corruption.
In a 1947 article for Commentary, Milton Hindus, an assistant professor of humanities at the University of Chicago, stated that while he believed the book was a superb literary achievement, Wolfsheim was its most abrasive character, and the work contains an antisemitic undertone.
However, Hindus argued the Jewish stereotypes displayed by Wolfsheim were typical of the time when the novel was written and set and that its antisemitism was of the “habitual, customary, ‘harmless,’ unpolitical variety”.
A 2015 article by essayist Arthur Krystal agreed with Hindus’ assessment that Fitzgerald’s use of Jewish caricatures was not driven by malice and merely reflected commonly held beliefs of his time.
He notes the accounts of Frances Kroll, a Jewish woman and secretary to Fitzgerald, who claimed that Fitzgerald was hurt by accusations of antisemitism and responded to critiques of Wolfsheim by claiming he merely “fulfilled a function in the story and had nothing to do with race or religion”.
Adaptations
Stage
The first stage adaptation was produced by William Brady, a veteran theatrical producer and promoter of prize fights, who acquired the rights only a few days after first reading the novel in the spring of 1925.
The script was written by the American dramatist Owen Davis, who had won a Pulitzer Prize in 1923 for his play, Icebound. Davis dramatically altered the structure of the novel, rearranging the action in chronological order, eliminating prominent elements such as the valley of ashes and the scene in the Plaza Hotel, and inventing many minor characters.
The play, directed by George Cukor and starring James Rennie as Gatsby and Florence Eldridge as Daisy, opened on Broadway on February 2, 1926. It was well received by critics and the public, and the run was extended past the originally scheduled closing date, finally ending on May 22, after 112 performances. The production, with some changes in the cast, then moved to Chicago, where it opened on August 1.
Its popularity again led to an extension of the run, which came to an end in late September. A brief one-week return engagement at New York’s Shubert Theater began on October 4, after which a road production traveled to several other cities, including Baltimore, Philadelphia, Detroit, St. Louis, Denver, and Minneapolis.
In July 2006, a stage adaptation by written by Simon Levy and directed by David Esbjornson premiered at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis to celebrate the opening of its new building. In 2010, critic Ben Brantley of The New York Times highly praised the debut of Gatz, an Off-Broadway staging of the novel’s full text by Elevator Repair Service.
The New York Metropolitan Opera commissioned John Harbison to compose an operatic treatment of the novel to commemorate the 25th anniversary of James Levine’s debut. The work, called The Great Gatsby, premiered on December 20, 1999.
The novel has also been adapted for ballet performances. In 2009, BalletMet premiered a version at the Capitol Theatre in Columbus, Ohio. In 2010, The Washington Ballet premiered a version at the Kennedy Center. The show received an encore run the following year. The Comedy Theatre of Budapest created a musical.
Also, in 2023, the second musical adaptation, with music and lyrics by Jason Howland and Nathan Tysen and a book by Kait Kerrigan announced a one-month limited engagement at the Paper Mill Playhouse. The Broadway tryout began its previews on October 12, 2023, followed by an official opening night scheduled for ten days later.
The production concluded on November 12 of the same year. Jeremy Jordan and Eva Noblezada starred as the leading roles of Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan, with Samantha Pauly and Noah J. Ricketts as Jordan Baker and Nick Carraway. The production transferred to Broadway for previews on March 29, 2024, and opened officially on April 25th, 2024.
In Spring 2024, Gatsby: An American Myth, a third musical adaptation with music and lyrics by Florence Welch and Thomas Bartlett and a book by Martyna Majok premiered at the American Repertory Theater.
On May 25, 2024, the show began previews and opened officially on June 5 of the same year. It plans to run until closing night set for August 3rd, 2024.
Film
The first film version of the novel appeared in 1926. A version of Owen Davis’s Broadway play of the same year, it was directed by Herbert Brenon and starred Warner Baxter, Lois Wilson and William Powell. It is a famous example of a lost film.
Reviews suggest it may have been the most faithful adaptation of the novel, but a trailer of the film at the National Archives is all that is known to exist. Reportedly, Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda loathed the silent version. Zelda wrote to an acquaintance that the film was “rotten”. She and Scott left the cinema midway through the film.
Following the 1926 film was 1949’s The Great Gatsby, directed by Elliott Nugent and starring Alan Ladd, Betty Field and Macdonald Carey. Twenty-five years later in 1974, The Great Gatsby appeared onscreen again.
It was directed by Jack Clayton and starred Robert Redford as Gatsby, Mia Farrow as Daisy, and Sam Waterston as Nick Carraway. Most recently, The Great Gatsby was directed by Baz Luhrmann in 2013 and starred Leonardo DiCaprio as Gatsby, Carey Mulligan as Daisy, and Tobey Maguire as Nick.
In 2021, visual effects company DNEG Animation announced they would be producing an animated film adaptation of the novel directed by William Joyce and written by Brian Selznick.
Television
Gatsby has been retold as a short-form television movie multiple times. The first was in 1955 as an NBC episode for Robert Montgomery Presents starring Robert Montgomery, Phyllis Kirk, and Lee Bowman. The episode was directed by Alvin Sapinsley. In 1958, CBS filmed another adaptation as an episode of Playhouse 90, also titled The Great Gatsby, which was directed by Franklin J. Schaffner and starred Robert Ryan, Jeanne Crain and Rod Taylor. Most recently, the novel was adapted as an A&E movie in 2000. The Great Gatsby was directed by Robert Markowitz and starred Toby Stephens as Gatsby, Mira Sorvino as Daisy, and Paul Rudd as Nick.
Literature
Since entering the public domain in 2021, retellings and expansions of The Great Gatsby have become legal to publish. Nick by Michael Farris Smith (2021) imagines the backstory of Nick Carraway. That same year saw the publication of The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo, a retelling with elements of the fantasy genre while tackling issues of race and sexuality, and The Pursued and the Pursuing by AJ Odasso, a queer partial retelling and sequel in which Jay Gatsby survives. Anna-Marie McLemore’s own queer retelling, Self-Made Boys: A Great Gatsby Remix, was released in 2022 and was longlisted for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature.
Graphic novels
The Great Gatsby has been adapted into three graphic novels. The first was in 2007 by Nicki Greenberg, who published The Great Gatsby: A Graphic Adaptation in Australia. Because the original novel was still protected by United States copyright laws, this version was never published in the U.S. The second version, The Great Gatsby: The Graphic Novel, was adapted by Fred Fordham and illustrated by Aya Morton in 2020. In 2021, K. Woodman-Maynard adapted and illustrated The Great Gatsby: A Graphic Novel Adaptation, which was published by Candlewick Press. This was the first graphic novel adaptation of the original novel to be published after it entered the public domain in 2021. In June 2021, Clover Press debuted the first of seven periodical comic books, faithfully adapting The Great Gatsby.
In 2024, IDW Publishing announced Godzilla’s Monsterpiece Theater, a three-part miniseries where Gatsby will team up with Sherlock Holmes, Dracula and the Time Traveller from H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine to battle the King of the Monsters, with Gatsby funding a version of the anti-kaiju defense team G-Force.
Radio
The novel has been adapted into a series of radio episodes. The first radio episode was a 1950 half-hour-long
