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Tina Dinh Mrs. Goddard 1001340 5.16.18 An Explication of a Passage from The Great Gatsby In this passage from The Great Gatsby, Gatsby describes his love story with Daisy. “On the last afternoon before he went abroad, he sat with Daisy in his arms for a long, silent time. It was a cold fall day, with fire in the room and her cheeks flushed. Now and then she moved and he changed his arm a little, and once he kissed her dark shining hair.” The silence in the first line is not awkward. It seems romantic and emphasizing how much the couple will miss each other during Gatsby’s time in the military. The “cold fall” weather symbolizes loneliness, a lack of hope, and death. Although the couple appears intimate now, their relationship will be a tough …show more content…
one to endure because a commitment to the military is one that does not have specific time limit, and when it becomes long enough, the couple may begin losing hope that their relationship can last due to the difficulties involved, including loneliness. Fall might mean the end of their relationship. Daisy’s “dark shining hair” is a representation of her youth. She remains naïve and is in love, so is Gatsby, leaving their relationship at risk of breaking because they are not ready nor emotionally committed yet. “The afternoon had made them tranquil for a while, as if to give them a deep memory for the long parting the next day promised. They had never been closer in their month of love, nor communicated more profoundly one with another, than when she brushed silent lips against his coat’s shoulder or when he touched the end of her fingers, gently, as though she were asleep.” The couple is calm during this time. No words. Just silence and physical interaction. This moment is the one both persons will remain when they are separated. They want their last moment with each other to be peaceful and ordinary in that they do not seem any different anyone else. Their classes do not matter right now. The only thing that does matter is that they are individuals in love with each other just like everyone else has the potential to be. At this time, the couple is at the peak of their relationship as Gatsby’s leaving has driven them closer out of desperation to not be separated and to make their remaining time together worth it. Their love is being communicated the most during this moment because they want to remember the love they shared together. That memory might be the motivation to keep their relationship going. The way they touch each other demonstrates how close they are. Gatsby touching Daisy gently means he sees her as a fragile, beautiful woman who he wanted to protect and did not want to let go. He loves her. “He did extraordinarily well in the war. He was a captain before he went to the front, and following the Argonne battles he got his majority and the command of the divisional machine-guns.” Gatsby is a courageous and honorable man who leads his team well. He is very capable and adventurous. His determination to succeed might have been caused by his desire to get back to Daisy as soon as possible. “After the Armistice he tried frantically to get home, but some complication or misunderstanding sent him to Oxford instead. He was worried now — there was a quality of nervous despair in Daisy’s letters. She didn’t see why he couldn’t come. She was feeling the pressure of the world outside, and she wanted to see him and feel his presence beside her and be reassured that she was doing the right thing after all.” During this time, Daisy and Gatsby’s love is tested as their relationship faces obstacles. Gatsby is worried since Daisy is beginning to lose hope as foreshadowed prior to Gatsby’s leave. They might break up, and Gatsby wants to prevent that by getting back sooner. However, he cannot tell his superiors to send him home earlier to be with his girlfriend. Communication is difficult because letters might not arrive soon enough, and telephone lines are not available everywhere. Daisy is growing impatient waiting for Gatsby to come home. She is struggling with life straying outside of the upper class, the status that she was born in but stepped her foot out of to be with Gatsby. Without Gatsby, Daisy has no one else to lean on and feels lonely. The “nervous despair” that Daisy feels is due to her fear that something bad happened to Gatsby. The pain of their separation is getting to her as she does not know what happened to Gatsby and whether she should continue waiting for him. Gatsby and Daisy are trying to hold onto each other, but the pain and hardships are complicating their relationship, causing Daisy to begin doubting herself and Gatsby. Daisy’s impatience proves that she does not love him. Her love is wavering because Gatsby is deployed. She chose him and is not willing to live the hard life of waiting for him. If Daisy truly loved Gatsby, she would not need him to come back and reassure her. Her heart would already know that she is doing the right thing by waiting. “For Daisy was young and her artificial world was redolent of orchids and pleasant, cheerful snobbery and orchestras which set the rhythm of the year, summing up the sadness and suggestiveness of life in new tunes.” The “artificial world” that belongs to Daisy is the world of the upper class that she was born into and fits in with.
