The passage of this commentary comes from Chapter 1 of The Great Gatsby. In this passage, Nick goes to East Egg to see his cousin Daisy and her husband Tom Buchanan. He is also introduced to Jordan Baker, a famous golfer. East Egg is a place in Long Island where people with ‘old’ money reside, while West Egg contains individuals with ‘new’ money. In this passage, Fitzgerald highlights how wealth and character coincide to produce the superficial benefits of living in East Egg. Fitzgerald wants the reader to understand the impact the amenities such as windows and curtains have on creating an alluring scenery of East Egg. When Nick first enters the Buchanan house, the place was full of wind and blowing curtains, and lively. Fitzgerald describes …show more content…
the setting as calm and tranquil. This occurs when Nick is watching the curtains move around, fluttering everywhere. Fitzgerald uses the words “listening to the whip and snap of the curtains,” to provide insight on the weather and its effect on how it portrays the mood as soothing. This suggests that Fitzgerald is initially introducing East Egg as a calm, soothing place to relax and chill. Also, Fitzgerald uses imagery to describe the scenery created by the French windows by pointing how “The windows were ajar” and gleaming white against fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a little way into the house.” Fresh grass signifies the purity and liveliness of the environment and the windows “gleaming white” shows a bright and delightful scenery created. The visual created by this description suggests how divine the houses of East Egg are because the residents have such high amount of wealth. Fitzgerald also uses imagery to describe the rippling and fluttering dresses of the young women in the house as “if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house.” Fitzgerald highlights the dresses being blown back by emphasizing that they took a “short flight around the house,” which show how the dresses are full og lacings and large in size. The visual of the dresses being “blown back” suggests the high amount of wealth these characters have to wear such luxurious dresses, which mainly coincides with individuals who live in East Egg. To continue the description of the alluring environment, Fitzgerald uses a simile to compare the curtains being blown by wind to “pale flags, twisting” and a metaphor to compare the twisting curtains to “the wedding-cake of the ceiling.” Fitzgerald highlights that the curtains are white by calling them “pale” and comparing a curtain to a “flag” which is used to represent a country and is heavily honored, shows how the curtains are a very important piece in making up the scenery in East Egg.These comparisons suggests a magical scenery created by fluttering curtains. Fitzgerald is highlighting the connection between wealth and scenery. Fitzgerald also uses a metaphor to compare the rippling curtain on the rug to a shadow “as wind does to sea.” Fitzgerald highlights the noticeability of the fluttering curtains by comparing it to the shadow wind makes on the sea, which is hard to not see. This comparison emphasizes a majestical mood being introduced. Fitzgerald is emphasizing how wealth can make any environment beautiful and extravagant. However, this amount of wealth introduces a sense of cockiness in Tom, Daisy and Jordan.
Fitzgerald wants the reader to understand the false recognition of success Daisy, Jordan, and Tom believe they have because they live in East Egg. Fitzgerald first focuses on the younger of the two women, Jordan. Fitzgerald uses imagery to describe Jordan’s facial expression, with her chin up as “if she were balancing something on it.” Fitzgerald explores Jordan’s mysterious yet prideful character by introducing her with a canny expression. The visual of Jordan with her chin up as if she were balancing something on it, suggest the importance of pride the upper class abides by in society which shows how the upper class gave themselves superiority based on their wealth. After Jordan, Fitzgerald focuses on Daisy. Fitzgerald uses imagery to describe Daisy’s actions towards Nick as well as her facial expression when he states, “She leaned slightly forward with a conscientious expression.” Conscientious means wishing to do what is right, so here, Fitzgerald is portraying Daisy as a righteous person even though she is a part of the class. This notion changes however, when Daisy obnoxiously starts laughing. Fitzgerald uses imagery to describe Daisy’s laugh as “an absurd, charming little laugh.” The word “absurd” highlights that her laugh was inappropriate to the situation. Fitzgerald explores Daisy’s transparency by developing a mood shift from serious to whimsical. The sound of an ‘absurd… little laugh” suggests how Daisy feels a sense of recklessness to be reasonable and allowed due to her wealth. However, this mood created by the setting abruptly shifts to ominous with the introduction of Tom Buchanan. Fitzgerald uses diction to describe the shift of the mood from calm to tense when Tom enters. Fitzgerald explores Tom’s character by introducing him with the word “boom”, which highlights Tom as a menacing character. Fitzgerald also uses the phrase “the caught wind died out about the
room” which shows how Tom’s entrance has shifted the mood to conflicting. Fitzgerald is criticizing how the upper class are falsified, menacing people who do not bring joy to places, while their residence are joyous and pleasing.
