The characters of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" are largely
members of a falsely created American aristocracy.
But some of the higher aspirations of this
decadent elite for truth, beauty, and, more importantly, a secure sense of home and identity, mirror the far less decadent, but equally passionate desires of the
members of the all-female book reading society found in "Reading Lolita in Tehran". This paper shows that Jay Gatsby desired to improve himself by "making himself up" to be worthy of the love of the faithless Daisy Buchanan. He did this through bootlegging, purchasing fine shirts, and securing a home in Great Neck, Long Island. The paper shows that, similarly, through a shift in attire and place, the women of Azar Nafisi's book wished to reinvent themselves by casting off their chadors and the external social and moral strictures that restricted them in their theocratic, Islamic educational framework.