✯✯✯ The Great Gatsby Close Reading Analysis

Retrieved November Because I Could Not Stop For Death In Emily Dickinsons Poems, Key American Dream Quotes In this section we analyze some of the most The Great Gatsby Close Reading Analysis quotes The Great Gatsby Close Reading Analysis relate to the American Dream in the book. Romeo himself is the embodiment of someone containing contrasting elements. The role of dialogue in Waiting for Godot or any other play. Pearson asserted that The Great Gatsby Close Reading Analysis work—more so than other twentieth The Great Gatsby Close Reading Analysis novels—is especially linked with this conceptualization of the American dream. Find related themes, quotes, symbols, characters, and more.

Teaching 'The Great Gatsby' — A Common Core Close Reading Seminar

Another example of Jordan's observant wit , this quote about Daisy is Jordan's way of suggesting that perhaps Daisy's reputation is not so squeaky-clean as everyone else believes. After all, if Daisy were the only sober one in a crowd of partiers, it would be easy for her to hide less-than-flattering aspects about herself. Suddenly I wasn't thinking of Daisy and Gatsby any more but of this clean, hard, limited person who dealt in universal skepticism and who leaned back jauntily just within the circle of my arm.

In this moment, Nick reveals what he finds attractive about Jordan—not just her appearance though again, he describes her as pleasingly "jaunty" and "hard" here , but her attitude. She's skeptical without being fully cynical, and remains upbeat and witty despite her slightly pessimistic outlook. At this point in the story, Midwestern Nick probably still finds this exciting and attractive, though of course by the end he realizes that her attitude makes it hard for her to truly empathize with others, like Myrtle.

In contrast to Daisy who says just before this, rather despairingly, "What will we do today, and then tomorrow, and for the next thirty years? As we'll discuss later, perhaps since she's still unmarried her life still has a freedom Daisy's does not, as well as the possibility to start over. While she's not exactly a starry-eyed optimist, Jordan does show resilience and an ability to start things over and move on. This allows her to escape the tragedy at the end relatively unscathed.

It also fits how Jordan doesn't seem to let herself get too attached to people or places, which is why she's surprised by how much she felt for Nick. I don't give a damn about you now but it was a new experience for me and I felt a little dizzy for a while. Jordan doesn't frequently showcase her emotions or show much vulnerability, so this moment is striking because we see that she did really care for Nick to at least some extent. Notice that she couches her confession with a pretty sassy remark "I don't give a damn about you now" which feels hollow when you realize that being "thrown over" by Nick made her feel dizzy—sad, surprised, shaken—for a while.

Jordan, like Tom, is usually roped into essay topics to be compared with Daisy the way Tom is often contrasted with Gatsby or sometimes George , or to make a larger argument about the role of women more generally. Since Jordan isn't as major of a character as Daisy, Gatsby, or even Tom, it's rare to get a standalone essay just about Jordan. To read some excellent detailed analysis of how to compare Jordan to Myrtle or Daisy, check out our article on comparing and contrasting the novel's characters.

Make sure to move beyond the obvious when writing about Jordan —yes, she has a job while Daisy and Myrtle are both married, but what else makes her stand out? Pay special attention to how Jordan is described versus Daisy, Jordan's dialogue, and Jordan's focus—it's clear that Jordan is often focused outward, observing other characters and their interactions, while Daisy tends to be turned inward, with her own emotions. Despite the progress in women's rights made in the early twentieth century, including the right to vote won in , most women, especially wealthy women, were expected to marry, have children, and stay at home.

Daisy sticks to this prescribed societal role by marrying and having a child. But Jordan plays golf professionally, "runs around the country" and doesn't seem to be in a hurry to marry 1. In short, on the surface, it appears that Daisy is a traditionalist while Jordan is expanding the possibilities of a woman's life. However, Daisy and Jordan aren't exactly a straightforward housewife and career woman duo. First of all, Daisy is quite removed from her role as a mother, since her daughter Pammy is mostly raised by a maid.

She also seriously contemplates leaving Tom during the novel. Meanwhile, Jordan tells Nick at the end of the novel she's engaged. Whether or not this is true, it suggests that Jordan will certainly get married one day, and that her current golf career is just a temporary diversion, not a permanent independent lifestyle. Indeed, both Daisy and Jordan are also both at the mercy of their families : Daisy derives all of her wealth and power from Tom, while Jordan is beholden to her old aunt for money. They don't actually have much control over their own wealth and would lose everything if they went too far out of line.

