The Great Gatsby

Comparative · 2027 & 2028 Leaving Cert

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel is short, sharp and built for the exam. Here is everything you need to study it as a comparative or single text.

Nick Carraway moves to West Egg, Long Island, in the summer of 1922 and finds himself next door to a mysterious millionaire, Jay Gatsby, who throws enormous parties he barely attends. We learn that Gatsby built his whole fortune for one reason: to win back Daisy Buchanan, the woman he loved before the war. Daisy is now married to Tom, a rich, careless brute who is himself having an affair with Myrtle Wilson, the wife of a garage owner in the grim Valley of Ashes.

When Gatsby finally reunites with Daisy, his dream looks within reach. But the past cannot be repeated. A confrontation in a New York hotel, a fatal car crash, and a revenge killing bring the story to its close, and Nick is left to make sense of what he calls Gatsby’s “extraordinary gift for hope”. The green light at the end of Daisy’s dock, the brooding eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg, and that final line about boats against the current are the images examiners expect you to handle with confidence.

Study The Great Gatsby

Start with a theme, then load up on the quotes you can drop straight into an answer. Each page below is built around what the exam actually rewards.