The Great Gatsby - ScreenR on Commentary

The Great Gatsby - Chapter Six Analysis

The chapter is opened to the truth about Jay Gatsby past (which is very different to the rumours and what Gatsby has told of himself).

The story begins with Gatsby being referred to with his birth name (James Gatz) which he changed when he was 17. The reason he did this becomes clear as it is revealed that "his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents at all." (pg78), meaning that he never wanted to believe that he was brought up on an unsuccessful farm run by his parents. He had been ready to change his name for a long time suggesting that he modelled himself on an idealized version of "Jay Gatsby", who becomes a personification of the 'American Dream', by changing his name, he is leaving his past and reinventing himself as someone that comes from wealth.

Though coming from very little wealth and opportunity, he quits from being a janitor - his only source of income - because he finds the work humiliating as it suggests his social class which is at odds to what he believes his social standing to be.

The awkward luncheon reinforces the great difference there is in the book between those who come from inherited wealth and those who come from new money. Tom sees Gatsby as inferior to himself, even though Gatsby may be wealthier.

The Great Gatsby - Chapter Two

In this chapter, the status hierarchy is established. This is introduced through the meeting with Tom and Mr Wilson. Tom greets Mr Wilson in a condescending manner by "slapping him jovially on the shoulder" while saying "Hello, Wilson, old man,". This type of behaviour normally occurs between friends, however Tom and Mr Wilson are none of the sort. Instead, Tom is invading Mr Wilson's personal space and not caring because to Tom, Mr Wilson is not important.

This is the chapter where Myrtle is also introduced. Though Myrtle married a handy man with little status and lives in a standard, run-of-the-mill house, she is a lover of beauty and a social climber and finds that her only escape from the Valley of Ashes is through an affair with a wealthy, high status man. Her attempts to climb in status is shown at the party she holds in her apartment. As the party begins Mrs Wilson changes her outfit and "with the influence of the dress her personality had also undergone a change. The intense vitality that had been so remarkable in the garage was converted into impressive hauteur." However, though she now appears to be a women of status, moments later when she is speaking to a guest, her heritage and true status shines through as she uses the term "fellas", language used by the lower class,also her voice is described as "mincing" which undermines the beauty of her appearance described earlier. This reinforces one of the ideas that Fitzgerald presents, that your heritage, family background and status matter and cannot be ignored.

Myrtle's apartment is also a projected symbol for the world Myrtle lives in as the apartment comes across distorted as "The living-room was crowded to the doors with a set of tapestried furniture entirely too large for it....The only picture was a over-enlarged photograph, apparently a hen sitting on a blurred rock. Looked at from a distance, however, the hen resolved itself into a bonnet, and the countenance of a stout old lady beamed down into the room." - the idea of the furniture being too large for the apartment suggests that like the furniture, Myrtle, too, is out of place. "hard dog-biscuits - one of which decomposed apathetically in the saucer of milk" suggests decay and corruption and points to the affair between Myrtle and Tom.

The Great Gatsby - pg16+

Daisy is shown to be a theatrical character and appears very naive and ignorant. This is shown through her treatment of her husband's affair. After Tom's mistress has called the house while Daisy and guests were at the table, though Daisy "glances searchingly at Miss Baker then at [Nick]" as though she seems to be panicking, she looks outside and describes the nightingale on the lawn as "romantic" and share this feeling of romance with Tom, though moments before he was on the phone to his mistress. The fact that Miss Baker thought "everybody knew" about the affair, and was surprised when Nick did not, suggests that the affair is not well hidden, either due to accident, or lack of sparing his wife's feeling, in any case, it portrays Daisy's habit of putting 'her head in the sand' and not addressing Tom, as fear of the outcome.

Also the fact that when Miss Baker tried explaining that "Tom's got some women in New York" to Nick and Nick replied "blankly" "Got some woman?", unable to grasp the meaning of what Miss Baker was saying shows that there is a world hidden for Nick. That though he is within, he is also without as some concepts of this world are hard for Nick to comprehend.

Chapter two (pg22) is the introduction of the Valley of Ashes where the Wilson's live. The area is described to be full of "hills and grotesque gardens". The contrasting images of "grotesque" and "gardens" is strong, as "gardens" are normally associated with beauty, but placed with the adjective "grotesque", the two ideas clash. The description of the town makes it become non-existent, similar to a ghosts town as it is referred to as a "solemn dumping ground"(pg22)

The Great Gatsby - Depiction of the Buchanan's in the opening chapter

Tom Buchanan is shown in the opening chapter a man of control and authority as when Nick is referring to having been invited for dinner he refers to both Tom and Daisy as the "Tom Buchanas"(pg8). This is reinforced as Nick approaches the Buchanan's house for dinner and "Tom Buchanan in riding clothes was standing with his legs apart on the front porch"(pg9). This stance portrays pride and protectiveness to what is his. He controls Nick right from the moment Nick has stepped foot on their property. "I've got a nice place here,"(pg10) he says and then "[turns Nick] around by one arm"(pg10) and announces that they will "go inside"(pg10).

Daisy presents the opposite persona however. Nick and Daisy are distant cousins, and even barely at that as Nick refers Daisy to an "old friend whom [he] scarcely knew at all". Daisy however, treats Nick as though they are personally very close when she "held [Nick's] hand for a moment, looking up into [Nick's] face, promising that there was no one else in the world she wanted to see."

Commentary on The Tollund Man

In the poem "The Tollund Man", Heaney explores what the Tollund man means to the Irish common people and then what it means to him as a poet. The "country people" or "turfcutters" as Heaney refers to the Irish community as, see the Tollund man as a type of saint, a holy figure that defines their identity. In the third stanza, the tollund man is referred to having a "saint's kept body" as the waters of "fen" have not devoured its victim but transfered the sacrificed, unidentified man into a saint. Whereas, this leads Heaney great shame as the Irish community, people that define who he is, cannot see the brutality and wrongness of the Tollund man. Heaney does not see him as a "saint", as one to be admired but as a murder due to unconventional religious beliefs. Heaney employs the metaphor of the "country people, Not knowing their tongue." to explain the common man illiteracy as they do not understand the archetype of the Tollund Man and what he truely represents.

Seamus Heaney - P.V Glob

Peter Vilhelm Glob was a Danish archaeologist. His most famous of investigations was of Denmark's bog bodies such as Tollund Man and Grauballe Man (mummified remains of Iron and Bronze Age people found preserved bogs)