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Gatsby's New York, a la Shmoop. When you think about Jay Gatsby... and we
just know you spend a lot of time thinking about him...
...certain images come to mind. Black tie cocktail parties.
Fancy cars.
Gold leaf lined toilet seats.
Okay, Fitzgerald never mentions the toilet seats, but one can assume.
And New York. Ah, New York. City of lights... excitement... and homeless people peeing onto
the sides of buildings.
Ain't no other place like it. Okay, so technically, most of Gatsby takes
place on Long Island...
...with less excitement and considerably less... pee... than in Manhattan.
But some of the story does venture into the Big Apple...
...and even the parts that don't still feature that... indescribable, New York mystique.
Which begs the question -- could The Great Gatsby possibly have been set in any other
place?
Would it be even remotely the same story if it was?
Well, right off the bat you have to rule out anything smaller than a major city.
In much of small-town America, their idea of a "gala" involves a gathering of residents
where grilled chicken goes for five dollars a plate...
... and the biggest celebrity is that guy whose cousin once went streaking down Main
Street. It was pretty much the same story back in
Gatsby's day... there just wasn't that big city vibe that gives the story so much of
its edge. What about the big industrial cities of the
time, like Pittsburgh or Detroit? Well, okay, they've got that big city feel,
but...
...the Roaring Twenties were about a lot more than bustling streets and industry.
It was about culture. It was about singers singing and flappers... flapping.
It was about Art Deco, and cinema, and Expressionism and fashion.
Those Pittsburghians were great at producing steel, but they fell a tad short in the "fashion
icon" department. Okay, so it has to be a major city with plenty
of culture. What about Chicago or Los Angeles? While you can certainly get your fill of culture
in either Chi-town or Lala Land, isn't it a different kind of culture?
LA has obvious connections with the film industry, and even back in the '20s it was a lot about
"who do you know" and "what can you do for me?"
Chicago has the soaring skyscrapers, theatre, and diversity of New York, but it's on a somewhat
smaller scale. It's sort of "New York Light." What about today's Silicon Valley?
A hotbed of vibrant new ideas, self-made millionaires and a forward-thinking sensibility?
Sure sounds like Gatsby's West Egg, does it not?
Although... he probably would have had less need for snow boots.
What do you think -- would Gatsby have basically been an entirely different story if set anywhere
else?
Or would the differences have been negligible? Shmoop amongst yourselves.