Gatsby and Othello merged

lexical field of value and worth Act 1 Scene 1

• “I know my price, I am worth my place“

• “my purse” - metaphor, deceptive

“I am not what I am”

• Act 1 Scene 1

• paradoxical phrase, immediately establishes antagonist.

• Foreshadows duplicity.

“An old black ram is tupping your white ewe”

• Act 1 scene 1

• innocence and purity juxtaposed by animalistic and dehumanising imagery - alludes to his skin, evil

• possessive pronoun - women as objects

“A Barbary horse, you’ll have your nephews neigh to you… jennets for germans”

• Act 1 Scene 1

• extended metaphor, breeding derogatory.

• Barbary horse - North Africa - animalistic and dehumanising

“to the gross clasps of a lascivious Moor”

• Act 1 scene 1

• racial epithet, lustful, lecherous - negative and sinful adjectives

“gentle Desdemona”

• Act 1 scene 2

• purity and innocence

“let Him do his spite; My services which i have done.. shall out-tongue his complaints”

• Act 1 scene 2

• imperative - doesn’t care - self assured and confident inn marriage.

• Confidence in achievements.

Brabantio’s sense of possession and ownership + magical/witchcraft - accusatory

• Act 1 scene 2

• “oh foul thief”

• “chains of magic”

• “abused her delicte youth with drugs and minerals”

“For if such actions may have passage free, Bondslaves and pagans shall our statesmen be”

• Act 1 scene 2

• Two lines written in a rhyming couplet. Interracial marriage will ‘doom’ society - order and morality will be lost

“valient Moor”

• Act 1 scene 3

• oxymoron - still referred to by derogatory term “moor’ even when being complimented/respected

“grief”

• Act 1 scene 3

• abstract noun, he has lost her/she is dead to him

“My daughter! Oh my daughter”

• Act 1 scene 3

• possessive pronoun. repeated ownership.

semantic field of abuse and witchcraft, act 1 scene 3

• “abused”

• “stol’n”

• “corrupted”

• “spells and medicines”

• “witchcraft”

• “foul”

• “bloody book of law” (death penalty)

why Othello and Desdemona fell in love, act 1 scene 3

• “earnest heart”, “her tears”

• “she’d come again, and with greedy ear devour up my discourse”

“look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see: She has deceived her father and may thee/My life upon her faith”

• Act 1 scene 3

• rhyming couplet - Desdemona is untrustworthy - foreshadowing

• exclamatory - foreshadowing betting his life on her loyalty.

“virtue? a Fig! ‘Tis ourselves that we are thus or thus”

• Act 1 scene 3

• Ridiculing virtue.

• we are in control of who we are

• Iago admitting that he can design who he is.

• Manipulation.

Iago’s soliloquy, act 1 scene 3

• “And it is thought abroad that ‘twixt my sheets He’s done my office”

• “Hell and night must bring this monstrous birth to the world’s light” (semantic field of evil - devil)

“You are pictures out of doors, bells in your parlours, wild-cats in your kitchens, saints in your injuries, devils being defended, players in your housewifery, housewives in your beds”

• Act 2 scene 1

• women are duplicitous, deceptive and fickle.

• Misogynistic generalisations

“Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation… what remains is bestial”

• Act 2 scene 3

• epizeuxis.

• Without reputation he is nothing but a beast

“I never knew a florentine more kind and honest”

• Act 3 scene 1

• Florentine not known for kindness.

• dramatic irony.

• machiavelli came from Florence - sneaky, cunning, lacks a moral code - duplicitous

“O beware, my lord, of jealousy: it is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on. That cuckold lives in bliss”

• Act 3 scene 3

• metaphor cruelty - all consuming.

• Indirectly saying Othello is a cuckold

“As he shall smile, Othello shall go mad”

• act 4 scene 1

• plan - marks Othello’s decent into madness

• irony, foreshadowing, parallelism

“What art thou?” “your wife, my lord; your true and loyal wife”

• act 4 scene 2

• anaphora - reinforces loyalty

“thou art false as hell”

• act 4 scene 2

• simile

• allusion

“Kind gentlemen, let's go see poor cassio dressed”

• act 5 scene 1

• dramatic irony

• Iago wants Cassio dead as he sees him as a threat (Emilia and Othello)

“demand me nothing; what you know, you know. From this forth I will never speak again”

• Act 5 scene 2

• still in control

• cruel and stubborn

“I’m inclined to reserve all judgment”

ironic, Nick is an unreliable narrator. Chapter 1

“Gatsby turned out all right in the end; it was what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams”

Foreshadowing - dust connotes being left - death. “foul” negative adjective .“dreams” abstract noun. In the context of the entire novel seems ironic considering his death but may Nick may have been referring to is persistent optimistic and hopeful outlook.

