Gatsby chapter 3
Find evidence in the text for the followingaspects:
- The text refers to old EuropeanDreams (of Castile)which are not really specified but just alluded to
- There is freedom fromconvention
- There is the idea of thepursuit of happiness
- There is the idea of thefulfilment of every wish
- There is the materialization ofthe dream
- There is the idea of individualfreedom
- There is the idea of the dreamas an illusion
- There is the idea of a dreamturning into a nightmare ora farce
- There is the idea of a remotedreamland
The Gatsby Myth :
- There are rumours about his person
- There are hints at his isolation and otherness
Dienstag, 26.02.2008
Gatsby Chapter 2
The eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg overlooking the Valley of Ashes.Task: Give an interpretation of the motive.
The scenein Wilson’s garage.Task: Analyse this scene and refer to character, constellation of characters, colors etc.
New York: Arrival in NY and purchase of the dog.
Myrtle’sapartment:The scene is characterised by false appearances, errors, insecurity andpretence:
- Insecurity concerning the breed of the dog
- Insecurity concerning its sex
- Falsestyle of the furniture in the apartment
- Sizeof the furniture not fitting
- Picture of Myrtle’s mother first appears to be a hen
- Myrtle’s chiffon dress
- Mistaken belief that Daisy is a Catholic
- Blurred air of Catherine’s face
- Insecurity if she lives in the apartment
- Myrtle’s personality seems to undergo a change (impressive hauteur)
- Ice is ordered, but doesn’t come
- Myrtlelaughs pointlessly
- Insecurity (rumours) concerning Gatsby
- Neither of them can stand the person they are married to
- The blue honey of the Mediterranean
- Peopleare going and staying, lose and find each other
- Peopleare getting more and more drunk
- Etc?
Nick Carraway ends up in Pen station waiting for the four o’clock train.A cold and lonely place.
Donnerstag, 21.02.2008
Gatsby’s and Tom’s mansions
- The importance of Nick’s cardboard bungalow:
It is a parody of a pioneer log cabin
It is “furnished” with a dog, a Dodge, a Finish woman (Scandinavians were one of the largest and most hardworking immigrant groups)
“…life was beginning over again with the summer.” (p. 7)
After the establishment of Nick in the tradition of great American narrators and the establishment of the Americanness of the narration, the expectation of the reader is aroused by the expectation of a new life.
Retardation in the narrative flow:
- Description of Nick’s preparations for his new job in the “bond business”
- “…they stood on my shelf in red and gold like new moneyfrom the mint,…” (p.8)
Task: Try to find out the importance of span> this comparison andthe image of the “single window” in line 11, page 8
- Nick’s neighbourhood:
Gatsby’s mansion: Newly rich
- Imitation of some Hotel de Ville in Normandy
- Tower on one side
- Spanking new
- Thin beard of raw ivy
- Marble swimming pool
- More than forty acres of lawn and garden
The Buchanan’s mansion:
Traditionally rich, embedded in the surrounding countryside
Tradition coupled with financial success
- cheerful red and white Georgian Colonial mansion>Lawn ran towards the front door, jumping over sun-dials andbrick walls and burning gardens>Bright vines at the sides of the house>Line of French windows glowing with reflected gold Imagery of the living-room scene:Sailing, flowing, people floating and drifting through life, aimlessness
- Breeze blowing through the room
- Blows curtains in and out like pale flags
- Wedding cake of the ceiling
- Curtains ripple over the wine-coloured rug making a shadow flying as a wind does on the sea
- Coach only stationary object like an anchored balloon
- Women both in white, their dresses rippling and fluttering
- Whip and snap of the curtainsCurtains and rugs and the two women balloonedslowly to the floor
- Literary terms:
Imagery:
Collective noun for all forms of figurativelanguage.
An image is a picture which the author introduces into his text so that it will be associated with a particular figure, series of events, or feeling.
Comparison:
The linking and likening of two objects.
Simile:
An explicit comparison between two essentially different things indicated in the text by the use of words such as “like” or “as”. Words in a simile are used in their literal sense.
Metaphor:
An implied comparison between two things of unlike nature which yet have something in common. A word which in ordinary use signifies one kind of thing is applied to another without clearly saying what the relation between them is: e.g. “my life is a bed of thorns”.
In a metaphor the relation between the two likened things is conveyed by using words in the figurative sense.
An extended metaphor is to be found when a particular metaphor is used over a longer passage of a text, or when the word field from which the metaphor is taken is employed extensively and repeatedly throughout a section of the text or throughout the whole text.
