Literary Analysis #2 The Great Gatsby

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.