Speak on the narrator’s first mention of the central figure of the novel. Don’t you find Carraway’s attitude towards Gatsby ambivalent(двойственный)? Give your reasons.

1. What is Carraway’s background?

2. Comment on the following: “I enjoyed the counter-raid so thoroughly that I came back restless.” Pay attention to the word “restless” used throughout the chapter and explain what it suggests. What do they call the generation Carraway belongs to?

The Carraways are something of a clan and we have a tradition that

we’re descended from the Dukes of Buccleuch, but the ac-tual founder of my line was my grandfather’s brother who

came here in fifty-one, sent a substitute to the Civil War and

started the wholesale hardware business that my father car-ries on today.

Say why the heroes of the novel came East.

I graduated from New

Haven in 1915, just a quarter of a century after my father,

and a little later I participated in that delayed Teutonic mi-gration known as the Great War. I enjoyed the counter-raid

so thoroughly that I came back restless. Instead of being the

warm center of the world the middle-west now seemed like

the ragged edge of the universe—so I decided to go east and

learn the bond business. Everybody I knew was in the bond

business so I supposed it could support one more single

man.

Note the frequency of the “motion terms” (drift, move, run, ride) (p.8). Explain what they suggest. Sum up your observations and characterize the period Carraway came East.

3. Describe the community Carraway began his new life in.

Describe Gatsby’s mansion:

it was a factual imi-tation of some Hôtel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool and more than forty acres of lawn and garden. It was Gatsby’s mansion.;

the Buchanans’ mansion.

Their house was even more elaborate than I

expected, a cheerful red and white Georgian Colonial mansion overlooking the bay. The lawn started at the beach and ran toward the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping

over sun-dials and brick walks and burning gardens—finally when it reached the house drifting up the side in bright vines as though from the momentum of its run. The front

was broken by a line of French windows, glowing now with reflected gold, and wide open to the warm windy afternoon, and Tom Buchanan in riding clothes was standing with his legs apart on the front porch.

What is the role of the descriptive paragraphs? What colours prevail in the descriptions? preceded us out onto a rosy-colored porch What do they symbolize? Describe the atmosphere of the dinner-party at the Buchanans’.

Sometimes she and Miss Baker talked at once, unobtrusively and with a bantering inconsequence that was never quite chatter, that was as cool as their white dresses and

their impersonal eyes in the absence of all desire. They were

here—and they accepted Tom and me, making only a polite pleasant effort to entertain or to be entertained. They knew that presently dinner would be over and a little later

the evening too would be over and casually put away. It was sharply different from the West where an evening was hurried from phase to phase toward its close in a continually

disappointed anticipation or else in sheer nervous dread of the moment itself.

4. Speak on the narrator’s first mention of the following characters:

a) Tom Buchanan;

Her husband, among various physical accomplishments,

had been one of the most powerful ends that ever played

football at New Haven—a national figure in a way, one of

those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at

twenty-one that everything afterward savors of anti-cli-max. His family were enormously wealthy—even in college

his freedom with money was a matter for reproach—but

now he’d left Chicago and come east in a fashion that rather

took your breath away: for instance he’d brought down a

string of polo ponies from Lake Forest. It was hard to realize that a man in my own generation was wealthy enough

to do that.

b) Daisy Buchanan;

The other girl, Daisy, made an attempt to rise—she

leaned slightly forward with a conscientious expression—

then she laughed, an absurd, charming little laugh, and I

laughed too and came forward into the room.

‘I’m p-paralyzed with happiness.’

She laughed again, as if she said something very witty,

and held my hand for a moment, looking up into my face,

promising that there was no one in the world she so much

wanted to see. That was a way she had. She hinted in a mur-mur that the surname of the balancing girl was Baker. (I’ve

heard it said that Daisy’s murmur was only to make people

lean toward her; an irrelevant criticism that made it no less

charming.)

c) Jordan Baker.

