Key scenes in Gatsby
Chapter 1 – Introduction of Tom ‘Cruel body, capable of
enormous leverage’
Introduction of the women, on a couch, the ‘only stationery
object in the room’ and how Tom traps the wind.
Gatsby reaching out to the green light (out of reach, beyond
him, consumed by it)
Chapter 2 – Myrtle’s treatment of George. Ghostly semantic
field, walks through him etc
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Myrtle’s arrival at the flat. ‘slice out of a
cake’ ‘tapestried furniture’ ‘too big for the apartment’.
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Nick – ‘within and without’
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Tom breaks her nose ‘with an open hand’
foreshadowing her demise and showing that there is no such thing as generosity
to the lower classes. It always comes at a price.
Chapter 3 – The entire arrival at the party, but particular focus
on the ‘floating round of cocktails’ metaphor and what that represents.
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Owl eyes and how he is shocked that anything is
REAL – shows the façade of those in West egg and the lengths people will go to
to climb the ranks
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Disastrous end – the crying singer, the car
crash…how no one will take responsibility. All indicative of F’s criticism of
the upper classes and their lack of responsibility
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Chapter 4 – Gatsby’s lies – Reveal to the reader that Nick
is being misled and ensure we view all characters as facades, allowing us to
critique the era as one that was not genuine.
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Wolfsheim’s anecdote about Rosy Rosenthaal being
shot ‘in his full belly’ – indicative of the fate of those who try to escape
class, and reveals F’s thoughts on morals of the time. Short term gain = long
term loss.
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Jordan’s narrative – makes the reader trust Nick
even less and makes the entire narrative a metaphor for façade and dishonesty.
Chapter 5 – Gatsby’s attempt to predict the weather (which
fails) and the metaphor of the broken clock which he catches desperately – all symbols
of how he desperately attempts to cling on to time/life but actually has no
control due to his class.
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His bedroom is ‘the most modest of all’ showing
the extent to which he is living a lie – this couples well with his insistence
on having Nick’s grass cut and the ‘greenhouse ‘ of flowers that he has
delivered.
Chapter 6 – ‘She didn’t have a good time’ – Gatsby starts to
realise that his dream is slipping away from him. Nick ‘I wouldn’t ask too much
of her’ – a realisation of the way of life, and that those in lower classes
need to tread carefully.
Strange anecdote of Gatsby seeing a staircase to the stars,
choosing to wed himself to Daisy. Symbolises fate, class, attitude to women
etc.
Chapter 7 – Heat used to symbolise tension – like Larkin
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In the plaza ‘Gatsby’s eyes opened, then closed’
– the moment his dream truly dies, and the character/façade of Gatsby dies too.
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Myrtle’s death – ‘blood mingled with the dust’ –
was never able to escape her class. Always bound to remain in valley of ashes
despite she and George desperately trying to escape.
-
Nobody even particularly bothered about her death.
Jordan ‘its only early’. Nick finally realises their immorality.
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Gatsby standing outside ‘watching over nothing’
his dream is dead.
Chapter 8 – ‘You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together’
– make some points about the meaning of this.
Nick becomes ‘omniscient’
Chapter 9 –
Wolfsheim ‘let us learn to show our friendship for a man
while he is alive not after he is dead’
‘The fresh green breast of the new world’ – purity,
corruption of morality, the loss of the American dream.
‘Boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the
past’
