‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous’: The Great Gatsby in the 1980s

This essay illustrates the application of reception study, the subfield of literary history that emphasises the historical experiences of readers, to pedagogical contexts by investigating the teaching of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925) in American high schools during the 1980s. Focusing on the episode in which Jay Gatsby leads Nick and Daisy on a tour of his mansion, the analysis draws on published lesson plans and other primary source documents and reimagines the contemporary cultural contexts to reconsider the novel’s lessons about social class during a decade that saw escalating wealth disparity, mirroring Fitzgerald’s 1920s and anticipating our present.