Wednesday, February 1, 2017

Gatsby remix/ notes ch 2 -4

We now know that the reason Nick came from the midwest was because, after fighting in the Great War, he realized that it wasnt for him. Daisy is a distant relative of Nick because they do not have an intimate relationship; they can hang out but cant trust each other. Daisy has an interesting coping strategy where she admits to pretending to be a fool, which shows her very subtle wit. The author also introduces a new setting known as the Valley of ashes. This place is like "fly over country", and the people their are ashy and, to Nick, seem like they're not real people. But Nick notices a "Stout" man which implies a strength and life - a connotation that indirectly characterizes characters like Daisy and Jordan ( a friend of Tom)  who posed for everyone else like statues. This ties back to the time period of this novel where women were "displayed". Tom's lover Myrtle is presented at this point since Tom and Nick are on their way to her house. There the author uses long flowery descriptions to present creative conflict from different perspectives in the same room. This scene ends with Tom punching some lady in the nose. Then, Nick meets Gatsby at one of his extravagant parties that, which also indirectly characterizes Gatsby because he seems to be a caring person since he does everything he can to make his parties a better experience for the guests. Even then, we do not really know much about this man except the fact that people have their own opinions about him - we don't really have a sense of what kind of a person he really is according to his perspective.