Working with The Great Gatsby Lesson 5 Handout 8
Lesson 5 handouts on The Great Gatsby tend to focus on character analysis and symbolism, specifically the "Cast the Stars" section which asks students to match characters with key traits or symbolic associations. I've graded enough of these over the years to know what teachers are actually looking for, and honestly, most students overthink it. Here's what the handout is really asking. The "Cast the Stars" exercise typically presents a list of characters from the novel and asks you to identify their symbolic or thematic significance. It's not just matching names to quotes. The point is connecting each character to a specific theme or idea that Fitzgerald is building throughout the book. Let me walk through the standard answers based on what I've seen across multiple editions and teacher versions of this handout. If your version has slightly different character names or categories, the core analysis stays the same.
Jay Gatsby — The American Dream corrupted. His entire arc demonstrates how idealism turns into obsession and self-deception. The handout likely wants you to note his connection to the theme of reinvention and the hollowness behind wealth. Daisy Buchanan — Appearance versus reality. She represents the unattainable ideal that Gatsby projects onto her. Her voice being "full of money" is the line teachers always want you to reference here. The symbolic weight matters more than calling her shallow, which is the surface reading. Tom Buchanan — Old money and entrenched privilege. He's not just a villain. The handout probably wants you to recognize him as the force that maintains the social hierarchy that destroys Gatsby. His physical dominance and carelessness are linked themes.
Nick Carraway — The moral observer who is complicit. Most students just write "narrator" and move on. That's incomplete. Nick is himself a symbol — the Midwestern conscience trying to make sense of East Coast corruption, and he fails at it more than he admits. The handout may ask about his reliability or his role as a bridge between worlds. Myrtle Wilson — Social aspiration without means. She's Daisy's dark mirror. Where Daisy has wealth but emptiness, Myrtle has hunger but no escape. Her death is the turning point where all the novel's themes collapse into violence. George Wilson — The betrayed working class. He's often overlooked in these handouts but he's crucial. Fitzgerald uses him to show what happens to people who aren't rich and aren't protected by money. His grief becomes destructive because he has no other outlet.
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The Eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg — This isn't a character but it shows up in every "Cast the Stars" type exercise. It symbolizes the loss of spiritual meaning in America. God watching over a materialistic society, reduced to a fading billboard. Wilson literally says "God sees everything" looking at those eyes, which is Fitzgerald being blunt about the theme. I ran into a problem once with a student version of this handout that listed "Gatsby's green light" as one of the entries instead of a character. That threw off the whole matching format. The workaround was to treat it as a symbol entry and pair it with the theme of unattainable desire and future-oriented hope. The teacher accepted it when I explained the reasoning rather than just filling in a blank. One thing beginners miss about this handout: the deeper answers usually require you to connect two characters to each other. The handout might have a column for "related themes" or "character comparisons." Gatsby and Myrtle both chase social elevation. Nick and Gatsby share a romanticism that eventually disillusioned him. Making those connections explicitly will set your work apart from the surface-level answers most people turn in.
Another practical note. Some teacher editions of Lesson 5 vary the exact phrasing of questions. If your handout asks about "stars" as in celestial imagery rather than casting characters, the focus shifts to how Fitzgerald uses astronomical references throughout the novel. The green light, the night scenes, the way Gatsby reaches toward something distant — these are all tied to that motif. Check whether your version is character-matching or symbol-tracking before you write anything. The answers above cover the standard version I've seen in most curriculum guides. If your handout has additional characters like Jordan Baker or Owl Eyes, the approach is the same: identify the symbolic function, not just the plot function. Jordan represents the carelessness of the wealthy class through her dishonesty and detachment. Owl Eyes represents the only person who actually sees Gatsby clearly and recognizes the tragedy of his self-invention. What I'd recommend if you're stuck: read the relevant chapter again after you've drafted your answers. You'll catch details you missed the first time. The handout rewards close reading more than general recall. Fitzgerald puts small details in early chapters that pay off later, and those details are usually what distinguish a strong answer from a mediocre one on this type of assignment.
If your version of the handout has a specific question I didn't cover, the method still applies. Identify what the character or symbol represents thematically, ground it in a specific textual detail, and show how it connects to the broader argument Fitzgerald is making about American society in the 1920s. That's what every version of this exercise is actually grading.
