Tag Archives: Great Gatsby

To Know Gatsby Is to Know America

By Robin Bates | Published: May 16, 2013

“The Great Gatsby” is about fantasizing. Baz Luhrmann’s new film appears to understand this well.

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Lit Titles as Cocktails (“The Wasteland”)

By Robin Bates | Published: August 29, 2012

NPR’s Studio 360 sponsored a “literary cocktail” contest. We share here some of the highlights.

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2012 Election Mirrors Great Gatsby

By Robin Bates | Published: July 10, 2012

The Romney weekend fundraising event in the Hamptons uncomfortably mirrors the parties that occur in the Hamptons in “The Great Gatsby.”

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Santorum as Gatsby?! Okay, Humor Me

By Robin Bates | Published: April 10, 2012

Think of the 2012 Republican primaries as “The Great Gatsby,” with Romney as Tom Buchanan and Santorum as Gatsby.

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America Encourages the Vagabond Self

By Robin Bates | Published: April 21, 2011

Looking at the United States from the vantage point of Iran, Nafisi writes that it was America’s vagrant nature that she connected to. She writes that America “somehow encourages this vagabond self.”

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Gatsby in Iran: A Dream Betrayed

By Robin Bates | Published: July 3, 2009

The Iranian authorities allowed Nafisi to teach “The Great Gatsby” because they regarded it as an expose of American materialism and decadence. And certainly it has that dimension. But Nafisi focused more on how the work explores the betrayal of dreams. Both countries have experience with that betrayal.

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