ELIT 48C Class 16

AGENDA

• The Great Gatsby• Style• Discussion Questions

LECTURE: THE GREAT GATSBYStyle

POINT OF VIEW

The Great Gatsby is told from the point of view of Nick Carraway, one of the main characters. Nick Carraway opens the novel with details that indicate a memoir or autobiographical work of literature—the tale begins as his story, but contained within his story is the story of Jay Gatsby’

The technique is called a frame narrative and is similar to that used by British novelist Joseph Conrad in Heart of Darkness. Conrad was one of Fitzgerald's literary influences

Frame narratives often draw attention to the narrator, forcing readers to reflect on his or her objectivity and reliability.

As in all of Fitzgerald's stories, the setting is a crucial part of The Great Gatsby. West and East are two opposing poles of values: one is pure and idealistic, and the other is corrupt and materialistic.

The Western states, including the Midwest, suggest decency and the basic ethical principles of honesty, while the East is full of deceit. The difference between East and West Egg is a similar contrast in cultures. The way the characters line up morally correlates with their geographical choice of lifestyle. The Buchanans began life in the West but gravitated to the East and

stayed there. Gatsby did as well, though only to follow Daisy and to watch her house

across the bay. His utter simplicity and naiveté indicates an idealism that has not been lost.

Nick plays the moral center of the book and returns home to the Midwest. He finds that he cannot adapt to life in the East.

SETTING

Another setting of importance is the wasteland of ash heaps, between New York City and Long Island, where the mechanization of modern life destroys all the past values. Nick's view of the modern world is that God is dead, and man makes a valley of ashes; he corrupts ecology, corrupts the American Dream and desecrates it. The only Godlike image in this deathlike existence are the eyes of Dr. J. L. Eckleburg on a billboard advertising glasses.

Discussion

Lois Chiles 1974Elizabeth Debicki 2013

Nick’s Girlfriend back home“I forgot to ask you something, and it’s important. We heard you were engaged to a girl out West.” [said Daisy].“That’s right,” corroborated Tom kindly. “We heard that you were engaged.”“It’s libel. I’m too poor.”“But we heard it,” insisted Daisy, surprising me by opening up again in a flower-like way. “We heard it from three people, so it must be true” (Chapter 1)

[Jordan’s] gray, sun-strained eyes stared straight ahead, but she had deliberately shifted our relations, and for a moment I thought I loved her. But I am slow-thinking and full of interior rules that act as brakes on my desires, and I knew that first I had to get myself definitely out of that tangle back home. I’d been writing letters once a week and signing them: “Love, Nick,” and all I could think of was how, when that certain girl played tennis, a faint mustache of perspiration appeared on her upper lip. Nevertheless there was a vague understanding that had to be tactfully broken off before I was free.Every one suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known (Chapter 3).

Mia Farrow and Robert Redford 1974

Carey Mulligan and Leonardo DiCaprio 2013

• How does the reunion of Daisy and Gatsby signal both the beginning and the end of Gatsby’s dream and of his success?

• Trace the recurring image of eyes, and ascertain the purposes of those images. Consider blindness on any level as well as sight.

The Eyes• “above the gray land and the spasms of bleak

dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg. The eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic – their retinas are one yard high. They look out of no face but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose […] But his eyes, dimmed a little by many paintless days under sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping ground.” (Chapter 2)

1. How is the relationship between men and women portrayed?2. What are the power relationships between men and women (or characters

assuming male/female roles)?3. How are male and female roles defined?4. What constitutes masculinity and femininity?5. How do characters embody these traits?6. Do characters take on traits from opposite genders? How so? How does this change

others’ reactions to them?7. What does the work reveal about the operations (economically, politically, socially,

or psychologically) of patriarchy?8. What does the work imply about the possibilities of sisterhood as a mode of

resisting patriarchy?9. What does the work say about women's creativity?10. What does the history of the work's reception by the public and by the critics tell us

about the operation of patriarchy?

Questions used by the Feminist Critic

HOMEWORK• Read The Great Gatsby Chapters 8-9• Post #16: Choose One

1. Some of the characters in the novel symbolize a production ethic; others symbolize a consumption ethic. Classify a character or two accordingly, and draw a conclusion about the American Dream, as you understand it, from Fitzgerald.

2. How is the story an ironic twist of the American Dream? Consider Daisy and Gatsby, Daisy and Tom, Myrtle and George Wilson, Myrtle and Tom, Nick and Jordan.

3. Your own QHQ