gender Flashcards
Ch1 “in riding clothes was standing with his legs apart”
“a great pack of muscle” – a pack of wolves?
“high hallway” “gleaming white…fresh grass”
- masculine and has power over huge animals like horses using them to his advantage.
“a gruff husky tenor” – zoomorphic and aggressive
– the soft sounding language of his house contrasts to his firm manner
Ch1 “two young women ballooned to the floor”
– toms presence dominates women and he brings them back to earth.
- Women usually die in ways related to earth + water contrasting men who die in fire + air?
Ch2 “making a short deft movement, tom buchanan broke her nose with his open hand”
- Simple declarative and monosyllabic.
Casual nature as the clause is later in the sentence as its less important. - Strong and possibly done before.
ch4 “the day before the wedding he [tom] gave her a string of pearls valued at three hundred and fifty thousand dollars”
- daisy has married tom for his money and the necklace symbolises a collar, a possession of tom who must obey his orders.
ch4: “it was touching to see them [daisy+tom] together… that was in august.”
- only lasted 3 months after being married and he immediately returns to his cycle of mistresses ending aggressively.
Ch7 “after realising the affair “all right’ tom broke in”
“ he got up, his eyes flashing between gatsby and his wife”
“His temper cracked a little”
Semantic field of aggression and breaking things. demonstrates the control tom holds in their relationship.
ch7 “husky tenderness” “soothing gruffness”
“The god damned coward!” He whimpered, he didn’t even stop his car”
- a revelation of tom, Shows feeling from Tom, but only away from wilson and he is ironically criticising Daisy
Ch1 “im p-paralysed with happiness”
– monosyllabic repition/stammer, she is stuck, hurt or trapped in her marriage or she is stuck in the rich world with nothing to do.
ch1 [daisy] As her “knuckle was black and blue”
“that’s what I get for marrying a brute of a man, a great, big, hulking, physical specimen of a –“
– juxtaposes violence with dreams ‘black and blue’ inevitably displaying the corruption of wealth.
- “hulking”- could be referring to a hulk prison which is a ship afloat at sea. It could be a metaphor of old money and how it’s continuous or that daisy is trapped and cannot leave.
ch5 “i think that voice held him most, with its fluctuating, feverish warmth, because it couldn’t be over dreamed - that voice was a deathless song”
- symbolises eternal life and how daisys lifestyle is a weightless nature with no difficulties.
- her voice is magical, memorising and allusive.
- this is an allusion of her femme fatale (a woman causing disaster to a man) like a siren (greek myth.) a woman winged who’s singing lured sailors but could be dangerous.
ch7: “her frightened eyes”
daisy is contrasted to toms earlier “arrogant eyes”. She fears Tom and therefore claims to love him
ch1 [jordan] “slender small breasted girl… throwing her body backward at the shoulders like a young cadet”
– the plosives of ‘b’ contrast the sibilance which undermines her femininity.
- Jordan is also a masculine name and to be described as a ‘cadet’ shows the energy she radiates is not soft.
- Jordan is also a masculine name and to be described as a ‘cadet’ shows the energy she radiates is not soft.
Ch7 “in the sunlight his face was green”
- Sickness vs hope. He finds out about the affair and he feels physically sick, but this means he uses the opportunity to take myrtle and escape the valley of ashes giving him hope.
- Wilson’s response to affair = lock up myrtle, has less power and lets her emasculate him. But toms reaction = exerts his power to show he is fearless. Men act out of sorts when they have no woman to control.
”he was his wife’s man and not his own”
strange dominance of myrtle over wilson. Like the basketball he is repetitively beaten
Ch2 “middle thirties, and faintly stout, but she carried her flesh sensuously”
- Nicks description of myrtle revolves around her physique and doesn’t care for her personality or she has nothing of great significance to comment on.
- Myrtle is daisy’s foil as she is described as having ‘bright’ eyes and looking ‘lovely’. Her attractiveness is rooted in her emotions unlike myrtle who is materialistic.
