American Literature

The Great Gatsby F. Scott

FitzgeraldAndria EvangelouStyliana Xenophondos

Commonplace Book - Styliana “Life is much more successfully looked at from a single window, after all”. I

picked up this quote from chapter 1 where Nick introduces his preoccupation with literature and more specifically he refers to the fact that he wrote a lot of “editorials for the Yale News”. Now that he moved to the East he had to actually recollect himself and be the same person that he was in the Middle West. He says that he has to bring again in his life whatever existed in his previous one. At the very end of the paragraph he says: “Life is much more successfully looked at from a single window, after all”. I took into consideration all these points and what I found is that Nick respects his life. I realized that the reason he does so is because he does not want to overtake whatever he does in his life. I mean that he wants to combine everything that his life is consisted of and be with him wherever he is settled. In other words, he wants his life to be consistent, not separated pieces. He actually sees his life as one life being structured with different parts and experiences but everything is interrelated and connected. In that way, one can respect your life for whatever you have succeeded and done. One would also have the ability to appreciate you since s/he could see your life being one entity with aims, perspectives and values. This is the way one in fact can succeed and look succeeded; with being devoted in something for his/her whole life and whatever s/he does being related to that. Except for that, one has to be a person who accepts his life with both negative and positive sides and bind all these experiences together whether they are closed to the centre of his life or not. Isn’t it hard to believe and realize that wherever you are, your life is the same?

Commonplace Book - Andria

While I was reading the introduction of the The Great Gatsby, I came across with the interesting phrase: ‘’You can wish only on the star you can’t reach’’. This is related to the theme of the green light that the novel is preoccupied with. The green light expresses our desire to be engaged with something even if we do not have the power to achieve it. This could be a longing, a yearning or a dream that we have throughout our lives. We do not have to be preoccupied with the idea of a green ball which falls back to the earth because of the gravity since this is the gravity that pulls dreams back to the earth as well. On the contrary, the green light hovers in the air and gives us hope for a better life and an incentive to keep trying. We should always have a green light in our lives which can be compared to a star. A star offers us a superstition that things will happen the way we want them to. A star influences us and at the same time it prompts us to think of what deserves our worth in planning on and what does not. In other words, we are required to ‘’dream big and dare to fall’’ (Norman Vaughan). The feeling of having something to be bound to is more important than completing our dreams. This way of envisage our dreams keeps us trying to expect a golden opportunity for our future. Moreover, through this path we make the most possible effort to achieve the best result since we try to avoid the barriers that appear on our way to the success. We then gain a variety of experiences and useful knowledge about life. All in all, ‘’[we] can wish only on the star [we] can’t reach’’.

Main Themes

Green Light• Definition to desire• Yearning, longing, dreams• Star • Magic • Distance• Green Light Vs Green Ball

Quotes

• ‘’Involuntarily I glanced seaward – and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock’’ (Ch.I)

• ‘’If it wasn’t for the mist we could see your home across the bay,’ said Gatsby. You always have a green light that burns all night at the end of your dock […] it had seemed as close as a star to the moon. Now it was again a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one’’. (Ch. V,99)

Detailed Description

• People • Garden• Houses

- Colors- Characteristics- Materials

Quotes

• Tom & Daisy’s house:

‘’Their house was even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful red-and-white Georgian Colonial mansion, over-looking the bay. […] brick walls and burning gardens’’ (Ch. I)

• Gatsby’s house:

‘’… period bedrooms swathed in rose and lavender silk and vivid with new flowers, through dressing- rooms and poolrooms, and bath-rooms with sunken baths…’’ (Ch.V)

Gardens

Sweep sunken

Italian

enormous

grotesque

blue

People’s description

Tom‘’Now he was a sturdy straw-haired man of thirty,

with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner. Two shining arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face..’’ (Ch. I)

His body: enormous power great pack of muscle cruel

Mrs Baker ‘’She was a slender, small-breasted girl, with an

erect carriage which she accentuated by throwing her body backward at the shoulders like a young cadet. Her grey sun-strained eyes looked back at me with polite reciprocal curiosity out a wan, charming, discontented face’’ (Ch. I)

• ‘’Golden shoulder’’• ‘’Wan scornful mouth’’

Daisy

Eyes

tense

bright

unhappy

well-loved

Gatsby

Approving eyes Unhappy eyes

Vacant eyes Tanned skin

Short hair

Distraught eyes