In general:
– Against the cultural and intellectual conformity
– Making up events and generally arguing with each other
– Imagination, dreams, and the irrational
Chapter 1 – 3
-Narrator is recalling the past, dream-like
-an absurdly large house
-implication that Nick may be homosexual: Nick is standing next to a nearly naked man at the end (presumably by choice)
-loss of memory, skipping through time at the end of the chapter: suddenly skips from being in an elevator to standing next to a naked man
-sexual references, “Keep your hands off the lever”
-Gatsby had this absurd, Gothic-modern house
-implication of very strong colours, saturated: often these colours create an alienating, uncomfortable mood
-An orange juicer described in a weird way
-“There was a machine which could extract the juice of two hundred oranges in half an hour if a little button was pressed two hundred times by a butler’s thumb.”
-‘Owl-eyes’ has a strange obsession with books
-“the scene had changed before my eyes…”: metamorphosis, a subject common to Surrealism
“Absolutely real–have pages and everything. I thought they’d be a nice durable cardboard. Matter of fact, they’re absolutely real.” (45-46)
Chapter 4
-Ridiculous names (Whitebait, Hammerheads, Beluga, Smirkes, Haag)
-Daisy’s a bit strange when she’s drunk, she slurs her words
-mention of girls with “disembodied faces” at the end of the chapter
-Gatsby disappears in the middle of a conversation
– names: Hammerhead, Beluga, Smirkes, Miss Haag, Claudia Hip, Wolfsheim, Katspaugh- weird/absurd names that possibly reflect the character of the name-bearer
Chapter 5
-Nick gets home and thinks for a moment that his house is on fire..”…the whole corner of the peninsula was blazing with light, which fell unreal on the shrubbery…” (82)
“With enchanting murmurs Daisy admired this aspect or that of the feudal silhouette against the sky.” (92)
-“They’re such beautiful shirts,” she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds. ” It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such-such beautiful shirts before.” (93-94) — an odd and random comment, nonsensical…
-“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.” (97)
-” I looked once more at them and they looked back at me, remotely, possessed by intense life.” (97) Daisy and Gatsby were “in another world”
Chapter 6
-Pg 99 last paragraph
-“but his heart was in a constant, turbulent riot…
-weird imagery
-Gatsby suddenly changes his name
-“changed it at the age of seventeen and at the specific moment that witnessed the beginning of his career”
-It was James Gatz who had been loafing around the beach that afternoon..but it was already Jay Gatsby who borrowed a rowboat..”
-weird imagery/words” “suck on the pap of life”, “gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder”
-Past recollection, like a dream
– “Sometimes a shadow moved against a dressing room blind above, gave way to another shadow, an indefinite procession of shadows, that rouged and powdered in an invisible glass.” -Surrealism
-“Can’t repeat the past? Why of course you can!” (111)–Nonsensical, silly of Gatsby to say that, surreal thought
-“Once there he could suck on the pap of life, gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder.” (112)—metaphorical
Ch8: “…I tossed half-sick between grotesque reality and savage, frightening dreams.” (147)
“For Daisy was young and her artificial world was redolent of orchids and pleasant, cheerful snobbery and orchestras which set the rhythm of the year…” (151) –dream-like world
Ch9: “Most of those reports were a nightmare–grotesque, circumstantial, eager, and untrue.” (164)
