Monday

 

Today we need to discuss - at length - chapters 2 and 3. 

Notice, that Fitzgerald uses quite a few symbols, allusions, and repetitions of ideas in each chapter.

First - we should go back to the GREEN LIGHT at the end of chapter 1. It is a famous symbol What does it represent? How does it connect to larger ideas in the novel as a whole? Does it connect to other symbols?

Then lets get into chapter 2

Setting. Characters. Symbols. Note, another party. How does this one differ than chapter 1. 

What is up with the two different locations in this chapter? The valley of ashes and Manhattan.

https://ny.curbed.com/maps/mapping-the-1920s-new-york-city-of-the-great-gatsby

Chapter 3

Third chapter - third party. 

Who are the people who attend this party? What do we learn about Nick? About Jordan? About Gatsby? 

What is Jordan's strategy for meeting the world? What symbols or motifs are present in this chapter?

Have you noticed the use of colors. 

HOMEWORK: Chapter 4  

Chapter 2 (NOTES)

Settings: Valley of Ashes and New York City

Valley of Ashes is both an allusion (to T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land – a poem that refers back to World War I, and turns London into a city of the dead, spiritually dead) and a symbol.  The Valley of Ashes is were “dreams” die and the spiritually dead live. 

In the Valley of Ashes another symbol resides: The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg.  A symbol to eyes of God (though God is dead). 

In the Valley of Ashes live George and Myrtle Wilson.

George Wilson is a sick, anemic man.  He is of the working class and he has failed in life.  He owns a poor little gas station.  He hopes – or dreams – of buying Tom’s car so that he can sell it for a profit and move west.  As one point in this chapter, Myrtle “smiled slowly and, walking through her husband as if he were a ghost, shook hands with Tom…”

Myrtle Wilson is Tom’s “girl”.  Tom is using her for a fling.  Tom has rented Myrtle an apartment in Manhattan (New York) and in this apartment Myrtle dreams.  Her dream is to escape her working class life and become wealthy and live like the wealthy. 

On the way to the apartment, Tom buys Myrtle a dog.  This “dog” will be an allusion (keep this in mind for the end of the novel).  Myrtle in reality is Tom’s dog.   There’s a reference about a dog collar later in the chapter.  Who is this collar for?

At Myrtles (or Tom’s) apartment a party happens.  Myrtle invited up the Mckees and her sister Catherine.

Mr. McKee is a photographer – a poor photographer. 

Catherine is around thirty, slender, and “worldly” (not).  She’s a gossip. 

Catherine gives the first rumor about Gatsby – “he’s a nephew or a cousin of Kaiser Wilhelm’s.” 

Catherine also presents a lie about Tom and Daisy’s marriage: “Neither of them can stand the person they’re married to” (this in reference to Tom and Myrtle).  “It’s really his wife that’s keeping them apart.  She’s a Catholic and they don’t believe in divorce.”

Myrtle, of course, challenges (after an afternoon of drinks) Tom’s marriage by yelling “Daisy Daisy Daisy” over and over.  Tom, showing her that Myrtle is beneath Daisy and that his marriage isn’t to be question, breaks her nose. 

New York City is the place in this book where dreams run into reality. 

Versailles (what happens there) is mentioned a few times in this chapter as is Town Tattle and Simon Called Peter