American Studies.
Week Twenty-Seven
Monday, March 11, 2024 5:40 AM
Monday
Finish Gatsby
Discussion Questions
Chapter 8 of The Great Gatsby
1. Gatsby refers to Daisy as “the first ‘nice’ girl that [he] had ever known” (148). What does Gatsby mean when he refers to Daisy as a “nice” girl? When he had come into contact with such people in the past, Gatsby felt that he was separated from them by an “indiscernible barbed wire” (148). What does he mean? Gatsby wears a military uniform when he courts Daisy. How might that be significant? Why does Nick refer to the uniform as an “invisib[ility] cloak” (149)? What does the uniform render invisible?
2. When Gatsby tells Nick about his early encounters with Daisy, he devotes less time to describing Daisy’s personality than he does to describing her house. Gatsby seems utterly enchanted by the promise that he perceives in the house: “There was a ripe mystery about it, a hint of bedrooms upstairs more beautiful and cool than other bedrooms, of gay and radiant activities taking place through its corridors, and of romances that were not musty and laid away already in lavender, but fresh and breathing and redolent of this year’s shining motor-cars” (148). How does this description of Daisy’s house resonate with themes or passages that you encountered in previous chapters? Why might Nick refer to Gatsby’s mansion as his “ancestral home” (154)?
3. When Gatsby kisses Daisy on her porch, he is described as being “overwhelmingly aware of the youth and mystery that wealth imprisons and preserves” (150). Is it true that wealth can “preserve” youth and mystery? If so, how?
II. Why Marry Tom?
4. If Daisy was in love with Gatsby, why did she choose to marry Tom Buchanan? The narrator speculates that while Daisy may have fallen in love with Gatsby, she was also attached to the comforts of stability and structure: “She wanted her life shaped now, immediately — and the decision must be made by some force — of love, of money, of unquestionable practicality — that was close at hand” (151). What does Nick mean when he suggests that Daisy wanted her life to be “shaped”? How might Tom Buchanan’s “wholesome bulkiness” amount to a shaping agent? Does Daisy’s decision to marry Tom make sense to you? Why or why not?
5. When Gatsby is pondering whether Daisy could have ever loved Tom Buchanan, he admits that she “might have loved him just for a minute, when they were first married” (152). He then qualifies this admission by saying, “In any case, [. . .] it was just personal” (152). What might Gatsby mean when he says that Daisy’s love for Tom was “just personal”? In what sense is the love between Daisy and Gatsby more than just personal?
III. Nick’s Perspective on Gatsby: Beautiful or Damned?
6. One of the last things that Nick says to Gatsby is “They’re a rotten crowd. [. . .] You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together” (154). Nick relates that this “was the only compliment I ever gave him, because I disapproved of him from beginning to end” (154). Have you gotten the sense that Nick “disapproves” of Gatsby? Why or why not? How would you describe Nick’s feelings toward Gatsby?
7. After giving Gatsby the compliment described above, Nick thinks back to a moment when Gatsby stood upon his marble steps waving goodbye to the guests departing from his party. In a single astonishing sentence, Nick captures the duality of corruption and incorruptibility at the heart of Gatsby’s character: “The lawn and drive had been crowded with the faces of those who guessed at his corruption — and he had stood on those steps, concealing his incorruptible dream, as he waved them good-by” (154). Should readers interpret Gatsby as a “corrupt” character who accumulates his wealth largely through organized crime and bootlegging? Or should readers interpret Gatsby as an “incorruptible” character whose motivating purpose of courting Daisy renders him pure, innocent, and honorable?
IV. The Swimming Pool
8. As early as Chapter Five, Gatsby had suggested to Nick that they should “take a plunge in the swimming-pool.” Gatsby admits, “I haven’t made use of it all summer” (82). Although Chapter Eight takes place several weeks later, Gatsby tells Nick that he’s still yet to make use of the pool: “You know, old sport, I’ve never used that pool all summer?” (153). Why might Fitzgerald repeatedly invoke Gatsby’s failure to “make use” of his own pool? For whose enjoyment was the swimming pool installed in the first place? Was it installed primarily for its use-value? Why might it be significant that Gatsby never makes use of it?
9. When compared with the gruesome death suffered
by Myrtle Wilson, Jay Gatsby might be said to enjoy a “good death.” Whereas Nick had described Myrtle’s body as having been “ripped [. . .] open” by the speeding Rolls Royce, he describes Gatsby’s body as being all but completely unperturbed by the bullet from George Wilson’s gun (144). The only trace of violence is a “thin red circle in the water” (162). Even after he has been shot, Gatsby continues to recline on the inflatable mattress in the middle of his pool, enjoying the warm sunlight and quiet serenity of an autumn afternoon. Why might Nick describe the scene of Gatsby’s death as if it were tranquil, almost beautiful? Why might Fitzgerald give his title character a good death?
I. Terminal Absences
Name: ________________________
Discussion Questions
Chapter 9 of The Great Gatsby
1. When Nick telephones the Buchanans to tell Daisy that Gatsby has been killed, he learns that Daisy and Tom have already left town (164). Why does Daisy end up staying with Tom? Why is Gatsby unable to win her over? What do Gatsby’s experiences teach us about the status system within social worlds like East Egg?
