The Great Gatsby
GENERAL
1.
Briefly summarize the plot of the novel you read, and explain how the narrative
fulfills the author's purpose (based on your well-informed interpretation of
same).
Nick
Carroway, the protagonist, has recently moved from the Midwest to get his
career started in New York. He lives on the island of West Egg across from East
Egg where his extravagant friends Tom
and Daisy live. They gossip and party a lot, and Tom is cheating on Daisy with
a lady named Myrtle Wilson. Everyone knows except for Daisy and Mr. Wilson.
Nick lives next door to a mysterious man named Gatsby, who throws legendary
parties, but no one knows anything about him. Nick becomes friends with him and
learns that he is in love with Daisy. They almost married when they were
younger, but he was too poor and decided to wait. He gets with Daisy again, and
they have an affair.
Tom is suspicious of this, and he tries to prove that Gatsby is not who he
seems. Daisy becomes enraged at Tom's superior chauvinist attitude, and says
that she will leave Tom for Gatsby. However, she then finds out that Gatsby is
not the respected pharmacist he claims to be. He gets his money through
bootlegging.
Daisy then refuses to leave Tom for him, and makes him drive her home. Daisy is
at the wheel when the car hits someone- coincidentally, Myrtle Wilson, Tom's
other woman.
Mr. Wilson discovers his wife's affair, and asks around about the car that hit
her (it is bright yellow and immediately recognizable). So, thinking that
Gatsby hit her, Mr. Wilson goes to Gatsby's house and shoots him, and then
shoots himself.
Gatsby dies alone, because no one shows up to his funeral except for Nick and
his father. Tom and Daisy go to Chicago and Nick never sees them again.
2. Succinctly describe the theme of the
novel. Avoid clichés.
Of the many themes in the novel, the
one that stuck out to me the most was the shallowness of the upper class. Those
who live in West Egg are the newly rich and they are vulgar, gaudy, and lacking
in social skills. Gatsby lives in West Egg and his bright pink suit, his large
mansion, and his Rolls-Royce all help to prove the point of being overly
flashy. On the other hand, In East Egg are the rich old timers. They
demonstrate taste, class, and charisma. The characters who live in West Egg are
so used to money helping them get their way and at the end of the novel Gatsby
realizes that isn’t the case. Because of his constant need of attention from
Daisy, Gatsby does illegal things to get rich. His mansion, his car, and his money
are all attained because he wants Daisy to love him again. Gatsby ends up dead
because of all his efforts to impress Daisy.
3. Describe the author's tone. Include a minimum of three excerpts that
illustrate your point(s).
This description of Tom Buchanan is
an example of a threatening tone
“He
had changed since his New Haven years.
Now he was a sturdy, straw-haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth
and a supercilious manner. Two shining,
arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and gave him the
appearance of always leaning aggressively forward. Not even…his riding clothes could hide the
enormous power of that body—he seemed to fill those glistening boots until he
strained the top lacing…It was a body capable of enormous leverage—a cruel
body.”
He
forms an impression of Tom with his choice of words—hard, supercilious,
arrogant, cruel. There is no mistaking
Buchanan for some gentle giant. The words have strong meaning used to represent
how intense Tom is.
A
few paragraphs later, Fitzgerald’s tone momentarily creates a different mood as
Nick walks into the beachfront living room in the Buchanan mansion. Daisy, Tom’s wife, and her friend Jordan
Baker are waiting:
“The
only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which
two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white and their dresses
were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back after a short
flight around the house. I must have
stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the
groan of a picture on the wall. Then
there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died
out about the room and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women
ballooned slowly to the floor.”
The
tone here is inquisitive and wanting to know more just like the reader is. It
is not all knowing and makes it seem as we are finding things out as everyone
else is also.
Throughout
the whole book the tone is similar but in the last passage it shifts
dramatically. The tone is more down to Earth and demonstrates a negative view
on the “American Dream” This is the last passage,
“Most of the big shore places were closed now and there were
hardly any lights except the shadowy, moving glow of a ferryboat across the
Sound. And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away
until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for
Dutch sailors’ eyes—a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees,
the trees that had made way for Gatsby’s house, had once pandered in whispers
to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment
man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into
an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for
the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for
wonder.
And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought
of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of
Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have
seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it
was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city,
where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgasmic future that year by year
recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—to-morrow we will
run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning——
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
4. Describe a minimum of ten
literary elements/techniques you observed that strengthened your understanding
of the author's purpose, the text's theme and/or your sense of the tone. For
each, please include textual support to help illustrate the point for your
readers. (Please include edition and page numbers for easy reference.)
