Miss Baker is compared to a “young cadet,” and further description of her androgynous features characterizes her as a “flapper.” This makes her representative of the novel’s emphasis on modern styles that clash with established, traditional standards, including gender roles.
The Great Gatsby – 1
The Great Gatsby – 2
Tom Buchanan is supposedly reading a book called “The Rise of the Colored Empires,” which is a reference to the real-life book The Rising Tide of Color, by Lothrop Stoddard. Stoddard was a white supremacist and Buchanan’s association with his ideas–in particular, the notion that northern Europeans have contributed everything that makes civilization worthwhile and must guard their dominant position vigilantly–is likely to make Tom unpopular with readers.
The Great Gatsby – 3
Fitzgerald makes reference to the Fourth of July in the same sentence in which a “gray, scrawny Italian child” is described. Tom comments that the neighborhood is “terrible” immediately after the reference to the child. Maybe this kid represents the classes of people he feels like civilization, and the country, needs to be guarded against.
The Great Gatsby – 4
Tom’s mistress, Myrtle Wilson, is described in a manner that contrasts with the descriptions of Jordan Baker and Daisy Buchanan. She’s “faintly stout” and carries her “surplus flesh sensuously.” She’s also described as having “rather wide hips.” She is not a flapper, so she might be symbolic of something more traditional.
The Great Gatsby – 5
Gatsby stands absorbed in his observation of the point where the green light appears at Daisy’s house, even though Daisy is standing at his side. He’s focused on the light that symbolizes her, as he has been for so long, instead of interacting with her while she’s actually present. The green light is losing significance for him now that he and Daisy are interacting, and Fitzgerald writes “His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one.”
The Great Gatsby – 6
Nick concludes that there must be moments during Daisy’s interaction with Gatsby when she falls short of the dream of her that Gatsby’s created, the “colossal vitality of his illusion.” If Daisy is Gatsby’s dream, in a novel about the American Dream, what do her shortcomings say about how that Dream can be unfulfilling?
The Great Gatsby – 7
Fitzgerald describes the “vast, vulgar and meretricious beauty” James Gatz re-creates himself for when assumes the name Jay Gatsby. This concise description is a bleak summary of the American Dream.
The Great Gatsby – 8
When Tom confronts Gatsby about his affair with Daisy, he makes hypocritical reference to “family life and family institutions,” even though he’s guilty of infidelity himself. This reference to traditional institutions symbolizes the challenge to tradition that is at the heart of this modernist novel. Gatsby’s modern dream is to be the upstart who topples tradition and wins the girl of his dreams, despite the fact that he’s not from an old, established family. Furthermore, Tom compares the affair between Gatsby and Daisy to the idea of interracial marriage, another prospect that represents a challenge to tradition and, in Buchanan’s mind, civilization.
The Great Gatsby – 9
As they recover her mangled body, Myrtle Wilson is described as having “tremendous vitality.” This description contrasts with that of the other women, the lithe, androgynous, modern flappers. What does it mean that the woman with the traditional appearance is killed, albeit accidentally, by the modern woman?
The Great Gatsby – 10
Nick notes that Gatsby’s guests guessed at his “corruption” while he waved at them, “concealing his incorruptible dream,” his intensely personal version of the American Dream, his yearning for Daisy.
The Great Gatsby – 11
Nick describes Gatsby as having “paid a high price for living too long with a single dream.” This sounds a lot like the “grotesques” from Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio, men and women who are disfigured by their fixation on things they aren’t able to obtain or accomplish. Fitzgerald uses the word “grotesque” in the same paragraph.
The Great Gatsby – 12
Nick notes that the story’s main characters are from the West and asserts “perhaps we possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life.”
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GG1 perspective and allusion
What perspective is it when the narrator/main character knows about the book saying “ gatsby the man who gives his name to this book” and would this be considered to be an allusion cause he is referring to something outside the story like the book does exist but its the book its self he talks about the same book he’s in. Will it still be allusion?
GG7 neighbor
so far throughout the story i got the miss conception that Gatspy was a figure the main character looked up to, someone who he wont be able to reach no matter how high he climbed. But with this page i was able to find out that “ before i was able to reply with that’s my neighbor ” that this great Gastby was some as close as a few houses over. But then i though if he was that close to nick and yet nick describes him as being so far away kinda makes you question how mysterious this gatsby really was. And also when nick mention Gastby the girl asked “which Gastby” which I thought was a title only given to him but found out that there might be a family of Gatsby which if its true do they also hold as strong grip in this book as the great Gastby and what has he dont to earn the “Great” part of him name that was different from his family?
GG3 greatness
we shortly talked about this in class about how Tom life shortly went. Of how in Yale he was a star foot ball player and how at that moment is when he had the climax in life and after 21 he was define to be in his “anticlimax” and that’s kinda sad cause around 21 is when your life should start but he had his climax early meaning he also lost it early. And know living his life never being able to surpass what he did when he was in school.
gg 10
what the heck is a “bond man”
gg 3
I wonder what the narrator means when they call the Carraways a “clan”
gg 41
gypsies?!?
gg 39
they got some damn rolls Royce. I thought this was in the 20’s?!
gg 5
What does enormous eggs? why is this a euphemism? And what exactly for?
The way that gay was used differently from back then compared to what it is now and the evolution or process of how it changed from being happy to being homosexual
They say something about an old man looking like John d Rockefeller after doing a little research there was a total of at least 3 Rockefeller so my question is which John d Rockefeller where they talking about sr, jr, or the third
Tom is going off about this book and throwing around that it’s scientific and well worked out but all in all it’s just ignorant, it’s sayin that the dominant race “the white race” will be submerged if they’re not in control. Not only that but daisy then says that “we’ve got to beat them down” which is some bs