2. The only people who attend the funeral at Gatsby’s house are Nick and Gatsby’s father, Henry Gatz. When Nick shares this information with Owl Eyes, the man responds, “Why, my God! [T]hey used to go there by the hundreds” (175). Why might Nick devote so much attention to the attendance at Gatsby’s funeral? How might it help to save Gatsby’s image, re-casting him in a different light?
II. Gatsby’s Parentage: Henry C. Gatz
3. While standing in the hallway of his son’s mansion, Henry Gatz reaches into his wallet and pulls out a photograph of that same mansion. The photograph is described as being “cracked in the corners and dirty with many hands” (172). Nick reflects that Mr. Gatz “had shown it so often that I think it was more real to him now than the house itself” (172). Is it odd that Mr. Gatz seems more absorbed by his photo of Gatsby’s house than by the house itself? Do Mr. Gatz’s actions reveal any resemblances between father and son?
4. Although the adjective “great” is used in the title of The Great Gatsby, the word appears very infrequently in the actual text of the novel. Yet in the final chapter, Henry C. Gatz uses the word “great” twice in reference to his son. First, Mr. Gatz uses the perfect conditional tense to assert that Gatsby “would have been” a great man: “If he’d of lived, he’d of been a great man” (168). Then, when looking at his son’s list of resolves, Mr. Gatz asserts, “Do you notice what he’s got about improving his mind? He was always great for that” (173). Do you think readers are supposed to view Jay Gatsby as “great”? Why or why not?
III. Daisy as Cipher?
5. In the last chapter of The Great Gatsby, Nick describes a series of brief encounters with many of the main characters. For example, he meets with Jordan Baker in order to formally end their relationship. He runs into Tom Buchanan and learns that Tom told George Wilson who owned the yellow “death car.” These encounters serve to update readers about what’s been happening with each character while also generating a sense of closure. However, the one character who is conspicuously absent from the last chapter is Daisy Buchanan. Why? To what extent does Daisy remain elusive — unknown and unknowable — throughout the entire novel?
6. Would you categorize Daisy as a relatively flat, two-dimensional character who is depicted
without much psychological or emotional depth? Or would you categorize her as a complex, three-dimensional character whose motives and internal conflicts are apparent to readers? In a
letter to editor Max Perkins, Fitzgerald declared that he had done a better job of fleshing out the character of Myrtle Wilson than that of Daisy Buchanan. Might the author have needed to leave Daisy’s character under-developed? Why or why not? Is it possible that Fitzgerald constructed Daisy as a kind of hollow cipher or gravitational void at the center of the novel? How might Daisy’s silence reflect the oppression of women in the 1920s? How might her elusive personality reflect her capacity as a projection screen for the fantasies of male characters?
IV. The National Mythology: Defining “America”
7. Henry Gatz shows Nick a daily “schedule” and a list of “general resolves” that Gatsby wrote out for himself when he was an adolescent (173). Fitzgerald’s inclusion of Gatsby’s schedule alludes to the daily schedule included in what is widely recognized as the archetypal narrative about an American self-made man: Benjamin Franklin’s The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin(1793). Although his parents could only afford to send the young Benjamin to school for two years, Franklin’s industrious work ethic and self-discipline enabled him to transform himself from a poor child into a prosperous writer, publisher, and political philosopher. Why might Fitzgerald have decided to include this allusion in the novel? How does it help to frame Gatsby as an exemplary figure?
Does Fitzgerald’s novel celebrate or critique the notion of the American self-made man? What is the novel’s verdict on the American Dream? How might Fitzgerald’s novel amount to commentary on the notion that America is a land of opportunity where anyone can rise from rags to riches?
8. On the last page of the novel, Nick widens the scope of his narrative by comparing Gatsby’s feelings for Daisy with the feelings that Dutch sailors must have experienced upon discovering America (180). He refers to the discovery of America as “the last time in history” when man came “face to face” with “something commensurate to his capacity for wonder” (180). Why does the narrator draw this comparison? What is his point? Do the final paragraphs amount to a celebration of humanity’s “capacity for wonder” (180)? Or do they suggest that our capacity for wonder will inevitably lead to disappointment?
V. An Honest Narrator?
9. In Chapter Three, Nick declared himself to be “one of the few honest people that I have ever known” (59). In Chapter Nine, however, Jordan suggests that she had been wrong to suppose that Nick was “an honest, straightforward person” (177). Do you take Nick to be an honest and forthright person? Has he been a reliable narrator? Can you think of any ways in which he may distort the truth?
10. On his last night in West Egg, Nick goes over to Gatsby’s house and finds “an obscene word” scrawled on the otherwise white steps (179-180). Nick reports that he “erased” it (180). What do you make of this action? Could it have any symbolic significance? Could the author be suggesting that his narrator has been engaged in a broader campaign to erase any language that would disparage Gatsby’s character?
Tuesday
Test
Homework Study.
Wednesday
Writing Day/Active viewing of the film
Homework- American Dream Synthesis Essay. Due Friday!!
Thursday and Friday
Active viewing of the film.
Homework- American Dream Synthesis Essay. Due Friday!!