I’d like to conclude with a comment on the unity of chapter 2. The whole thing breaks up (including the narrative thread) when a drunken Tom decides that if Myrtle won’t obey, he’ll smash her nose in. It works pretty well. She definitely doesn’t petulantly chant “Daisy!” anymore. But it does kind of ruin the [...]
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Just in case you thought that terrorism was something new or that homegrown terrorists have never before been seen on our shores, well, I thought you might be interested in this. It’s a part of American history we don’t talk about much, but it was still something to consider being a resident of New [...]
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So last time we discussed the first major location of Chapter two, Wilson’s garage and the Valley of the Ashes. Now we turn to the second location:
Myrtle’s Manhattan flat
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Chapter 2 is dominated by two locations: The Valley of the Ashes on Long Island and Myrtle’s apartment in Manhattan. It’s interesting that Nick doesn’t mention anything about The Valley of the Ashes previously (it didn’t just spring up out of nowhere, you know); instead he spends almost the entire first chapter extolling the [...]
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So I’d like to wrap up this extended discussion of chapter 1 by focusing on Fitzgerald’s fine characterization through dialogue. After Nick arrives at Tom and Daisy’s house almost the entire remainder of the chapter is devoted to dialogue. So we should definitely take a moment to sink our teeth into it and [...]
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Nick’s language, his choice of words, or as is commonly known, his diction needs to be noticed and commented on if not fully analyzed. Nick’s diction creates a picture of what he is describing, but it also creates a frame for his own feelings. How many times have your feelings changed your description? [...]
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Two ideas pop up a number of times in chapter 1: time and family. These are, of course, related concepts: families are developed and extended through time. Words like heritage, inheritance, hierarchy, ancestor, descendant, generation are words intimately linked to the concept of time: ancestor = ante (before) + cedere/cesse (to go).
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