Gatsby, Chapter 3 — Your turn (pt. 1)
Chapter 3 is the culmination of the first 1/3 of the novel (I see the novel split into three three chapter sections). And it is definitely fancy and flamboyant. But I’m going to turn the analysis over to you.
In Chapter 3 we finally meet the mysterious Gatsby whose name gives us our title. We also are witnesses to quite a raging party through Nick’s eyes. What I would like you to do is to peer very closely at this party, delve under it’s shiny, gleaming surfaces and discover what’s really going on. Again, like in previous chapters, he key is in Nick’s words. Words may sound ugly and mean wonderful things, or, conversely, they may sound lovely and describe the despicable. We, as alert, able, and active readers must be awake to the truth–the truth in the words.
Please comment what you think is happening in each of the passages from chapter 3 that follows:
Passage 1
There was dancing now on the canvas of the garden, old men pushing young girls backwards in eternal graceless circles, superior couples holding each other tortuously, fashionably and keeping in the corners–and a great number of single girls dancing individualistically or relieving the orchestra for a moment of the burden of the banjo or the traps. By midnight the hilarity had increased. A celebrated tenor had sung in Italian and a notorious contralto had sung in jazz and between the numbers people were doing “stunts” all over the garden while happy vacuous bursts of laughter rose toward the summer sky. A pair of stage “twins”–who turned out to be the girls in yellow–did a baby act in costume and champagne was served in glasses bigger than finger bowls. The moon had risen higher, and floating in the Sound was a triangle of silver scales, trembling a little to the stiff, tinny drop of the banjoes on the lawn.
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Filed under: Summer Reading, The Great Gatsby and
this comment is important in understanding the thought process of Nick during a visit to one of Gatsby’s parties. in this paragraph, Nick doesn’t make any specific judgements about the guests, but he does provide the reader with a clear and precise image of Gatsby’s party; he does so through a series of seemingly synchronized events that take place during the party. The series of cordially intimate dances, italian solos, and continually flowing champagne (in larger than usual glasses) provides the reader with the image of a lavishly outrageous high class scene. this is one of Nick’s first party observations, for lack of better wording, and a very important scene entailing the views of an “east-egger” moving over the tracks.
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This description is wonderful and completely dreadful both at the same time! It is wonderfully written, yet dreadfully painful to imagine and feel. This party seems extremely awkward with the young girls dancing in “eternal graceless circles”. That is obviously a statement on their willingness to conform to the partygoers and their empty & uninteresting minds. The comment on the burden of the banjo ” makes me sympathize for the players who had to play for this unappreciative people! the banjo playing was a burden to both the musician (in my opinion) and the bored rich people watching. Also,
I view the couples that “hold each other tortuously, fashionably and keep in the corners” seem out of place, bored, and arrogant since they were not socializing with the others and were “fashionable”, meaning that they weren’t commiting faux-pas’. Basically, they were trying to look “cool”. I feel so uncomfortable just reading this! Then it gets more obnoxious as all of these stupid and naiive rich people get drunk and act foolish! To me, Fitzgerald (or Nick?) is trying to paint a bleak and awkward picture of a dying party in a dying society.
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I don’t know if this really goes here but I have a thought. Do you thing Fitzgerald wanted to teach us not to follow foolish dreams while shaping your whole life just to try and catch those dreams, and when you finally catch the dream it really was just a shadow of what your memory fueled by your imagination and fervor remember that it was?
I.E. Gatsby’s goal of being rich and learned, and buying his house where he bought it, throwing all those parties just so he could be with Daisy? When in reality she was not so special at all.
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Wow, I really never thought of that. So basically the dreams we have for our life right now are so important to us that they seem to be real to the point that we are living each and everyday for those dreams. Then, when its our turn to actually live them out, we find that there is nothing worth the stress and patience we had to undergo in order to achieve them. Interesting. So why is is that we still pursue dreams we don’t even know may come true later on?
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Because without dreams or goals in life our lives would be pointless, our lives would not have any direction at all. If you had absolutely no goal or dream in life (which would be strange) you wouldn’t go to school, study, work or do anything at all. Even “high school dropouts” who turn to gang life have dreams and goals, they dream of being rich and “pimpin’ “, “hustlin’ ” and “ballin’ ” and being gang leaders or “cruzin’ ” on their twenty-twos around compton. Hah. But no, seriously, anything you do is for a goal, you talk to people to have friends, you study more than CP classes hoping someday you will make more money than them, if you exercise your goal/dream is to be in better shape, if you sleep your goal is not to be tired.
Without goals and dreams our lives would be pointless.
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Wow! Andre your right everybody has a goal in life no matter who you are where your from or what you do. There has to be goals to have success in life. Without goals like Andre said life is pointless.
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Yeah, thats what I think, but do you think that Fitzgerald was trying to warn us against pursuing futile dreams?
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