Chapter 1

“life is much more successfully looked at from a single window, after all”

metaphor - focus on one thing - ironic - Nick is an unreliable narrator. Outsider - manageable/understandable.

Chapter 1

“West Egg the less fashionable… most superficial tag”

superlative highlights the hollowness of the upper class

Chapter 1

“it was a factual imitation of some Hotel de Ville in Normandy”

Superficial - appearance. European - construction of fashionable lifestyle. Grand.

Chapter 1

“white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered”

“white” connotes emptiness and elitism “glittered” dreamlike and captivating imagery - unattainable

Chapter 1

“breeze blew”, “rippled”, “buoyed”, “balloon”, “rippling and fluttering”, “blown”, “ballooned”

Semantic field of light, care-fee, frivolity. “ballon” - emptiness, superficial vacuous

“was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died out”

“as though he were moving a checker to another square”

Onomatopoeia. Dominance - aggressive presence. Wealthy, white man - control and power.

metaphor control

Chapter 1

Descriptions of Jordan Baker

“her chin raised a little”, “bantering inconsequence” (chatter + noise - no substance) - Chapter 1

“incurably dishonest”, “everyone knew her name” - Chapter 3

Descriptions of Daisy

“an absurd, charming little laugh”, “white dress” - Chapter 1

“Daisy’s voice on a clear artificial note” - appearance vs reality - meretricious society. Chapter 5

“he stretched out his arms towards the dark water.. a single green light”

Physical display. Yearning. Desperation. Unattainable. - Chapter 1

“the Valley of ashes”

presented as a grey, ashen and suffocating setting in the novel which represents the plight of the lower, working classes in 1920s America. Chapter 2.

“fantastic farm.. grotesque gardens”

alliteration meant to be prosperous production. Chapter 2.

“ashes”, “desolate”, “grey”, “ghastly”, “ash-grey”, “impenetrable cloud”, “grey land”

Lexical field of lifelessness and decay - foreshadowing death. Chapter 2

“move dimly”, “crumbling”, “crawls”, “creak”, “spasms of bleak dust”, “drift endlessly”

Lexical field of slow movement - labour - overworked - death. Chapter 2

“His eyes brood on over the solemn dumping ground”

chapter 2

“waste land”

alludes to T.S. Elliots poem ‘the waste land’ - broken + disillusionment of society post war. Chapter 2

Mrs Wilson description

“Tom Buchanan’s mistress” (lack of official status), “she brought a copy of Town tattle.. some cold cream and a small flask of perfume” (consumerism - gossip magazines - desire for social mobility) - Chapter 2

“I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible" variety of life”

Paradox - outsider in the action. Contrast - repulsed by wealth, waste and futility vs hedonism. Endless, meaningless pursuit of fun - superficial. Chapter 2

Jordan Baker - dishonesty and status

“I was flattered”, “golf champion”, “everyone new her name”, “big gold tournament”, “proportions of a scandal”, “the incident and the name had remained together in my mind” “incurable dishonesty” “wasn’t able to endure being at a disadvantage” - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

• “young men don’t drift cooly out of nowhere”

• “men and girls came and went like moths”

• “hair is bobbed in strange new ways and shawls beyond the dreams of Castile” - imperial wealth. myth.

Chapter 4

• “Fixed the world series back in 1919”

• “resourcefulness of movement that is so peculiarly American”

• “Old sport”

• “hearse heaped with blooms.. cheerful carriage… sombre holiday”

• “leaving his elegant sentences unfinished and slapping himself on the knee of his caramel coloured suit”

“educated at Oxford… it is a family tradition”

desire for aristocracy - unattainable. Lies and construction of past. Chapter 4

“puddle of water”, “rain”, “ripple”, “plunge”

lexical field of water - foreshadowing drowning Chapter 5

“reclining on the mantelpiece in a strained counterfeit of perfect ease”

fake/inauthentic - criminal - built on falseness . Chapter 5

“I’m sorry about the clock”

Gatsby stuck in the past. Clumsy - unable to achieve the past. Chapter 5

“he literally glowed”, “radiated”, ‘it stopped raining’, “twinkle-bells of sunshine”

motif of light - synesthesia. romanticising. Chapter 5

“Marie Antoinette”, “Merton College Library”, “Chartreuse”

European allusions - construction of appearance. Marie Antoinette killed for use money. Chapter 5

“Daisy’s voice had a clear artificial note”

• chapter 5

• meretricious society

“The exhilarating ripple of her voice was a wild tonic in the rain”

• chapter 5

• water imagery - painting unreal hope or illusion

• medicinal intoxicating

chapter 6

• “she was appalled by West Egg”

• “Tom was evidently perturbed at Daisy’s running around alone”

• “peculiar quality of opressivness”

• “He took them ceremoniously from group to group”

• “its raw vigour that chaffed under the old euphemisms”

chapter 7

“Her voice is full of money,”

“They're a rotten crowd...You're worth the whole damn bunch put together.”

chapter 8

"He must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream.”