“Artificial” means that the world that Daisy belongs in is fake. On the outside, it is “redolent of orchids and pleasant,” but inside, it smells of poison due to the moral corruption that takes place once someone enters it. It is full of fake people who know nothing about virtues and humanity. The people inside the “artificial world” act haughtily without hesitation and enjoy doing it. Most of the pleasant aspects of the artificial life are disgusting in reality. People just do not realize it and are fooled by its charms. The artificial world is one that separates itself from the real one and contains rich civilians who live differently from those who live outside of it, the poor. When people from both worlds collide, a disaster results. While the artificial people’s lives unfold throughout the year, background music plays in “new tunes.” This music is sad and represents the possibilities of life. Daisy is associated with this music since she is waiting for Gatsby, lonely and depressed that he is not coming back as soon as she expected. Her hardships are experienced alone. In a few years, she will be at an age where women usually marry during the 1920s. Therefore, Daisy must choose whether she wants to continue to wait for Gatsby, the man she loves, or move on, giving up on their relationship. Given that the novel is set in the “Jazz Age,” those “new tunes” probably means that the music released was recently
created. “All night the saxophones wailed the hopeless comment of the Beale Street Blues while a hundred pairs of golden and silver slippers shuffled the shining dust.” The personification of the saxophones (“wailed”) symbolizes the cries of Daisy as she struggles to choose between Gatsby and the rich life she was born in. “The hopeless comment” means that Daisy hopelessly surrendered to the pressure of her artificial world as she returns to the it. Gatsby is in love with a disloyal woman who lost faith him. While he is at war, fighting to stay alive and go back to her, she is no longer committed to their relationship. Thus, the wailing means that Daisy regrets letting go of Gatsby and the burden she feels from societal expectations, which led her give up on Gatsby. Fitzgerald chose blues to be played because they are spiritual and deep. They represent the dedication that was put into Daisy and Gatsby’s relationship. Now, only Gatsby remains spiritually committed to their relationship with all the things that he later does to win her love back and the things he is willing to do for her. The “hundred pairs of golden and silver slippers” are similar to gold and silver spoons. Spoons correlate to the amount of food each class is fed while slippers symbolize the comfort that the upper class receive. They suffer less and can afford things that say “I am rich.” Life may be hard, but the artificial world makes it easier. With money, people can afford the tools and convenience it has to offer. They do not have to face difficulties head on since money creates paths for them to run away from problems, leaving them behind for others to take them on. The word “shuffle” implies that the upper classmen do not have to use much effort to live. They live a life where money is at the tip of their hands. The moment they snap their fingers, whatever they want is in front of them. In contrast, the poor have to work day and night just to afford their necessities. Rather than shuffling with golden slippers, they run barefoot. The “shining dust” symbolizes the falsity of the “artificial world.” On the outside, it looks glittery and beautiful, but the dust represents the decay and deception that is happening inside it. Those living inside this world may seem like they have it all and are happy. However, underneath the surface, their hearts have become black.
