1. Independent Study – Spend only 1 hour
SECTION A PRACTICE QUESTIONS:
• How is the story told in Chapter One of The Great
Remember you are being marked on
Gatsby?
AO2 only on this question
AND
• Even though Nick claims he’s not judgemental, his
presentation of the other characters encourages
the reader to make their own judgements about
them.’ To what extent do you agree with this
statement? Refer to the text in your answer.
AO1: being able to write about narrative analytically
AO2: being able to deconstruct the text, to look at technical authorial methods
AO3: being able to lay bare the possibilities of interpretation
AO4: understanding that evidence for your readings is in the relationship between
what is in the text itself and what you yourself bring to it. Context is included in
the question you just have to look for it. Remember context can be: cultural,
modern, autobiographical, historical and its reception too.
Remember you are being marked on
AO1, 3 and 4 on this question

2. Chapter 2

3. Exploring the Narrative of The Great
Gatsby
Learning Objective:
How does Fitzgerald tell the story in Chapter 2 of the Great
Gatsby?
Learning Outcome:
To explore Fitzgerald’s use of:
• Time and Sequence
• Characters and Characterisation
• Points of View
• Voices in texts
• Scenes and Places
• Destination

4. The Valley of Ashes
CONTRASTS
Wheat and gardens
are associated with
life and nature. Ashes
are dead and
depressing.
Combining them
shows that beauty has
been destroyed.
This is a valley of ashes – a fantastic
farm where ashes grow like wheat
into ridges and hills and grotesque
gardens; where ashes take the
forms of houses and chimneys and
rising smoke and, finally with a
transcendent effort, of ash-grey
men, who move dimly and already
crumbling through the powdery air.
IMAGERY
The image of “transcendent effort” shows how all the men’s effort is
taken up in just existing. But despite their struggle to survive, they’re
“already crumbling”.
LISTS
Fitzgerald gives
long lists of objects
made from ash to
emphasis the scale
of decay.
Repetition of ‘and’
slows the pace,
emphasising the
trudging drudgery
of life in the valley.

5. Romantic Modernism
Remember how we discussed:
• The Romantic era was a late 18th to early 19th
century artistic movement. The poets of the
Romantic era focused on celebrating the beauty
of nature and favoured emotion over reason.
• The early 20th century saw rapid technological
change driven by the demands of war. Some
writers responded to this by experimenting with
unconventional language and structure. The era
was called Modernism.

6. Romantic Modernism in Chapter 2
Fitzgerald was excited by the new Modernist writing style –
but he still wanted to make ‘something new’. He merged
poetic Romanticism with the sparse style of the Modernists
and incorporated advertising slogans and slang:
• Chapter 2 opens with the lyrical description of the “ash-grey
men” who work with “transcendent effort”. This follows the
Romantic tradition of idealised images of workmen. However
Fitzgerald’s workmen are not farm labourers working the
fields – rather than being close to nature, they are covered in
urban grime.
• Fitzgerald uses slang to describe T.J. Eckleburg as a “wild wag
of an oculist” whose advertising looms over the valley. In a
postwar world, the existence of God was in question.
Fitzgerald uses Eckleburg’s image as a substitute god. To make
this link explicit, even the substitute god has abandoned his
people because Eckleburg “sank down himself into eternal
blindness or forgot them and moved away”.

7. T.S. Eliot
Fitzgerald admired the modernist poet T.S. Eliot – he
called himself a “worshipper” of Eliot’s poetry.
Eliot’s long poem, The Waste Land was published in
1922. The poem’s representation of a sterile
landscape, where everyone is isolated and unable to
love, voiced a common concern of the 1920s.
Eliot’s ‘waste land’ may have inspired Fitzgerald’s idea
of the desolate valley of ashes in The Great Gatsby.
THE WASTE LAND
•The people of Eliot‟s
waste land “know only
a heap of broken
images”.
THE GREAT GATSBY
•Fitzgerald suggests that the
powerful images of
communications and advertising
have replaced the „real‟ person or
idea, e.g. Jordan looks like a “good
illustration” and God is an advert.
The valley of ashes is central to Fitzgerald’s vision of a desolate world, full of
images but empty of meaning.

8. Unhappy Marriages
Only three marriages are specifically mentioned in The Great Gatsby and
none of them seem very happy.
Buchanans
•Myrtle’s description of how she met Tom suggests that he has had many affairs. She says “he
know I’d lied” – this shows he’s confident and practiced in his seduction.
•Catherine says Daisy refuses to divorce Tom because she’s “a Catholic”, but Nick knows she
isn’t. This implies that Tom has lied to Myrtle to hide the fact that he doesn’t want to leave
Daisy.
•He refuses to allow Myrtle to even say Daisy’s name and breaks her nose when she starts
shouting it. This suggests Tom has strong feelings of possessiveness towards Daisy.
Wilsons
•Myrtle resents and despises Wilson. When he’s mentioned, her response is “violent and
obscene”.
•She thinks he’s beneath her socially, and claims that “he wasn’t fit to lick my shoe”.
•She won’t accept that it was her choice to marry him, saying she mistook him for a
“gentleman”.
Mckees
•Mr McKee has photographed his wife “a hundred and twenty-seven times”, which could
suggest that he’s obsessed with her as a visual object, rather than as an individual.
•Their lack of communication reinforces this – he ignores Mrs McKee for most of the party,
shushing her at one point and only acknowledging her by nodding “in a bored way”.
All three marriages seem to be more
about appearances than love.