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott
Fitzgerald, Scribner Paperback Fiction, Published by Simon & Schuster
CHARACTERIZATION
1.
Describe two examples of direct characterization and two examples of indirect
characterization. Why does the author use both approaches, and to what
end (i.e., what is your lasting impression of the character as a result)?
One example of direct
characterization would be when Nick is describing Tom Buchanan. He says, “He
had changed since his New Haven years. Now he was a sturdy, straw haired man of
thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner. Two shining,
arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and gave him the
appearance of always leaning aggressively forward. Not even the effeminate
swank of his riding clothes could hide the enormous power of that body-he
seemed to fill those glistening boots until he strained the top lacing and you
could see a great pack of muscle shifting when his shoulder moved under his
thin coat. It was a body capable of enormous leverage-a cruel body” Pg.11
Another direct characterization
example is when Nick is describing Daisy. He says, “The other girl, Daisy, made
an attempt to rise-she leaned slightly forward with a conscientious
expression-then she laughed, an absurd, charming little laugh, and I laughed
too and came forward into the room. Her face was sad and lovely with bright
things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth-but there was an
excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to
forget.” Pg.13
One example of indirect
characterization would be when Nick is describing Miss Baker from the way she
responds when told that Gatsby wants to speak to her. The passage reads, “She
got up slowly, raising her eyebrows at me in astonishment, and followed the
butler toward the house. I noticed that she wore her evening dress, all her
dresses, like sports clothes-there was a jauntiness about her movements as if
she had first learned to walk upon golf courses on clean, crisp mornings. ” Pg.
55
The last example of indirect
characterization is when Nick is looking around and sees a woman crying while
playing the piano. He is wondering why she is crying and another woman says “She
had a fight with a man who says he’s her husband.” Pg.56
The author uses both approaches to
characterization because it gives the novel variety when new characters are
introduced. Too much of one style would get banal and the effectiveness is
equal in both ways.
2.
Does the author's syntax and/or diction change when s/he focuses on
character? How? Example(s)?
Scott F. Fitzgeralds syntax stays
the same throughout the whole novel as it is pretty clearly understood. What does
change however, is the diction. Whenever Gatsby speaks, it shifts to much more
playful words. He constantly is calling people an “old sport” and is done lightheartedly.
An example would be when Gatsby is talking to Rather.
“Don’t mention it,” he joined me
eagerly. “Don’t give it another thought, old sport.” The familiar expression
held no more familiarity than the hand which reassuringly brushed my shoulder. “And
don’t forget we’re going up in the hydroplane tomorrow morning at nine o’
clock.”
3.
Is the protagonist static or dynamic? Flat or round? Explain.
Nick Carraway is the protagonist and
the narrator. Nick is definitely a dynamic character and in contrast, Gatsby is
a static character. Nick came to West Egg with a sense of disapproval for the
extravagant type of life and
Nick Carraway is the protagonist and also the
narrator. He gives us an inside scoop on the action as he is close with both
Daisy and Gatsby. However, he should be considered a round and dynamic
character. He expresses many emotions throughout various events in the novel
and he has problems of his own. He is human like and deep. This clearly
demonstrates how Nick Carraway is a round character. Nick Carraway can also be
a dynamic character. Above all other characters, Nick is the only one that
seems to truly learn a lesson from all of the unfortunate events. He is the
only one who realizes the seriousness of the situations in the novel,
especially surrounding Gatsby's death. Nick takes the responsibility to help
arrange the funeral for Gatsby even after he died, even though he does not have
to do anything at all.
4. After reading the book did you come
away feeling like you'd met a person or read a character? Analyze one
textual example that illustrates your reaction.
After reading this book, I truly felt
as if I had lived in West/East Egg for about a year. The characters were
developed well and going on this journey of meeting everyone was well worth it.
One textual example that proves that the characters were like real people is
here. Nick is asking Gatsby’s butler if Gatsby is okay.
“Is
Mr. Gatsby sick?”
“Nope.”
After a pause he added “sir” in a dilatory, grudging way.
“I
hadn’t seen him around and I was rather worried. Tell him Mr. Carraway came
over.” Pg.119
This passage shows that the
characters are human sense they have some emotions. Nick cares about Gatsby and
went to go visit him, as real friends would do.
