Form, Time and Sight The Great Gatsby

Fitzgeralds Chapter Structure Chapter 1 and 2: – Dinner party at the Buchanans – Party with Myrtle and McKees – Sustained look at Tom: establish brutality and arrogance Chapter 3 and 4: – Gatsbys first party – Nicks lunch with Gatsby and Wolfsheim; the background of Gatsby – Sustained look at Gatsby: establish the Romantic nature of his dream/vision Nick is the bridge between these two men/worlds

Chapter 5: The Center Infused with time images/references THIS IS IT: when the dream comes as close to incarnation as it is possible to come! Very Romantically symbolic – Gatsby/Daisys love= magnificence of Gatsbys house – Gatsbys silk shirts/Daisy crying = symbolic of Gatsbys fidelity/long-lasting desire and work for Daisy

But the center cannot hold… Romantic aura is merely a façade Grotesque/violent Modernism lurks beneath the surface and threatens to overpower the Romantic core of the novel Events of first 4 chapters are mirrored in the last 4: only this time, the grotesque underbelly becomes more prominent

Chapters 6-7 Chapter 6: Second Gatsby party is scorned/abhorred by Daisy – Glitter turns rancid; drunken parties look tawdry Chapter 7: Second party with Buchanans – Confrontation – Hollowness of Toms moral code – Death of Myrtle

Chapters 8-9 Chapter 8: Gatsbys death – Loss of God – Loss of American dream/vision – Loss of meaning Chapter 9: Nicks coda/summary – Nicks look back at Gatsbys dream – Nicks worry for the future

Moral Breakdown: Twice Pioneer vision of America – I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors' eyes--a fresh, green breast of the new world…for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent – Fresh/green/breast (life-giving) valley of ashes Gatsbys vision of Daisy – Out of the corner of his eye Gatsby saw that the blocks of the sidewalk really formed a ladder and mounted to a secret place above the trees--he could climb to it, if he climbed alone, and once there he could suck on the pap of life, gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder…Then he kissed her. At his lips' touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete. – Possibility of exploration/new life/love adultery/death

Why does this breakdown happen???WE MIS-SEE Nick sees but doesnt recognize Jordan Baker at the beginning of the novel Gatsbys party becomes a drunken blur for Nick Nick fails to recognize Gatsby as his own party Gatsby fails to recognize that Daisy/Tom are similar and that Daisy might not been the idealized woman he imagined Tom fails to see that Daisy is capable of adultery Myrtle mis-sees Jordan as Toms wife George Wilson sees the eyes of Eckleburg and mis- sees them as the eyes of God George Wilson mis-sees Gatsby as Myrtles lover and so kills the wrong person

Fitzgerald shows us that the American dream has been lost because we have mis-seen it We mis-see what is important – We prize money/materialism/status over morality/belief in God/kindness – We praise Modernity/technology over Romantic ideas of transcendence/creativity When we look at the green light, w are envious of the green money, but dont see the hope for something beyond wealth Nick wants a world in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever (6): he wants the ordered world of a beneficent God – But we cant get it: not in a place where Tom lives, where the eyes of God are just eyes on a billboard (yay capitalism and money!), where the corrupt reality overwhelms Romantic possibility