Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from November 26, 2017

CHAPTER III

Nick describes watching endless parties going on in Gatsby’s house every weekend. Guests party day and night and then on Monday servants clean up the mess. Every Saturday night, Gatsby throws incredibly luxurious parties at his mansion. After seeing these parties from afar, Nick is invited by Gatsby by a handwritten note to join in the festivities (events). Nick is one of the few to have actually been invited. The others simply arrive, knowing only that there will be a party and they won't be turned away. At the party, Nick tries to find Gatsby, but has no luck. No one can tell him where Gatsby is, suggesting that they, themselves, didn't know the host. The main topic of conversation is rumours about Gatsby. Nick hears from various people that Gatsby is a German spy, an Oxford graduate, and someone even claims Gatsby once killed a man. As Nick mills around the party, he encounters Jordan Baker and the two of them two mingle (socialize/mix) around. While spending time with

CHAPTER II

Whereas Chapter 1 ended with the mysterious Gatsby reaching out to his dream in the night, Chapter 2 opens with a striking contrast. It begins with a description of the valley of ashes. Nick describes a "waste land" between West Egg and New York City where the ashes from the city are dumped (put/left). The ashes (debris/ruins) cover everything, including the men who live there. Above this bleak (depressing) "Valley of Ashes" stares out two huge spectacled eyes from a billboard (advertising board). These haunting (unforgettable), unblinking eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg  (The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg on the billboard overlooking the Valley of Ashes represent many things at once: to Nick they seem to symbolize the recurring waste of the past, which lingers (stays) on though it is permanently vanished, much like Dr Eckleburg's medical practice. The eyes can also be linked to Gatsby, whose own eyes, once described as "vacant (empty/blank)," often