So while Daisy and Jordan both typify a very showy lifestyle that looks liberated—being "flappers," having sex, drinking in public which before the s was seen as a highly indecent thing for a woman to do , playing golf professionally in Jordan's case—they in fact are still thoroughly constrained by the limited options women had in the s in terms of making their own lives.

Jordan briefly narrates in Chapter 4. How is Jordan's narration different from Nick's? Why rely on her narration at all? What would the novel be like from her point of view? Jordan's narration is definitely distinct from Nick's. Her diction is a bit sharper and she has more blatantly judgmental asides , calling Daisy "drunk as a monkey" 4. She also uses more vivid imagery: the red, white, and blue banners on the houses flapping "tut-tut-tut-tut" in a "disapproving way" 4. Her choice of words is a pretty good insight into her character and how sharply observant she is!

So why is there a section narrated by Jordan at all? Perhaps Nick leans on Jordan because he feels unqualified to talk about Daisy's past. After all, aside from their conversation in Chapter 1, Nick doesn't have close conversations with Daisy. But since Nick gets to know Gatsby through several close conversations, he feels comfortable telling about Gatsby's past.

You also get the sense he's washing his hands of whatever Jordan reveals about Daisy. He doesn't fully trust in the details or really care about Daisy's story, using it only as a means of understanding Gatsby. It's also notable that Nick uses Michealis's point of view to talk about the aftermath of Myrtle's death, which in a similar manner suggests he feels less connected to the Wilsons than he does to Gatsby. The novel from Jordan's point of view would likely be much less sentimental when it comes to Gatsby. Nick obviously idealizes him by the end while Jordan doesn't seem to see him as anything more than a source of fun and intrigue.

We would also likely get a much better sense of Daisy's motivations and thought process throughout the novel, something we barely get access to with Nick's narration. Daisy's motto: if you don't have anything nice to say, come and sit by me. Extra Advice: Want to get into the best college you can? Read our famous guide on how to get into Harvard, the Ivy League, and your top choice college. In this guide, you'll learn:. Even if you're not actually interested in Ivy League schools, you'll still learn something fundamental about how to apply to college. Read our top college admissions guide today. These are questions that many students have about Jordan after reading Gatsby for the first time.

These are points that don't come up as often in essay topics or study guides, so give them a look if you're still wondering about Jordan's feelings and motivations! Daisy professes her feelings to not one but two men in Chapter 7, and Myrtle makes her attraction to Tom Buchanan clear. Jordan, in contrast, is not one to make her feelings so plainly known, so it's not surprising that many students wonder if she even likes Nick at all. Like Gatsby, Jordan seems drawn to Nick because he presents himself as a stable, honest, and grounded personality in the midst of many larger-than-life, overbearing types.

She even says that she's drawn to him because he's cautious. There's also a part in the book where Nick says that Jordan tends to prefer being with people she can dominate or pull one over on, and Nick does seem to rely on her for emotional strength at some points for example in the car when he's thinking about turning Nick and Jordan break up right at the moment when she can't control his actions —can't make him go into the house, can't make him apologize for ignoring her.

By the end of the book, Jordan does admit that she was rather thrown by the break-up, suggesting she came to have somewhat deeper feelings for him. In fact, their break-up scene is worth looking at in full to really answer this question:. Well, I met another bad driver, didn't I? I mean it was careless of me to make such a wrong guess. I thought you were rather an honest, straightforward person. I thought it was your secret pride. She didn't answer. Angry, and half in love with her, and tremendously sorry, I turned away.

She also criticizes Nick for mischaracterizing himself as honest and straightforward when he dispatched her pretty coldly over the phone. In short, we can tell she has definitely been thinking their short relationship over and was shocked and hurt by how abruptly things ended. In Chapter 3, Jordan attends one of Gatsby's parties and is called upstairs to speak with him.

We can infer that Gatsby has heard she is staying with Daisy Buchanan, and calls her up so he can find out more about Daisy. In that conversation, Gatsby confesses to Jordan that he's in love with Daisy and wants to try and see her again. Well, for one thing, Jordan's nosy, and likes to be in the middle of things. She tells Nick about Tom's affair in Chapter 1 and also tells him all about Daisy's past in Chapter 4, and seems to love being a source of information and gossip.

However, you could also argue that, as someone with knowledge of Gatsby and Daisy's original relationship, Jordan knows how devastated Daisy was when she got a letter from Gatsby, feels compelled to help the pair reunite. Finally, Jordan might also see it as an opportunity to expose Daisy as much less virtuous as she comes off. Jordan is consistently the only character who recognizes Daisy as less-than-perfect, as evidenced in her remarks about Daisy in Chapter 4 "Daisy was popular in Chicago, as you know.