“You can’t repeat the past … why of course you can!”

“the holocaust was complete”

Massacre - hyperbolic (written before the holocaust). Last line of Chapter 8.

“Most of those reports were a nightmare - grotesque, circumstantial, eager, and untrue

Metaphor - contrasts quest for American dream. Quadratic list. Chapter 9

“catastrophe”, “nightmare”, “holocaust”

lexical field of disaster. Chapter 9

“somebody” repeated

indefinite pronoun - connotes importance - Gatsby is alone - other relationships were superficial. Chapter 9

“I’m afraid there’s no one” Chapter 9

“Mr nobody from nowhere”

“most terrible” “cannot get mixed up in this thing now”

Superlative - no depth - relationship was only ever business

doesn’t want to damage reputation - selfish nature of the world Gatsby was a part of - corrupt. Chapter 9

“He told me I et like a hog once, and I beat him for it”

ashamed of family - social mobility. Chapter 9

“drizzle”, “wet”, “soggy”, “rain”

Lexical field of water - Gatsby death - pool - ominous mood. Chapter 9

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

Collective plural. Metaphor - caught between future and past. Adverb “ceaselessly” - without stopping. Denouement (final part of the book - plots drawn together + explanasion) Chapter 9.

Chapter 9

“Dutch sailor’s eyes - a fresh green breast of the new world”

“smashed up things and creature and retreated back into their vast carelessness”

“West Egg still figure in my more fantastical dreams. I see it as a night scene by El Greco: a hundred houses, at once conventional and grotesque, crouching under a sullen overhanging sky and a lustrous moon”

• chapter 9

• “Crouching” - vulnerability/guilt - moral/melancholy.

• “lustrous moon” - out of reach. romanticised

• El Greco - distorted, dark and dreamlike paintings - fantasies and illusions

• contrasting adjs “grotesque” and “conventional” - mimic tradition but lacks authenticity

jazz age

• chaotic, extravagant, bubbling, frivolous, hedonistic

• coined by F. Scott Fitzgerald ‘tales of the Jazz age’ (a collection of short stories)

• began at the end of WW1

• ended with the wall street crash in 1929

• urban society

• revival of the KKK and growing anti-foreign sentiment

• ‘Roaring Twenties’

How many books were sold in its first year - 1925?

selling fewer than 20,000 copies in its first years

American Dream

• US is a land of opportunity that allows for upward mobility, freedom and equality for all classes that work hard

• declaration of independence 1776 ‘We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal’ ‘unalienable rights’ of ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’

• James Truslow Adams defined the ‘American Dream’ in his 1931 book ‘The Epic of America’ as ‘not a dream of motor cars and high wages, but a dream of social order… able to attain the fullest stature of what they are capable’ but he also warns about unbridled capitalism and mass consumption: ‘wasteful and unjust system’

economic boom

• mass production

• age of the automobile (social mobility)

• technology innovations - telephone

• modern consumer culture

• growth of the advertising industry

• 2nd Industrial revolution transformed the US into a global economic power drawing millions to American cities

• growing electrification of the US: households with electricity: 1916 -12% — 1927 - 63%

role of women

• working women increased by 25%

• 1920s women given the right to vote

• ‘Flappers’ - young woman known for wearing short dresses and bobbed hair and for embracing freedom from traditional societal constraints.

• divorce rate increased dramatically in the 1920s, reflecting changing social norms about marriage and relationships

wealth and aristocracy

• neveux riche vs veux riche

• The wealth disparity was stark, with a small, wealthy aristocracy/"Old Money" contrasting sharply with the nouveau riche/”New Money” who amassed fortunes in new industries.

• In 1929 (just before the Great Depression) the richest 1% of Americans owned about 40% of the nation's wealth.

agricultural depression

• machinery led to expensive debts and greater efficiency.

