The Tragic Climax of Gatsby

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss F Scott Fitzgerald’s finest novel, published in 1925, one of the great American novels of the twentieth century. It is told by Nick Carraway, neighbour and friend of the mysteriously wealthy Jay Gatsby. In the age of jazz and prohibition, Gatsby hosts lavish parties at his opulent home across the bay from Daisy Buchanan, in the hope she’ll attend one of them and they can be reunited. They were lovers as teenagers but she had given him up for a richer man who she soon married, and Gatsby is obsessed with winning her back.

The image above is of Robert Redford as Gatsby in a scene from the film 'The Great Gatsby', 1974.

With

Sarah Churchwell Professor of American Literature and Public Understanding of the Humanities at the University of London

Philip McGowan Professor of American Literature at Queen’s University, Belfast

And

William Blazek Associate Professor and Reader in American Literature at Liverpool Hope University

Produced by Simon Tillotson and Julia Johnson