Tuesday

Today we are going to discuss in detail chapter 4

What new characters appear. What do they tell us about Gatsby? 

What about any of the motifs we have been discussing - time, car accidents. What do you make of Gatsby's backstory. 

What is the setting for this chapter. 

There are also a lot of allusions in this chapter. Why? 

 

Please send me your notes that you've been making on The Great Gatsby. You can even send me photos of the pages you've marking in your book.

AP PROMPTS: 

Many plays and novels use contrasting places (for example, two countries, two cities or towns, two houses, or the land and the sea) to represent opposed forces or ideas that are central to the meaning of the work.

Choose a novel or a play that contrasts two such places. Explaining how the places differ, what each place represents, and how their contrast contributes to the meaning of the work.

In a novel or play, a confidant (male) or a confidante (female) is a character, often a friend or relative of the hero or heroine, whose role is to be present when the hero or heroine needs a sympathetic listener to confide in. Frequently the result is, as Henry James remarked, that the confidant or confidante can be as much “the reader’s friend as the protagonist’s.” However, the author sometimes uses this character for other purposes as well.

Choose a confidant or confidante discuss the various ways this character functions in the work.

Novels and plays often include scenes of weddings, funerals, parties, and other social occasions. Such scenes may reveal the values of the characters and the society in which they live. Select a novel or play that includes such a scene and discuss the contribution the scene makes to the meaning of the work as a whole. 

 

 

 Notes from chapter 3

Gatsby's Party

Nick Carraway is invited to his party, but he claims to be one of the few.  People at Gatsby's party's at "according to the rules of behavior associated with amusement parks."  A chauffeur in a "uniform of robin's egg blue" (is this important?) brings Nick the invitation.

Gilda Gray - Follies (allusion -Ziegfield Follies).  Lots of mentions of automobiles in this chapter.

Nick quickly runs into Jordan Baker at the party.  Jordan is with a younger man who is still in college (there is a reason for this - he is "a persistent undergraduate given to violent innuendo").  Nick and Jordan sit with a few girls who share some gossip:

1) One rip her dress at a former party and Gatsby sent her a new one worth $265 - because "He doesn't want any trouble with anybody"

2) Rumor #2 - Gatsby had "killed a man once."  Gatsby's name = BY GATs

3) "He was a German spy during the war".  Rumor #3

The three girls are all with girls named "Mr. Mumbles" (this is a joke).

Jordan and Nick go to Gatsby's library where they meet OWL EYES (think of the name).  Owl Eyes tells them that Gatsby's library is full of real books, but the pages are uncut.

Owl Eyes is in the library because he's "been drunk for about a week" and  he "thought it might sober" him up "to sit in the library."  Mrs. Claud Roosevelt brought him.  Allusion.

Nick later accidentally meets Gatsby.  Gatsby recognizes him from the war and uses the phrase "Old Sport" a lot.

Gatsby's smile "was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance".  The butler comes and tells Gatsby that Chicago is on the line.

Jordan than tells Nick - Rumor #4 - that Gatsby claims to be an Oxford man.  She doesn't believe him.

Mr. Tostoff's "Jazz History of the World" plays out in the Gardens (allusion - think Jazz Age and famous musicians).

There are a bunch of "drunken" fights as husbands tried to get there wives to leave.  Nick then witnesses a car crash with someone so drunk that they don't even know that they crashed and the wheel of the car is no longer connected.  (1st mention of car crashes)

Nick and Jordan after a while begin dating.  He says, "I felt a sort of tender curiosity."  At a house-party in Warwick, Nick reports, Jordan borrowed a car and left it in the rain with its top down and then lied about it (not a car wreck - but close and due to someone being careless.  This is also Jordan's 1st "lie" that the reader becomes aware of).  Nick quickly remembers what "eluded me that night at Daisy's.  At her first big golf tournament there was a row that nearly reached the newspapers --a suggestion that she had moved her ball from a bad lie in the semi-final round."  The caddy withdrew his statements and it was dropped, but there it was.  According to Nick, "Jordan instinctively avoided clever, shrewd men" (ah - so back to the undergrad).  "She was incurable dishonest...and wasn't able to endure being at a disadvantage."

Then - Jordan drove so close to a workman that the fender flicked a button on the man's coat.  Nick tells her that she is a rotten driver and should be more careful.  Jordan responds that it takes two to make an accident (love is a car wreck metaphor).

Nick: "Suppose you met somebody just as careless as yourself."
Jordan: I hope I never will.  I hate careless people.  That's why I like you."

Nick claims at the end of the chapter that he is one of few honest people that he has known.  (interesting statement.  He says it after admitting he needs to break it off with some girl back West who he has been writing letters and signing them "Love Nick".