The first interaction between Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan in about five years starts off raining and as they talk, the sun starts to eventually shine. In Chapter 5 of this novel, Nick Carraway and his fellow neighbor, Jay Gatsby, both decide to agree on a day that “was pouring rain,” which is the day that Gatsby would reunite with Daisy (88). Daisy would be arriving at Nick’s house at around four o’clock in order to tea with Nick, but what she does not realize is that she will be seeing Gatsby. Gatsby says, “One of the papers said they thought the rain would stop about four” (89). This ultimately shows that Gatsby wants the sun to shine bright when Daisy arrives as he hopes Daisy will fall back in love with him. At about half past three o’clock “the rain cooled . . . to a damp mist through which occasional thin drops swam like dew” (89). This again proves the point that the closer it is to Daisy’s arrival the calmer the rain starts to pour because weather symbolizes the climax of emotions late to come from Gatsby and Daisy. After about a half an hour past four o’clock and since Daisy’s arrival the rain pauses and “the sun [is] shone again” (93). This quote from the novel shows that the sun is shinning again as Gatsby sees
All the while, Gatsby stands outside Daisy’s house to ensure her safety. He unknowingly waits as Daisy makes amends with her husband. She had no intention on running away with Gatsby anymore, because she knew Tom would always give her anything she wanted. Daisy had sunk her claws so deep into Gatsby that he never suspected that she would stay with her husband. For Gatsby, what Daisy and he shared was everything to him. For Daisy, it no longer meant anything. “So I walked away and left him standing there in the moonlight—watching over nothing.” (Fitzgerald
...s motivation to reach into Daisy’s heart is the downfall that lead to Gatsby’s persistent nature which concentrate solely the past, Also, emptiness of existence with realization to taint ideal, Gatsby’s heart fill with illusions. As a great man his death overflows with generosity and kindness that people did not notice. The good man Gatsby’s death is a tragic, but in the end it’s another meaningless loss that buried as a lonely hero.
After finally reconnecting with the now married Daisy years after they were separated by the war, Jay Gatsby is determined to win her back and continue their relationship where they left off years before. Despite all the odds clearly against him, as he is of poor blood and low social status compared to Tom, Gatsby “had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart” (Fitzgerald 95-6). Ga...
Jay Gatsby’s funeral is a small service, not because that 's what was intended, but because no one bothered to show up. Nick wanted to give Gatsby the popularity he desired, even in death, but only three people were present in the end. Gatsby’s father, Henry C. Gatz, shows up unexpectedly from Minnesota because he heard about the news in the papers. He believes that the man who shot his son must 've been mad, that no one in their right mind could commit such a horrible act. Daisy and Wolfsheim, the people closest to Gatsby in the book, do not attend. This exemplifies that it was always about wealth and social status for them, including Tom, and they never genuinely cared for Gatsby. Nick held up hope,
As depicted by Scott F. Fitzgerald, the 1920s is an era of a great downfall both socially and morally. As the rich get richer, the poor remain to fend for themselves, with no help of any kind coming their way. Throughout Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, the two “breeds” of wealthier folk consistently butt heads in an ongoing battle of varying lifestyles. The West Eggers, best represented by Jay Gatsby, are the newly rich, with little to no sense of class or taste. Their polar opposites, the East Eggers, are signified by Tom and Daisy Buchanan; these people have inherited their riches from the country’s wealthiest old families and treat their money with dignity and social grace. Money, a mere object in the hands of the newly wealthy, is unconscientiously squandered by Gatsby in an effort to bring his only source of happiness, Daisy, into his life once again. Over the course of his countless wild parties, he dissipates thousands upon thousands of dollars in unsuccessful attempts to attract Daisy’s attention. For Gatsby, the only way he could capture this happiness is to achieve his personal “American Dream” and end up with Daisy in his arms. Gatsby’s obsession with Daisy is somewhat detrimental to himself and the ones around him; his actions destroy relationships and ultimately get two people killed.
In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nick’s unreliability as a narrator is blatantly evident, as his view of Gatsby’s actions seems to arbitrarily shift between disapproval and approval. Nick is an unreliable and hypocritical narrator who disputes his own background information and subjectively depicts Gatsby as a benevolent and charismatic host while ignoring his flaws and immorality from illegal activities. He refuses to seriously contemplate Gatsby’s negative attributes because of their strong mutual friendship and he is blinded by an unrealized faith in Gatsby. Furthermore, his multitude of discrepancies damage his ethos appeal and contribute to his lack of dependability.