Donnerstag, 14.02.2008
The Great Gatsby
What is the importance of the opening part of the novel? (pages 5 to p. 7ll. 41)
- Nick Carraway introduces himself as the narrator.
- He characterizes his position and qualification asa narrator.
- He writes from a position he regards as mature(knowledgeable) and as distanced from the events.
- His judgement is based on tolerance .
- His father’s advice is to be tolerant based on class, wealth and education
- He stresses his slowness to criticize others whichsuggests narrational impartiality.
- He is the ideal narrator .
Limits to Nick’s tolerance:
- He wants the world “to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever.” (p 6 l.5)
- Gatsby represents everything for which he has an“unaffected scorn”.(p.6 l.9)
But: “Gatsby turned out all right at the end.” (p.6 l.17)
Sonntag, 14.05.2006
The Great Gatsby
<!– –>Freitag, 12.05.2006
The Great Gatsby by F.Scott Fitzgerald
Pages relate to the Schöningh-edition
NickCarraway, the reliable narrator(Pages and lines are refered to as e.g. (5.1))
The chapter begins with a presentation of Nick, he presents himself as the narrator of the story.At pagefive (lines 1-4) he states his position and qualification as a reliable narrator.
Nick writes from a position he regards as mature and that is at a distance from events (he is not directly involved).He also remembers his father’s advice: to betolerant concerning class, wealth and education.So we can say Nick presents himself as knowledgeable, distanced and tolerant.
5.5-5.19:Elaboration of Nick’s narrational position; his tolerance.There is a close bond between father and son (Nick) which Fitzgerald sets up as a personal ideal.He also doesn’t criticize others easily, i.e. he is impartial, but he is willing to believe Gatsby’s fantasies (52.30 ? 54.18)He is the ideal narrator.
5.20-6.5:Here limitsto Nick’s tolerance occur:He comes from the Midwest and shows the traditional Midwestvillage morality in his judgement of the morality of the East Coast. Only Gatsby is considered to be an exception.
6.5-6.14:Here Gatsbyis sharply contrasted to the other ccharacters of the novel.“it was anextraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again.”?(6.10f)
6.15-7.3Here Nick’s character is established which is given reliability by the relatively detailed presentation of his family-history.
1851 Grandfather Carraway’s brother settles in the Middle West, probably in St Paul1861 He sends a substitute to the Civil War and sets up his hardware business.
1890 Nick’sfather graduates from Yale
1892 Nick is born1915 He graduates from New Haven1917 ? 1918 Nick on military service in France
1922 He goes EastHe celebrated his 30thbirthday in late summer1923 He begins writing the story of Gatsby.
7.4-11:Here basicfacts of Nick’s Eastern existence, his arrival in New Yorkand the move to Long Island are presented.He settles in what can be called a parody of a pioneer log cabin with a dog, a car (Dodge)and a Finish woman (Scandinavians = one of the largest and most hardworkingimmigrant groups)
7.12-20:The story begins: The reader’s expectation is aroused by the expectation of a new life.As a narrator Nick is established in the tradition of great American narrators andthe Americanness of the narration is established, too.
7.21-30:Retardation or delay in the narrational flow. Nick presents his knowledge of literature andpresents himself, in spite of all reliability, as a biased narrator: “life is much more successfully looked at from a single window, after all.” (7.30)7.31-9.9:Presentation of the setting: East-Egg/West-Egg9.10-10.6:Presentation of Gatsby?s house: Imitation of a Hotel de Ville in Normandy . 10.7-10.25:Presentation of the Buchanans and Daisy, who is Nick’s removed cousin.
10.26-11.3:Presentation of the Buchanans’ house.11.3-1126:Introduction of Tom Buchanan. (Cruel body) 11.27-12.18:Description of the interior of the house with Daisy and Jordan Baker in the floating room,all dressed in white. Symbolism of floating: balloon, sails, sea.
13.1-14.26:Superficial conversation, “exhibition of complete self-sufficiency”(13.11)
14.27-14.28:Firstmentioning of Gatsby
14.29-16.31:DinnerDaisy calls Tom a “great, big, hulking physical specimen”Tom talks about the danger that the white race might be submerged. (15.33ff)Tom is called to the phone (16.13f). (Jordan Baker 17.10.: „Tom’s got some woman in New York.“)16.32ff:Daisy calls Nick ‘an absolute rose’. Nick, considering that, rejects the comparison, but he is attracted by Daisy’s ‘thrilling’ words and her voice.
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