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s American classic, The Great Gatsby, tells a story of how love and greed lead to death. The narrator of the novel, Nick Carraway, tells of his unusual summer after meeting the main character, Jay Gatsby. Gatsby’s intense love makes him attempt anything to win the girl of his dreams, Daisy Buchanan. All the love in the world, however, cannot spare Gatsby from his unfortunate yet inevitable death. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald utilizes the contrasting locations of East Egg and West Egg to represent opposing forces vital to the novel.
He rents a house in the West Egg district of Long Island surrounded by newly rich people. Nick is happen to see the garish display of wealth by his next-door neighbor a mysterious man named Jay Gatsby, who lives in a colossal Gothic mansion. Nick plans to meet his cousin Daisy Buchanan, and her husband, Tom, a former classmate of Nick’s at Yale, who belongs to the reputable upper class society in the East Egg, a fashionable area of Long
Upon arriving in New York, Nick visits his cousin, Daisy Buchanan, and her husband, Tom. The Buchanans live in the posh Long Island district of East Egg; Nick, like Gatsby, resides in nearby West Egg, a less fashionable area looked down upon by those who live in East Egg. West Egg is home to the nouveau riche people who lack established social connections, and tend to vulgarly flaunt their wealth. Like Nick, Tom Buchanan graduated from Yale, and comes from a privileged Midwestern family. Tom is a former football player, a brutal bully obsessed with the preservation of class boundaries. Daisy, by contrast, is an almost ghostlike young woman who affects an air of sophisticated boredom. At the Buchanans's, Nick meets Jordan Baker, a beautiful, if boyish, young woman with a cold and cynical manner. The two will later become romantically involved.
The East and West Egg are two opposite parts of Long Island. The East Egg is where people of old money reside, like Daisy and Tom, who have inherited the riches of the aristocracy. However, the West Egg is the home of the nouveau riche or new money. It is where Gatsby and Nick reside, who have accumulated great wealth on their own. Fitzgerald contrasts these two places and the characters from each Egg to highlight the cultural clash in the 1920’s between old and new money and the contrasting theme of corruption and morality.
The American Dream is something common to most individuals, however it's one thing that everybody views in several ways. The American Dream is totally different for everybody, however they share a number of a similar aspects of it. The dream relies mainly on the setting of wherever one lives and one‘s social status. for instance, The Declaration of Independence was by Thomas Jefferson, who was an upper class white male. He needed freedom, however freedom for people like himself that were white land owning people. martin luther King, in his I have a Dream speech, also demanded freedom, but mostly for African Americans like him. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in his book the great Gatsby, that he wants to eliminate the rich, which he was a section of. every American Dream is somewhat totally different, however all of them relate to the days that one lives in.
Many forms of literature portray conflicting or contrasting areas in which each place has a significant impact on the story. These opposing forces add to the overall theme, symbolism, and meaning of the story. In the ‘Great Gatsby’, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, these areas are the ‘East Egg’ and the ‘West Egg’. To illustrate, the East Egg represents the former or classic establishment. It consists of wealthy families who have handed down money from generation to generation.
