Key Scenes in Gatsby

 

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

-          Myrtle’s arrival at the flat. ‘slice out of a cake’ ‘tapestried furniture’ ‘too big for the apartment’.

-          Nick – ‘within and without’

-          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.

-          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

-          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.

-          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.

-          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.

-          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

-          In the plaza ‘Gatsby’s eyes opened, then closed’ – the moment his dream truly dies, and the character/façade of Gatsby dies too.

-          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.

-          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’