Are you just starting to read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and need help getting into
or are you trying to make sense of the opening passages of the novel and need some assistance?
If so, stay tuned.
I'm guiding you through the first few pages of this great novel.
One of the very first things you’re going
to notice is that The Great Gatsby uses a first-person narrator.
That first person narrator is Nick Carraway.
There’s no omniscient or limited omniscient narrator who presents us with “complete”
knowledge of the characters and their motivations or with some major overview of all of them.
Instead, everything in the story is filtered through the perspective of the narrator—Nick
Carraway.
First-person narrators can be very compelling
and seductive.
They draw us into their world, but we always have to consider the extent to which we can
trust their interpretations or how their position.
We have to think about how their position in the novel and in their culture influences
the way he perceives the characters and events.
Nick starts by sharing with us advice his
father gave with him when he was younger—advice that he’s “been turning over in [his]
mind ever since.”
What’s this advice?
“Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone.
. .just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve
had.”
So right away we learn that Nick comes from
a certain kind of background—one with advantages.
On the next page, we learn that his “family
have been prominent, well-to-do people in” a “Middle Western city for three generations.”
So they’re fairly settled and established in terms of their socio-economic status.
They also live in the Midwest.
But let’s backtrack to where Nick tells
us that his father’s advice has turned him into the kind of person who’s “inclined
to reserve all judgments.”
So we know that Nick—the narrator tries
to hold off on judging people.
He tries to be open to them and claims that this habit is “a matter of infinite hope.”
Right away, then, we know that Nick possesses or possessed hope—he was an optimistic kind
of person.
Does his sense of optimism and hope change over the course of the novel?
If so, how and why?
However, Nick also admits that his “tolerance”
has a limit and calls attention to what happened to him when “he came back from the East”
last year.
He describes how, when he returned, he “wanted the world to be
in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions
with privileged glimpses into the human heart.”
Hmmm…Let’s think about what’s being
revealed here.
What has he encountered while living on the East coast?
What kind of “riotous”—or turbulent—excursions did he experience there?
Was this a “uniform” world?
What kind of morals did he encounter there?
What were his special glimpses into the human heart?
Why does he want everything to be uniform and
at “a sort of moral attention”?
Think about these questions while you’re
reading!
Keep in mind, though, that he distinguishes
Gatsby right away.
He says that the only person “exempt” from this “reaction” is Gatsby.
There was “something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises
of life”—he had “an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as”
he has “never found in another person.”
Think about the title of the book and the
adjective used to describe Gatsby gift.
Is this a clue into the what makes Gatsby….great?
Stay attuned to clues about Gatsby’s optimism—his
sensitivity to the promises of life.
Are these the first things we learn about Gatsby
once we reenter the world of the East coast through Nick’s memory?
What is his hope?
What is his romantic readiness?
What’s significant about how and when we learn about it?
How does it relate to other depictions of him?
We’ve covered a lot and we’re only gotten
through the first 2 pages, but I know there’s only so much you can absorb at one time.
If you liked this video, I’d love it if you liked it and left a comment or question.
When you’re ready, head over to the next part of this series to get even further into
The Great Gatsby.
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See you then!