Fitzgerald’s uses setting to describe how West Egg and East Egg represent new money and old money. West Egg represents the new money and East Egg, the old money. While they seem quite similar at first, because they are expensive places to live. West Egg is described as “the less fashionable of the two, although there is little contrast between them.” But, yet there are many differences. Such as when Nick describes his own house as "an eyesore" that is "squeezed between
In the beginning of the novel, Nick establishes residence in one “of the two formations of land” which “extends itself due east of New York” (4). These land configurations resemble “a pair of enormous eggs” and are consequently referred to as East Egg and West Egg (4). Each society is characterized by the distinct origins of the wealth of their inhabitants. East Egg is based on familial wealth, and therefore values a prestigious family name. Despite being “fashionable” and glitzy, East Egg becomes notorious for harboring bullies as represented by Tom and Daisy Buchanan (5). Physically, Tom is “enormous” and powerful, which translates into his internal psyche (7). He is portrayed as cruel and unthinking throughout the novel, later causing murder by blaming Myrtle’s death on Gatsby, thereby compelling Wilson...
Conclude ideas that are related between the great Gatsby & modern society and say how things have changed over time
East Egg is home to the more prominent established wealth families. Tom's and Daisy's home is on the East Egg. Their house, a "red and white Georgian Colonial mansion overlooking the bay" with its "wine-colored rug[s]" is just as impressive as Gatsby's house but much more low-key (Fitzgerald 11)(13). East egg and Tom's home represents the established wealth and traditions. Their stable wealth, although lacking the vulgarity of new wealth, is symbolic of their empty future and now purposelessness lives together. The House also has a cold sense to it according to Nick. This sense symbolizes Tom's brutality, and as Perkins's says in his manuscript to Fitzgerald "I would know...Buchanan if I met him and would avoid him," because Tom is so cold and brute (Perkins 199).
The novel mirrors the East-West divide of the whole country in the division between West Egg and East Egg. Nick and Gatsby live on West Egg, which means that they have retained their closeness to western values. The Buchanans on the other hand have become Easterners, they represent the corruption of the East.
In ‘The Great Gatsby’ Fitzgerald criticises the increase of consumerism in the 1920s and the abandonment of the original American Dream , highlighting that the increased focus on wealth and the social class associated with it has negative effects on relationships and the poorest sections of society. The concept of wealth being used as a measure of success and worth is also explored by Plath in ‘The Bell Jar’. Similarly, she draws attention to the superficial nature of this material American Dream which has extended into the 1960s, but highlights that gender determines people’s worth in society as well as class.
In conclusion, Fitzgerald?s use of language connotes the reality of Jordan Baker, Daisy and Tom Buchanan? lives. His use of diction, imagery and syntax suggests how their lives have no excitement and desire. Nick views them as white- dull and bland. Therefore, by using diction, imagery and syntax, Nick shows how imperfect their lives truly are.
Nick portrays himself to be unlike his West Egg neighbors; whereas they seem to be short of social connections and upper-class associates, Nick claims to have graduated from Yale and shows himself to have many connections on East Egg. One night, he drives out to East Egg to have dinner with his cousin Daisy and her husband, Tom Buchanan, an old member of Nick’s social club at Yale. Tom, a powerful figure dresed in riding clothes, greets Nick on the porch.
A significant section of the plot of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald unfolds when Nick Carraway is assimilated into the lavish lifestyle of the wealthy inhabitants of East and West Egg. After moving to New York from the Midwest in search of prosperity and happiness, Nick Carraway involuntarily finds himself in the midst of luxury after buying a dainty house right next to Gatsby’s overwhelming mansion in West Egg. Because of his close proximity with the great Jay Gatsby, Nick becomes a detailed observer of the mysterious fellow, for he has never met the man and is extremely curious. Soon after moving into his new house, Nick notices that Gatsby has thrown a magnificent party filled with hundreds of people, who are in constant supply of alcoholic beverages, gourmet foods, and amusing entertainment. Nick surveys the scene from a distance, wondering how Gatsby can manage such a party, and why he is having the boisterous event in the first place.