9. Chapter 2
• Write a one sentence summary
• Choose a single quotation to sum up the chapter
• What can you say about chapter two and each of
the aspects of narrative?
–
–
–
–
–
–
Time and Sequence
Characters and Characterisation
Points of View
Voices in texts
Scenes and Places
Destination

10. An eponymous character is
the title character of the
work e.g. Gatsby in The
Great Gatsby.
Chapter 3

11. Structure and Language in the
Opening of Chapter 3
• How does Fitzgerald begin Chapter 3? What might be
his purpose in beginning with something other than
plot?
• What do you notice about the language and style of
the opening paragraphs?
• Why might have Fitzgerald changed tenses in the
fourth paragraph? What is the effect on the reader?
• Why might there be an absence of first person in this
section?
• Why does the present tense section end in such a short
sentence: “The party has begun”?

12. How is the story told in Chapter 3?
Each group is responsible for feeding back one of the following
sections of Chapter 3:
• From ‘I believe that on that first night…’ to their arrival on the
library ‘…complete from some ruin overseas.’
• The library ‘A stout, middle-aged man …’ to Miss Baker being
summoned to see Gatsby ‘…Mr Gatsby would like to speak to
you alone.’
• From Miss Baker being summoned to see Gatsby ‘…Mr Gatsby
would like to speak to you alone.’ to the end of the chapter.
You are looking for:
• How the story is told (AO2)
• The Aspects of Narrative

13. What’s in a name…
Daisy - Think of daisies and you see a bright yellow
centre, crisp white petals, and a tall green stem. I also bet
you’re smiling; daisies just make us happy and are
considered to be delicate and beautiful. They’re hardy
and dependable and they have a lasting bloom, even in
drought. But they also just have an ephemeral quality
that draws people in and are easily recognised. While
some plants that are called daisies are actually
chrysanthemums, there’s a set of true daisies that all
started from the wild original, called OxEye. OxEye is
undoubtedly the vision of daisy in your mind, but in some
states of America, OxEye is actually illegal to plant as it is
considered a noxious weed.
Daisies are popular and beautiful but have some darker traits under the surface, like
being potentially invasive. They also last.

14. What’s in a name…
Myrtle - While there are lots of plants called myrtle
- crape myrtle, wax myrtle, sand myrtle -plants in
the true Myrtle family are rarely planted by
homeowners. Primarily native to Southern Europe
and the Mediterranean regions, myrtle is a tough,
scrappy shrub. Most people could not recognise
the myrtle plant. While it was popular in England in
the 16th to 18th centuries, it fell out of favour due
to an influx of new, hardier options being
introduced from the Americas. (As a Mediterranean
native, myrtle didn’t love England’s harsh winters.
Myrtle is tough and scrappy. It survives in harsh native conditions but can struggle
in new climates. Myrtle, who, in the book, lives in a place called “The Valley of
Ashes,” and, after trying to make her way in a different world, doesn’t make it in
the end.

15. What’s in a name…
Jordan - The name Jordan is a non-gender specific
name. Jordan is a woman who defies the image of
the typical woman of the 1920s. An athlete who
excels in golf and a woman who does more or less
as she pleases, her characteristics lead her name to
suit her beautifully. Her name is a play on the two
then-popular automobile brands, the Jordan Motor
Car Company and the Baker Motor Vehicle, alluding
to Jordan's "fast" reputation and the freedom now
presented to Americans, especially women, in the
1920s.

16. The GREAT Gatsby
What is in a name …
The Old World (Europe) had its great rulers:
Alexander the Great, Peter the Great, Frederick
the Great, Catherine the Great.
In the United States, the epithet ‘the great’ was
more likely to be attached to the name of some
vaudeville magician or stage illusionist in a
popular entertainment.
Vaudeville: Stage entertainment offering a
variety of short acts such as slapstick turns,
song-and-dance routines, and juggling
performances.

17. Jay Gatsby
Jay Gatsby certainly defines himself according to
European values, importing clothes and cars from
England, living in a mansion based on a French model,
and affecting the lifestyle of an Old World aristocrat. But
his efforts do not convince; the traces of the boy from the
American Midwest are evident through the veneer of
sophistication, surfacing in moments of nervousness and
uncertainty. He seems, then closer to the New World
version of ‘greatness’- The Great Gatsby, surrounded by
props and assistants, conjuring magical effects which are
almost, but not quite, believable.

18. Nick
It is Nick who makes Jay Gatsby into ‘The Great
Gatsby’ and as we read we need to ask what kind of
man this narrator is. Why is he so drawn to the
man who was his neighbour? What does this
attraction reveal about his own character? Why
should a studious worker in New York’s financial
sector decide to write a book about a man with
shady underworld connections and unexplained
wealth? What drives a solid Midwesterner, with
apparently old-fashioned values, to write a lyrical
account of a man tragically obsessed with a
youthful love affair?

19. The City
In the 1920s America was becoming an urban society, it’s
life was increasingly city-based, and that also complicates
the notion of ‘greatness’. Inhabitants of cities tend to
become anonymous, to be drawn into the mass, and
Fitzgerald shared a sense amongst writers of the time
that America had become a culture of mass production
and mass consumption.
In the urban, industrialised, standardised world of the
twentieth century, heroic literary figures became more
and more scarce. The individual achieving distinction
through combat or quest or adventurous deeds had been
largely displaced by the anti-hero, the passive victim,
carried along on the tide of events, without control over
his or her destiny.

20. Independent Study
• Write a one sentence summary for Chapters 2 and 3
• Choose a single quotation to sum up each chapter
• What can you say about chapters 2 and 3 and each of
the aspects of narrative?
–
–
–
–
–
–
Time and Sequence
Characters and Characterisation
Points of View
Voices in texts
Scenes and Places
Destination
Next week it’s Chapters 4 and 5 so reread please.