Contextual Information Flashcards
What is the VALLEY OF ASHES?
What does it represent?
- Creates contract between wealthy and poor (emphasises inequality)
- The land is empty and barren, perhaps representative of the empty shallow lives of characters like Tom and Daisy
- A bleak, barren area created through industrial dumping - a bio product of capitalism
- Represents the moral and social decay of America
- The rich indulge themselves with regard for nothing but their own pleasure
- The ash symbolises death, perhaps foreshadowing events to come
Complete the quote on Gatsby by John Sutherland
“Gatsby is ________. He _____ through the narrative like _______________ - brilliantly ____ but ____ and _____”
“Gatsby is perennially elusive. He flits through the narrative like an image in a hall of mirrors - brilliantly vivid, but superficial and fleeting”
Describe Fitzgerald’s literary style
Who were his influences?
Fitzgerald weaves the romantic and the modern in together, which was an unusual style at the time. He was also heavily influenced by John Keats.
What does New York represent?
Represents wealth - a city of excess, sex and drinking
What does East Egg represent?
- Based on Great Neck - represents the ‘old aristocracy’ - where people feel entitled to their wealth
What does West Egg represent?
- Based on Port Washington - the ‘new money’ - modern and less restricted by a rigid class system
What is the Platonic Conception?
Give an example
The Platonic Conception, based on the Metaphor of the Cave, is an allegory for illusions being used to replace the real world
EG. “Each night he added to the pattern of his fancies until drowsiness closed on some vivid scene with an obvious embrace”
“In truth, he was the son of God”
Why does Fitzgerald make this comparison?
Fitzgerald was possibly influenced in drawing this parallel by ‘The Life of Jesus’ by Ernest Renan, in which Jesus is represented as a figure who essentially decided to make himself the son of God, then brought himself to ruin by refusing to recognise the really or his denied self-conception
Complete the quote by Giles Mitchell in ‘The Grand Narcissist’
“Gatsby’s sense of _______ is a _______ in his character. His entitlement ________________ as well as his ________”
Giles Mitchell in ‘The Grand Narcissist’
“Gatsby’s sense of entitlement is a major force in his character. His entitlement justifies his grandiosity as well as his explosiveness”
What did literary critic Lionel Critiz say of Gatsby?
“Gatsby stands for America itself”
What did James Truslow Adams say about the American Dream?
“Life should be better as richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability and achievement, regardless of social class or circumstance”
What did Fitzgerald himself say about the character of Gatsby?
“I never at any one time saw him clear myself - for he started as one man I knew then changed into myself”
Complete the quote by Edith Wharton
“My _______ is only this; that to make Gatsby _______, you ought to have given us his _______ instead of a short resume of it. That would have _____ him and made his _________ a tragedy instead of a _______ for the ______”
Edith Wharton
“My present quarrel with you is only this; that to make Gatsby really great, you ought to have given us his early career, instead of a short resume of it. That would have situated him and made his final tragedy a tragedy instead of a ‘fait divers’ for the morning papers”
How does Eleanor Roosevelt describe the American Dream?
“Not merely a hope and an aspiration, but a way of life”
What did Malcom X believe about the American Dream?
“When we _________ and look around ____, we see America not through _______ of someone who has _______, but the eyes of someone who _______. We don’t see ______. We’ve experienced only ______”
Malcom X
“When we open our eyes and look around America, we see America not through the eyes of someone who has enjoyed the fruits of Americanism, but the eyes of someone who has been a victim of Americanism. We don’t see any American Dream.We’ve experienced only the American nightmare”
