Posted on August 7, 2007 by
Mr. Eldridge
Ok. Here’s the last one for you to comment on. If you’ve worked on the others, this one should be a little easier:
I looked around. Most of the remaining women were now having fights with men said to be their husbands. Even Jordan’s party, the quartet from East Egg, were rent asunder by dissension. One of the men was talking with curious intensity to a young actress, and his wife, after attempting to laugh at the situation in a dignified and indifferent way, broke down entirely and resorted to flank attacks—at intervals she appeared suddenly at his side like an angry diamond, and hissed: “You promised!” into his ear.The reluctance to go home was not confined to wayward men. The hall was at present occupied by two deplorably sober men and their highly indignant wives. The wives were sympathizing with each other in slightly raised voices.
“Whenever he sees I’m having a good time he wants to go home.”
“Never heard anything so selfish in my life.”
“We’re always the first ones to leave.”
“So are we.”
“Well, we’re almost the last to-night,” said one of the men sheepishly. “The orchestra left half an hour ago.”
In spite of the wives’ agreement that such malevolence was beyond credibility, the dispute ended in a short struggle, and both wives were lifted, kicking, into the night.
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Posted on August 7, 2007 by
Mr. Eldridge
After Jordan is called away to speak with Gatsby in private Nick wanders alone for a few minutes.
A clue for you here is the figure of speech called euphemism. Euphemism is when we substitute a pleasant or polite word for a harsher, but truer, reality. For example a “moron” might be described as “mentally deficient,” or some one who is spastic and out of control could be described as “over zealous.”
Here it is:
I was alone and it was almost two. For some time confused and intriguing sounds had issued from a long, many-windowed room which overhung the terrace. Eluding Jordan’s undergraduate, who was now engaged in an obstetrical conversation with two chorus girls, and who implored me to join him, I went inside.
The large room was full of people. One of the girls in yellow was playing the piano, and beside her stood a tall, red-haired young lady from a famous chorus, engaged in song. She had drunk a quantity of champagne, and during the course of her song she had decided, ineptly, that everything was very, very sad—she was not only singing, she was weeping too. Whenever there was a pause in the song she filled it with gasping, broken sobs, and then took up the lyric again in a quavering soprano. The tears coursed down her cheeks—not freely, however, for when they came into contact with her heavily beaded eyelashes they assumed an inky color, and pursued the rest of their way in slow black rivulets. A humorous suggestion was made that she sing the notes on her face, whereupon she threw up her hands, sank into a chair, and went off into a deep vinous sleep.
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Posted on August 7, 2007 by
Mr. Eldridge
Ok. Here’s another passage. This one is about Gatsby himself:
He smiled understandingly—much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced—or seemed to face—the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey. Precisely at that point it vanished—and I was looking at an elegant young rough-neck, a year or two over thirty, whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd. Some time before he introduced himself I’d got a strong impression that he was picking his words with care.
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Posted on August 7, 2007 by
Mr. Eldridge
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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Posted on July 30, 2007 by
Mr. Eldridge
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 festivities, despite that second bottle of whiskey. Everyone vacates the premises while various people try to stop the bleeding and Myrtle “trying to spread a copy of ‘Town Tattle’ over the tapestry scenes of Versailles” (37). It is this tapestry of the gardens of Versailles, I will argue, that ties this whole chapter together.
...read more
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Posted on July 29, 2007 by
Mr. Eldridge
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 York in 1920–the most vibrant and dynamic city in the world (as London and Paris were in decline after WWI).
This is an excerpt which appeared in Harper’s (Oct, 2006) ...read more
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Posted on July 29, 2007 by
Mr. Eldridge
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 ...read more
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Posted on July 27, 2007 by
Mr. Eldridge
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 beauty and vitality of the late spring days and the opulence of the gorgeous mansions.
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Posted on July 27, 2007 by
Mr. Eldridge
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 see if we can’t grind out a few thoughtful morsels.
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Posted on July 23, 2007 by
Mr. Eldridge
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? The same goes for Nick.
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