Two Eggs Setting Diagram
Literary Setting Diagram F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby 1922 Geography
East Egg & West Egg
Name: Date:
LONG ISLAND SOUND "the great wet barnyard of Long Island Sound" COURTESY BAY ~1/2 Mile Saltwater Divide WEST EGG [ NEW MONEY • PARVENU ] POOL GATSBY'S MANSION Faux-Norman Hotel de Ville (40 Acres) NICK'S BUNGALOW "$80 a month cardboard house" Gatsby's Pier EAST EGG [ OLD MONEY • ARISTOCRACY ] BUCHANAN ESTATE Georgian Colonial Manor & 1/4-Mile Lawn Daisy's Dock THE GREEN LIGHT Gatsby's Yearning N WILSON'S GARAGE DR. T.J. ECKLEBURG VALLEY OF ASHES "a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat" WEST: TO MANHATTAN (20 MILES) EAST: LONG ISLAND
West Egg New Money
- Residents: Jay Gatsby, Nick Carraway
- Architecture: Colossal faux-Norman Château, French towers, marble swimming pool, 40 acres.
- Symbolism: Newly acquired wealth, ostentation, theatricality, bootleg fortunes, social striving.
East Egg Old Money
- Residents: Tom & Daisy Buchanan, Jordan Baker
- Architecture: Red-and-white Georgian Colonial manor with manicured quarter-mile beachfront lawns.
- Symbolism: Generational aristocracy, Ivy League pedigree, careless cruelty, social entrenchment.
Valley of Ashes Wasteland
- Residents: George Wilson, Myrtle Wilson
- Landmarks: Wilson’s auto garage, giant faded billboard of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg.
- Symbolism: Industrial fallout, moral rot, spiritual bankruptcy, commercial god watching indifference.
Key Symbol: The Green Light
Located at the end of Daisy Buchanan’s dock in East Egg. Gatsby stares across the courtesy bay from his lawn in West Egg, physically reaching toward it as an embodiment of his romantic yearning, the American Dream, and the unrepeatable past.
Key Symbol: The Courtesy Bay
A physical expanse of only half a mile of saltwater that represents an unbridgeable social and cultural divide. West Egg’s parvenu wealth can look across to East Egg’s established dynasty, but cannot truly assimilate into it.
“Twenty miles from the city a pair of enormous eggs, identical in contour and separated only by a courtesy bay...” Chapter 1 • Setting Reference