• more efficient - surplus of food - fewer labourers - urban migration - social disparity

Writer’s craft context

• titular protagonist

• unreliable narrator - first person - retrospective

• circular narrative

• eyes motif - Doctor T.J. Eckleburg almost become a moral conscience witnessing some of the most corrupt moments of the novel (affair, death and wasteland). To George they are the eyes of God (Standing behind him, Michaelis saw with a shock that he was looking at the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg, which had just emerged, pale and enormous, from the dissolving night.“God sees everything,” repeated Wilson.“That’s an advertisement,”) . But, the end up being another product of the materialistic culture, set up to “fatten his practice”. Their function as a divine being who watched and judges is thus ultimately null, and the novel is left without a moral anchor.

Valley of ashes

• based on an industrial area in queens

• stretch of wasteland which sits between Manhattan and west egg (not real) and connects them

• excess of wealth can’t be achieved without exploiting another part of society

Great Wall street crash

• The stock market crash of 1929 shattered the illusion of endless prosperity, leading to the Great Depression.

Bootlegging

• Bootlegging refers to the illegal production and distribution of alcohol or other goods.

• By the mid-1920s, New York City had an estimated 30,000 speakeasies, clandestine bars

• rise in organised crime

Prohibition

• a nationwide constitutional ban on the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages from 1920 to 1933.

• Volstead act and 18th amendment introduced in 1919

The lost generation

• generation that came of age during World War

• It’s estimated that 300,000 American soldiers returned home with symptoms of "shell shock" or psychological trauma.

death

• number of deaths from automobile accidents nearly tripled from 1919 to 1929 - recklessness

• 120,000 American soldiers died

Isolation

• 1920 - The U.S. Census indicated for the first time that more Americans lived in urban areas than rural ones.

• paradoxically led to increased loneliness despite being surrounded by others

Chapter 1

Nicks intro, first description of Gatsby’s home, Buchanans house, first spotting of Gatsby

Chapter 2

valley of ashes, Wilson’s garage, Party at Tom’s New York apartment

Chapter 3

Jay Gatsby invites Nick Carraway to his party where they meet, there is a car crash outside the party, Nick reveals that Jordan Baker is a liar.

Chapter 4

Gatsby tries to impress Nick in a car ride, Nick is introduced to Wolfshiem

Chapter 5

Nick invites Daisy to tea, they tour Gatsby’s house

Chapter 6

Gatsby seeks out Nick after Tom and Daisy leave the party; he is unhappy because Daisy has had such an unpleasant time.

Chapter 7

Tom confronts Gatsby about his affair, Daisy kills Myrtle with Gatsby's car.

Chapter 8

Gatsby’s recounting of his initial courting of Daisy, Wilson shoots Gatsby, then shoots himself.

Chapter 9

funeral

American Dream critical view

• ‘Only Gatsby genuinely lives and breaths. The rest are mere marionettes' Mencken

• ‘Gatsby is the apotheosis of his rootless society… he really believes in himself and his illusions’ A.E. Dyson

• ‘Becoming Tom was Gatsby’s dream’ Jacqueline Lance

• ‘Gatsby is somewhat vague. The reader’s eyes can never quite focus upon him, his outlines are dim’ Thomas Flanagan

Class critical view

• ‘A Myrtle is a common, evergreen, bushy shrub’ Ian and Michelle McMechan

• ‘By attempting to maintain his was of life, Tom as reduced whole people to the ashes without any thought of consequence’ Christine Ramos

• ‘Daisy is torn between a desire for freedom and the need for stability’ K.Fraiser

Gender critical view

• ‘Ownership of women is invoked as the index of power: he who possesses Daisy Fay is the most powerful boy’ Fetterly

• ‘Reinforces the patriarchal standpoint through its representation of women as limited and shallow’ Lois Tyson

Immorality critical view

• “The imagery of decay, death and corruption infects the story and it’s here too’ Cassie E. Herman

• ‘Daisy has a monstrous moral indifference and vicious emptiness’ Maruis Bewley

• ‘Nick portrays Gatsby as ‘great’ and undermines anything that might undermine that image’ Claire Stocks

Contemporary perspective

• accept ‘traditional’ gender roles

• warning of loss of values in a fast-pace and increasingly consumeristic world

• lack enthusiasm for the themes as the optimism of the ‘Jazz age’ juxtaposes the novel’s cynicism

• Gatsby was a criminal figure - immoral and foolish

• The contemporary leisure class rejected it as it exposed their own superficiality, moral emptiness and carelessness - sees Gatsby as a threat not a hero

Modern perspective

• Nick’s detachment parallels Gen z and Millenia cynical world views

• Nick is biased against women

• performative identities mirrors social media - curated identity that is an illusion

• novels racial dynamic - no non-white characters and racist/elitist views protected by privilege