They moved with a fast crowd, all of them young and rich and wild, but she came out with an absolutely spotless reputation. Perhaps because she doesn't drink. It's a great advantage not to drink among hard-drinking people. You can hold your tongue and, moreover, you can time any little irregularity of your own so that everybody else is so blind that they don't see or care. Nudging Daisy into an affair with Gatsby could be Jordan's way of working to expose Daisy to the scrutiny that everyone else in their circles seems to face for similar behavior. Jordan, similar to Nick, is adjacent to much of the main action and not directly involved, so many students wonder what exactly she's doing in the book.

Especially since Nick does have a crucial role as narrator, Jordan can seem a bit superfluous at times. So why include her? Well, for one thing, she does have an important role to play in the story. Purely from a plot perspective, she helps connect Nick to Gatsby in Chapter 3, and she also helps connect Gatsby and Daisy. She helps sets the wheels of the affair in motion, and, of course, the affair drives the main action of the novel. Without Jordan, Gatsby would have relied entirely on Nick to reach Daisy, which would have taken some of the suspense out of Gatsby's motivations even though Jordan learns Gatsby's secret in Chapter 3, we don't learn it until Chapter 4.

But Jordan is also important in how she allows us to understand other characters. She helps us understand Daisy by being such a contrast to her, and of course offers some crucial insights about Daisy herself during her brief stint as the narrator in Chapter 4. Furthermore, Jordan also gives us some insights about Nick since we can see his reactions to her and their relationship. In fact, Jordan's relationship with Nick is one of our main inroads into understanding Nick's personal life and feelings. So while Jordan is not directly involved in the main drama, she is a crucial lynchpin both for the plot and our understanding of the other major characters.

Nick attends Gatsby's funeral along with Gatsby's father and Owl Eyes. Tom and Daisy have skipped town due to Daisy's role in Myrtle's death, Meyer Wolfshiem also wants to keep his distance since he is painted as cautious and disloyal, and Myrtle and George are dead. So out of the book's major characters, Jordan is the only one unaccounted for at Gatsby's funeral. Download this entire guide PDF. Teachers and parents! Struggling with distance learning?

Our Teacher Editions can help. Motif Definition What is a motif? Some additional key details about motifs: Because motifs are so effective in communicating and emphasizing the main themes of a work, they're common in political speeches as well as in literature. There are actually two working definitions of motif: one that defines motif as a special kind of symbol, and one that draws a greater distinction between the two terms. We'll explore both definitions below. You may have heard the word "motif" used to describe repeating patterns outside the realm of literature. In music, for example, a motif is a short series of notes that repeats throughout a song or track.

In art, a motif is a design or pattern that repeats in different parts of an artwork, or in different works by the same artist. While these additional meanings of motif are useful to know, motifs in literature function differently and have a slightly more specific meaning. A theme is an abstract and universal idea, lesson, or message explored throughout a work of literature. It's what the writer is trying to say about life and human experience in general, beyond the scope of what happens in a particular story. Motifs, while they often reinforce themes, are different in the sense that they are both more concrete and more specific to the work in which they appear than themes. A symbol is anything that represents another thing. We encounter symbols constantly in our every day life: a red light is a symbol for stop, a dove is a symbol for peace, a heart is a symbol for love.

A literary symbol is often a tangible thing—an object, person, place, or action—that represents something intangible, like a complex concept or emotion. For instance, in Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken, the "two roads [diverging] in a yellow wood" are symbols for two different life paths. In Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven , the raven that taps on the narrator's door as he mourns his lost love symbolizes the finality of her death. Identifying Motifs The main themes of a work are rarely expressed directly by a writer for instance, Shakespeare doesn't tell his audience directly "this play is about the contradictory nature of love".

Here's a more concrete example: If a story centers around someone's sudden and unexplained death, one of the main themes might be that death is ever-present. This theme might, in turn, be supported by a motif of harmless things becoming fatal : for instance, perhaps the main character develops an irrational fear of choking while drinking water , or contracting disease from a mosquito bite. This relationship between themes, motifs, and symbols or images can be visualized with different symbols making up a motif, and different motifs supporting an overarching theme, like so: Motif vs. Theme It can be difficult, at times, to clearly distinguish themes from the motifs that express them. Here are some of the key differences between themes and motifs: The motif is much more concrete than the abstract theme: it consists of specific images and symbols that the reader can visualize.

