I've been thinking about the relationship between Gatsby and Daisy--the initial relationship that he explains retrospectively to Nick--and its implications for the rest of the novel (what a lot of retrospective narrative there is in the text, to be sure!)
It's probably hard for you to feel the force of the confession that he makes, but try to imagine that you are back in the aftermath of the First World War, at a time when young girls were very much protected, and there was a huge premium placed on chastity before marriage. There's Daisy, daghter of a rich family, queen of the neighbourhood, and there's Jay Gatz, with his foreign name and his lack of cash, his only attractions his good looks and his anonymising uniform that gives him a spurious respectability... and then look at these quotations again:
• It excited him, too, that many men had already loved Daisy—it increased her value in his eyes.
• He took what he could get, ravenously and unscrupulously— eventually he took Daisy one still October night, took her because he had no real right to touch her hand.
• He had intended, probably, to take what he could and go—but now he found that he had committed himself to the following of a grail.
• He felt married to her, that was all.
What do you think?
Sorry bit of a stupid question but can our copies of Great Gatsby have any annotations. Can i lightly underline a few key words in pencil or does it need to be completely blank?
ReplyDeleteThanks
No, no and no again.... You must be VERY careful not to have annotations in your Gatsby. All copies should be clean.
ReplyDeleteMemorise your key words and quotations--as though it's closed book.