“But his heart was in a constant, turbulent riot. The most grotesque and fantastic conceits haunted him in his bed at night.” What do these words, appearing elsewhere in the novel tell us about the nature of Gatsby’s dream?
-
These words appear in Ch.2 in the description of The Valley of Ashes: ‘This is a valley of ashes – a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens.’
- Whilst having connotations of immensity, they are more closely associated with the sinister and crude nature of his dream: it is out of proportion with any hint of reality; it has become horribly absurd, a tasteless, gaudy obsession. The fact that these words appear in CH.2 already foreshadows the failure of the dream and indeed Gatsby’s downfall.
“Each night he added to the pattern of his fancies until drowsiness closed down upon some vivid scene…fairy’s wing.” Relate this description to others. What does this mean?
- The dream has become more and more elaborate, more and more grand, more and more unreal: ‘he had been full of the idea so long, dreamed it right through to the end, waited with teeth set, so to speak, at an inconceivable pitch of intensity.’ ‘…decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way.’
- We can note the ironic juxtaposition of ‘rock’ and ‘fairy’s wing’ – this image is ridiculous and highlights its impossibility. It also underpins the fragility of not only the dream but of Gatsby himself.
Comment on the description of Dan Cody’s portrait.
- “I remember…grew, florid man with a hard, empty face.”
- There are suggestions that his is corrupt and conjures up images of ‘ash-grey men’ described in CH.2
Nick tells us “the vague contour of Jay Gatsby had filled out to the substantiality of a man.” How does this description and the attitude which he expresses about him here relate to his feelings in CH.4?
- ‘Jay Gatsby’ has been his own creation. Nick ‘had reached the point of knowing everything and nothing about him.” In CH.4 he says “He looked at me sideways – and I knew why Jordan Baker had believed he was lying…and I wondered if there wasn’t something a little sinister about him after all.”
- “The very phrases were worn so threadbare that they evoked no image except that of a turbaned ‘character’ leaking sawdust at every pore…”
- This can be related to his mythical stature.
- The ‘contour’ described here consists only of an immature 17 year old’s romantic self-idealisation. Gatsby is, therefore, trapped in a timeless past which allows him no chance to develop any understanding of life’s complexities.
Tom says “She has a big dinner party…They meet all kinds of crazy fish.” Explain the irony in Tom’s remark here. What does it reveal about him?
- He is having a very indiscreet affair with Myrtle Wilson. He is completely oblivious (blind) to his own hypocrisy. Again, the image of blindness is implied relating to the more widespread blindness of a very irresponsible society.
What does Nick mean when he says, “It is invariably saddening to look through new eyes at things upon which you have expended your own powers of adjustment.”
- Here, he is adjusting his vision to Daisy’s snobbish values. Her snobbishness destroys his own romantic vision of Gatsby’s world. He tells the reader about this party: “There were the same people, or at least the same sort of people, the same profusion of champagne, the same many-coloured, many-keyed commotion, but I felt an unpleasantness in the air, a pervading harshness that hadn’t been there before.”
- This allows the reader also to see how quickly one can become engulfed in, influenced, affected by such an environment and the people in it. In the previous Gatsby party Nick became quickly involved in the carefree atmosphere and shallowness of his surroundings: “I was enjoying myself now. I had taken two finger-bowl of champagne, and the scene had changed before my eyes into something significant, elemental and profound.” He is, of course, being ironic here. He says at Myrtle’s party: “I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.”
“These things excite me…I’m giving out green…” and “Daisy began to sing…magic upon the air.”
What impressions of Daisy are conveyed in each of these paragraphs?
- Again Daisy makes shallow, whimsical remark so synonymous with her character. She made a similar remark in CH.5 when she first appears in Nick’s house. The second quotation defines the beauty and allure of her character which is required for the reader to believe in Gatsby, or at least to understand partially why he has given up his life for the sole purpose of attaining her. Nick commented on the attractiveness of Daisy’s voice earlier. Later in CH.7 the precise quality of that voice is summed up perfectly: “Her voice was full of money.”
What is Daisy’s attitude towards the actress at the party? What does this reveal about Daisy?
- “She’s lovely.” Daisy is fascinated by the film star who maintains an artificial pose all evening. Fitzgerald highlights this by providing a description of the star and her director then, returning to them two pages later, the reader finds they have not altered their pose – the star and director can get no nearer reality than by rehearsing a scene. “…but the rest offended her.” Daisy is more interested and fascinated by the ‘gesture’ than by the reality of an ‘emotion’. Daisy likes the actress because like herself she has no substance. She is a gesture who is wholly committed to nothing more real than her own image on the silver screen. Indeed, Gatsby himself is described, “If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him…” Daisy is attracted to his gestures, not the emotional depth of his love for her, which is in fact too great for reality.
- The emptiness of Daisy’s character so aptly illustrated in this scene leads to an egregious moral indifference as the story unfolds: having killed Mrs Wilson and implicitly at least left Gatsby to shoulder the blame, she callously deserts him.
Why is Daisy “appalled by West Egg” ?
- She is appalled because it lacks the sophistication and aristocracy of East Egg wealth. She is a snob. This chapter again helps to clarify the differences in social status between East Egg and West Egg. She finds West Egg vulgar in comparison to her own in-bred aristocracy. Gatsby’s efforts have been in vain but his vision of her is permanently distorted by the ‘colossal vitality of his illusion.’ She is here because “in the very casualness of Gatsby’s party there were romantic possibilities totally absent from her world.”
CH.6 starts marking the end of Gatsby’s glowing dream. Can you find a quotation to highlight this?
- “He broke off and began to walk up and down a desolate path of fruit rinds and discarded favours and crushed flowers.”
- “Can’t repeat the past? he cried incredulously. “Why of course you can!” He looked around him wildly as if the past were lurking here in the shadows of his house, just out of reach of his hand.”
- Gatsby is indeed delusional and has no concept of reality.
“His heart beat faster and faster…and the incarnation was complete.” Comment on this paragraph.
- This is the moment his dream is realised. It is from this point that Nick imagines he has become obsessed by the need to relive this moment. Daisy’s “perishable breath” reminds us that she is human, subject to the change and decay of time but “incarnation” conveys the intensity and dedication of Gatsby’s vision.
- Daisy ‘blossomed for him like a flower.’ – again this ephemeral image is associated with Daisy elsewhere in the novel. We are reminded that flowers die; they are ‘perishable’ and so Gatsby’s great dream is always doomed to fail.
“What I had almost remembered was uncommunicable forever.”
- How does this relate to Gatsby’s dream?
- The past is ‘uncommunicable’ – it cannot be repeated.