Motifs also tend to be specific to the work in which they appear, whereas themes appear again and again in different works by writers from different eras. For instance, there are thousands of works that explore the theme of love being contradictory. But while you may encounter other books that examine the contradictory nature of love as the theme, you're unlikely to find multiples books that use the same motif or motifs and the same repetitive pattern of symbols to do so. Motif vs. Symbol There are two competing ways of thinking about the relationship between symbols and motifs: Some people think that a motif is just a symbol that repeats throughout a text. For instance, if Edgar Allen Poe's poem " The Raven " were a longer work in which the raven disappears and reappears several times, these people would argue that the raven which symbolizes death would then be a motif.

However, others think that there's a bigger difference between motifs and symbols, and believe that symbols are just one building block of motifs, which are bigger, more overarching patterns that directly reinforce themes. These people would say that even if the raven were to disappear and reappear throughout "The Raven," it's still just a symbol. These people might argue that the symbol of the raven —which taps on the narrator's door and perches above the entry way to his house, and generally acts as a messenger from some other world—is part of a larger motif in poem of thresholds and borders which helps explore the themes of losing touch with reality and death. Motif Examples While motifs often do consist of literary symbols like the ones we describe above—the raven that stands for death, or the path that represents a way of life—the elements that make up motifs are not always things.

Throughout the novel, different characters search for things unsuccessfully: The first, overarching search is the search for a reclusive writer , Benno von Arcimboldi, who has neither published new writing nor appeared in public for decades. Three academics who have all made careers out of studying Arcimboldi lead the search, yet never find him. The second search is a criminal investigation into the rape and murder of hundreds of young women in the city of Santa Teresa, Mexico. This search is led by the city's best police detectives, who believe a serial killer is responsible.

Even though he has a distinctive signature and doesn't even try to hide the bodies of his victims, the killer is never found. The third search is a romantic quest undertaken by a madwoman, for a poet she slept with as a young woman. When she finds him in an insane asylum, not only does he not recognize her, but he's only interested in men. Motif in F. Fitzgerald uses the motif of the color green to explore the empty promise of the American Dream by repeatedly associating the color with ideas of success, ambition, and wealth: Gatsby buys a mansion on the Long Island Sound, across the water from Daisy's estate, and each night stares longingly at the green light that shines from the end of Daisy's dock.

The green light is a symbol that appears multiple times in the novel—during the early stages of Gatsby's longing for Daisy, during his pursuit of her, and after he dies after she abandons him. The green light symbolizes Gatsby's longing for Daisy and his dream that he can recreate his past love with her, but it also plays into the broader motif of the color green. In Chapter 6, Daisy tells Nick that she'll be handing out green cards at Gatsby's party, and informs him that he can present her with one of these green cards if he wants to kiss her.

So the cards themselves symbolize the very thing Gatsby desires i. In Chapter 7, the car crash that leads to Gatsby's ruin, definitively destroying his dream of ever being with Daisy, involves a green car. In Chapter 9, Gatsby's friend Nick Caraway stares at the coastline and wonders how the first settlers to America must have felt staring out at the " green breast of the new world. Motif in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe's Things Falls Apart is about an Igbo warrior named Okonkwo, whose commitment to his culture's traditions brings him honor, but also eventually leads to his downfall. Throughout the novel, Okonkwo and other members of the community routinely perform symbolic rituals of sacrifice in the name of tradition, offering up animals, currency, and other valuables.

Throughout the novel, women who give birth to twins abandon their own babies in the forest. This tradition, which the clan enforces out of a belief that twins are evil, alienates many members of the clan who later convert to Christianity. In Chapter 7, Okonkwo kills his adopted son, whom he loves deeply, in accordance with his clan's laws, permanently scarring his other son, Nwoye, who later joins the white Christian missionaries and colonialists.

Why Do Writers Use Motifs? Writers incorporate motifs in their work for a number of reasons: They help writers organize symbols, plot developments, and imagery into broader patterns that emphasize the main themes of the work. They give a work a sense of structure and continuity by creating patterns that recur throughout the work. They can help writers weave together different and seemingly unrelated parts of a narrative.

At the Plaza, Gatsby tells Tom of his affair The Great Gatsby Close Reading Analysis Daisy. The Great Gatsby Close Reading Analysis book is not The Great Gatsby Close Reading Analysis the faint of heart. The Great Gatsby. To be oneself into the future I Ve Seen The Promised Land Speech Analysis must do the hard work of assimilating ones past into ones present. Explain how characters' American Dreams cause them to have pain when they could have been content with more modest ambitions. Eckleburg looming in the distance, then spots Myrtle Wilson staring down from the windows above the garage at Jordan Bakerwhom The Great Gatsby Close Reading Analysis seems to have The Use Of Symbolism In Catching Fire (2009) for The Great Gatsby Close Reading Analysisher rival in love.