isolation, loneliness, post war life Flashcards
”he was pale, and there were dark signs of sleeplessness beneath his eyes”
- gatsby is stuck in the past. he died 5 years ago whilst daisy continues to grow and is full of life
Nick says”it ripped her open-”
gatsby: “dont tell me old sport” he winced
- Yet, again daisy is the priority. Him wincing is so strange as he is a war veteran with no traumatic reaction or flashback as daisy is his fantasy covering/treating his ptsd.
Ch1 : Describes Daisy as “sad and lovely” and jordan as having a “disconcerted face”
– shows he is brutally honest and judgmental leading us to think his opinions are not always reliable.
Ch2 “I…read a chapter of simon called peter – either it was terrible stuff or the whisky distorted things”
- Simon and peter – about a priest who lost faith in the war and looks at religion from modern perspective.
- a characteristic of modernism in literature is the sense that traditional religious institutions had failed. the purpose in this book is a social commentary on the confusing nature of religion in the 1920s.
- Nick is in denial cannot accept it which reinforces his fragmented view and how he is damaged internally and creating a problematic and unreliable narrative.
Ch3 “hello’ I roared advancing towards her. my voice seemed unnaturally loud across the garden”
He has gained confidence either from wealth or alcohol. Shows he is usually socially insecure/anxious
Ch3 “we talked for a moment about some wet, grey little villages in france”
- This is a staggering understatement, a euphemism of war.
- Broken men get along, they feel comfortable talking about their misery with each other.
Ch3 “the tears coursed down her cheeks”
“it was…simply amazing…phone book…my aunt”
- there’s a long paragraph zooming in to the detail of the woman’s tears show how the make up is overdone like her emotions.
As nick focuses on a micro element it shows how fragmented his brain is and his drifting mind. - The ellipsis shows nicks language breaking down and inaccurate versions of his memory as his mind is flawed.
- unable to grasp situations, his ptsd causes him to pick out the strong things only. Broken up, fragmented memories.
Ch3 “ I began to like new york, the racy, adventurous feel of it at night”
Characterises NYC as a place where scandalous affairs happen drowned out by the noise of the city. The duality is also shown as nick is completely alone in such a huge place.
Ch3 “I wasn’t actually in love but I felt a sort of tender curiosity”
Nick can’t feel anymore. He is the wasteland and can’t grow.
nick is damaged and immune to any feeling of love and affection.
”i just remembered that todays my birthday” “thirty - the promise of a decade of loneliness”
- psychologically fragmented.
- Thirty is a significant age. Reminder of the life narrative.
- Now that gatsbys dream is over, he is left to his own devices, exposed to loneliness and now talked about himself, no longer invested in someone else
Ch8 “i tossed half-sick between grotesque reality and savage frightening dreams”
ch9 “most of the reports were a nightmare - grotesque, circumstantial, eager, and untrue.”
- Fantasy and reality are being merged in nicks head, gatsby used to help him separate them with his dream but now his dream is falling, reality is distorted and now the dream is corrupted.
- the absence of gatsby’s dream left a ‘grotesque’ nightmare for nick.
Ch9 “but it wasn’t any use. Nobody came”
- Syntax is used - Variety of sentence length
- earlier there were extensively long sentences with polysyndeton showing a build up of hope but now they are short and impactful. (list of people at gatsby’s party.
- Nicks narration has gone from a deeply poetic prose to factual information.
ch7 “oh my god!“ - “oh, my ga-od!”
- his words are more broken up and shows language being absurdly unequipped to hold the weight of human experience
- when communication fails war happens and leads to death (modernism theory)
ch9 “a young major just out of the army and covered over with medals he got in the war”
“I raised him up out of nothing, right out of the gutter”
- wolfsheim respected gatsby for his materialism. He took him in and gatsby was unintentionally sucked into the criminal life, the war ruined him.
ch9 “i can’t do it - i can’t get mixed up in it”
biblical allusion to peter betraying Jesus. No remorse and his closest friend was a lie