The younger of the two was a stranger to me. She was

extended full length at her end of the divan, completely

motionless and with her chin raised a little as if she were

balancing something on it which was quite likely to fall. If

she saw me out of the corner of her eyes she gave no hint of

it—indeed, I was almost surprised into murmuring an apol-ogy for having disturbed her by coming in.

Describe their appearance (make a list of “terms of appearance” used by the author). What features of the characters are accentuated in the descriptions of their appearance and behaviour?

5. Speak on Tom Buchanan’s social standing; his views. What does the word “scientific” used by Tom Buchanan suggest?

‘I’ve gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read ‘The Rise of the Coloured Empires’ by this man Goddard?’‘Why, no,’ I answered, rather surprised by his tone.‘Well, it’s a fine book, and everybody ought to read it. The idea is if we don’t look out the white race will be—will be utterly submerged. It’s all scientific stuff; it’s been proved.’‘Tom’s getting very profound,’ said Daisy with an expression of unthoughtful sadness. ‘He reads deep books with long words in them. What was that word we——‘‘Well, these books are all scientific,’ insisted Tom, glancing at her impatiently. ‘This fellow has worked out the whole thing. It’s up to us who are the dominant race to watch out or these other races will have control of things.’

‘We’ve got to beat them down,’ whispered Daisy, wink-ing ferociously toward the fervent sun.

‘You ought to live in California—’ began Miss Baker but Tom interrupted her by shifting heavily in his chair.‘This idea is that we’re Nordics. I am, and you are and you are and——’ After an infinitesimal hesitation he included Daisy with a slight nod and she winked at me again. ‘—and we’ve produced all the things that go to make civilization—oh, science and art and all that. Do you see?’

Speak of Daisy’s married life. What kind of person is called “sophisticated”?

‘Well, I’ve had a very bad

time, Nick, and I’m pretty cynical about everything.’

Evidently she had reason to be. I waited but she didn’t say

anymore, and after a moment I returned rather feebly to the

subject of her daughter.

‘I suppose she talks, and—eats, and everything.’

‘Oh, yes.’ She looked at me absently. ‘Listen, Nick; let me

tell you what I said when she was born. Would you like to

hear?’

‘Very much.’

‘It’ll show you how I’ve gotten to feel about—things.

Well, she was less than an hour old and Tom was God knows

where. I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned

feeling and asked the nurse right away if it was a boy or a

girl. She told me it was a girl, and so I turned my head away

and wept. ‘All right,’ I said, ‘I’m glad it’s a girl. And I hope

she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this

world, a beautiful little fool.’

‘You see I think everything’s terrible anyhow,’ she went

on in a convinced way. ‘Everybody thinks so—the most ad-

vanced people. And I KNOW. I’ve been everywhere and seen

everything and done everything.’ Her eyes flashed around

her in a defiant way, rather like Tom’s, and she laughed with

thrilling scorn. ‘Sophisticated—God, I’m sophisticated!’

Why did Nick Carraway feel the basic insincerity of what Daisy had said?

I felt the basic insincerity of what she

had said. It made me uneasy, as though the whole evening

had been a trick of some sort to exact a contributory emo-tion from me. I waited, and sure enough, in a moment she

looked at me with an absolute smirk on her lovely face as if

she had asserted her membership in a rather distinguished

secret society to which she and Tom belonged.

Why do you think she had no intention “to rush out of the house, child in arms”? Speak on Jordan Baker’s life-style. Express your opinion about it.

6. Speak on Carraway’s first glimpse of Gatsby.

С.

1. What is the narrator’s attitude towards the heroes of the novel? Are they depicted with sympathy? irony? contempt? humour? Justify your point of view.

2. What are the methods by which Nick Carraway informs the reader of what is happening or has happened:

a) his own eye-witness account;

b) the account of other people (in their words or in his own)?

3. What are the advantages of first-person narration Fitzgerald resorts to? Speak on the composition of the chapter. Judging by the descriptive passages of the chapter say whether they testify to Nick Carraway’s romantic or realistic disposition of mind.

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 1921