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Gatsby's New York, a la Shmoop. When you think about Jay Gatsby... and we

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just know you spend a lot of time thinking about him...

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...certain images come to mind. Black tie cocktail parties.

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Fancy cars.

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Gold leaf lined toilet seats.

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Okay, Fitzgerald never mentions the toilet seats, but one can assume.

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And New York. Ah, New York. City of lights... excitement... and homeless people peeing onto

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the sides of buildings.

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Ain't no other place like it. Okay, so technically, most of Gatsby takes

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place on Long Island...

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...with less excitement and considerably less... pee... than in Manhattan.

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But some of the story does venture into the Big Apple...

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...and even the parts that don't still feature that... indescribable, New York mystique.

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Which begs the question -- could The Great Gatsby possibly have been set in any other

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place?

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Would it be even remotely the same story if it was?

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Well, right off the bat you have to rule out anything smaller than a major city.

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In much of small-town America, their idea of a "gala" involves a gathering of residents

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where grilled chicken goes for five dollars a plate...

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... and the biggest celebrity is that guy whose cousin once went streaking down Main

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Street. It was pretty much the same story back in

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Gatsby's day... there just wasn't that big city vibe that gives the story so much of

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its edge. What about the big industrial cities of the

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time, like Pittsburgh or Detroit? Well, okay, they've got that big city feel,

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but...

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...the Roaring Twenties were about a lot more than bustling streets and industry.

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It was about culture. It was about singers singing and flappers... flapping.

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It was about Art Deco, and cinema, and Expressionism and fashion.

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Those Pittsburghians were great at producing steel, but they fell a tad short in the "fashion

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icon" department. Okay, so it has to be a major city with plenty

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of culture. What about Chicago or Los Angeles? While you can certainly get your fill of culture

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in either Chi-town or Lala Land, isn't it a different kind of culture?

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LA has obvious connections with the film industry, and even back in the '20s it was a lot about

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"who do you know" and "what can you do for me?"

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Chicago has the soaring skyscrapers, theatre, and diversity of New York, but it's on a somewhat

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smaller scale. It's sort of "New York Light." What about today's Silicon Valley?

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A hotbed of vibrant new ideas, self-made millionaires and a forward-thinking sensibility?

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Sure sounds like Gatsby's West Egg, does it not?

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Although... he probably would have had less need for snow boots.

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What do you think -- would Gatsby have basically been an entirely different story if set anywhere

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else?

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Or would the differences have been negligible? Shmoop amongst yourselves.

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