Thesis: How does F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel, The Great Gatsby, compares the American Dream in today's generation and back in the 1920's-30's? What did the American Dream really mean and why? So why did this issue happen? Do you think America can change in the future? What is the american dream really about? When did the phrase: ‘american dream’ started? Have you ever wondered what the 20s and 30s were like back then? How can this so called dream ever bring hope to our country? These are all the questions I would like to know myself. I’ve found three online sources & one source from the novel that can help explain about the 20th century, the Gatsby novel, today's generation, and about Mr.Gatsby from the book.
Gatsby doesn 't want people asking questions about who his new lady is so he decides to fire all of his staff; “My Finn informed me that Gatsby had dismissed every servant in his house a week ago and replaced them with half a dozen others, who never went into West Egg Village to be bribed by the tradesmen…(Fitzgerald 114).” The lights were turned off and Gatsby didn 't throw anymore parties. For a while Daisy goes over to Gatsby 's house and the two of them would stay in all day. Gatsby just knew that Daisy loved him and had never stopped loving him, and was beyond ready to have a life with her. When Gatsby, Nick, Jordan, Daisy, and Tom go into town, Gatsby wants Daisy to tell her husband Tom that she had never loved him. When Daisy refuses, Gatsby tells Tom, “Your wife doesn 't love you,” said Gatsby “she 's never loved you. She loves me. (Fitzgerald 130).” Gatsby wants Daisy to admit she had always loved him and when she wont he is
As the story went it on, things with Gatsby and Daisy was on off. One day Daisy will be happy with Gatsby, then the next day she’ll be sad. For example when they went out in the pool it seem like everything was lovely, but then when he took Daisy to his closet and start throwing his clothes, it was like she was very emotional to be with him. Things got even worse once Gatsby and Tom met each other. When Gatsby and Tom would be in the same room, Daisy wouldn’t have no idea what to do. One minute she’ll be all on
...us parties were typical of the optimistic mood that prevailed in American in the 1920’s. People were euphoric in the post war period. Everything was extravagant and over the top. But such euphoria can only result in a huge collapse. The warning signs were all in place for the great fall: the prohibition of the sale of alcohol which led to illegal practices, unregulated economic activities and a general feeling of being invincible.
The Great Gatsby - Chapter 1 Read the beginning of the novel chapter 1 up to page 12 “Tom Buchanan”. in his riding clothes was standing with his legs apart on the front. porch.” How effective do you find this as an introduction to Great? Gatsby.
"Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright, passionate mouth, but there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget." (pg 8) Daisy Buchanan, a young, naive, woman who finds excitement in the lavish lifestyles of the jazz age, has an aura of luxury, grace, and charm. This aura causes Gatsby, whom immediately falls in love with Daisy as a young military officer before leaving to fight in World War I, to lie about his background in order to convince her that he could p...
Finally, through the numerous examples discussed, one can deduce that there is considerable awkwardness between these two characters, and that this atmosphere is mainly portrayed through Gatsby as opposed to Daisy. She seems to be just as insecure, but doesn't let it show as much. Furthermore their meeting seems to be very childish, and often reminds the reader of meetings between childhood sweethearts. The only fact that seems typical for such a meeting between adults, is when the conversation falls on the weather. Weather is a popular topic amongst adults, who turn to it when they are unsure of what to talk about.
While watching the film, one scene that stuck out to me was when Daisy and Nick visit Gatsby’s home after reuniting for the first time. As they walk from Nick’s humble home to Gatsby’s mansion, the sun glistens through the tree and causes a lens flare effect. Furthermore, the sky had a purple tint to it, the clouds were clearing as it had just rained and the sun was still rising. All these elements combined create an atmosphere of hopefulness for the rekindled relationship between Gatsby and Daisy. During the proceeding scenes of all three enjoying the luxuries of Gatsby’s life such as an using an elaborate juicer and enjoying the lake. In addition, the song that plays in the background is a mid-tempo ballad and the scenes are vibrantly coloured. This is the director’s way of visually showing Gatsby’s love for Daisy.