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Ćwiczenia - 1.06
Ćwiczenia - 1.06
Born in Minnesota, in
the one who made big money on writing novels
spend a lot of money on parties and lifestyle he described in Great Gatsby
participated in the I WW – affected by the war, belonged to the lost generation
his wife was an important person in his life - Zelda
he published his first story at the age of 18
wrote musicals and novels, screenplays – 178 stories
the beginning of 20th century, 1920s - jazz age, jazz dominated the era – Roaring Twenties
an alcoholic, struggled with depression
East Egg
- Tom and Daisy live there – people who are born rich
- Old rich, from generation to generation
- Daisy was married into them
- They had always had money – American aristocracy
- They do not work; Jordan Baker who is a tennis player
- They go to parties, enjoy themselves
West Egg
- Rich people – newly rich people
- Gatsby has his mansion there – he wasn’t born rich, he did not inherit his money =
Gatsby earned his money through crime, smuggling and selling alcohol illegally
- Nick lives there
Valley of Ashes
- “About half-way between West Egg and New York the motor road hastily joins the
railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from a certain
desolate area of land. This is the 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 men who
move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air.”
- Myrtle and her husband – they own a car service; people who own cars and the working
class who fixes those cars, those with money and without money
- Myrtle and her husband’s marriage is destroyed
- A forgotten place
- Covered with dust, ashes – there is no ideology, there is nothing, as if everything was
destroyed, there is nothing to rely on
- On the one hand the characters do achieve American Dream, but only in the case of money,
and in an illegal way
- Gatsby puts a mask, he is not real
- ”a pair of fading, bespectacled eyes painted on an old advertising billboard over the valley of
ashes”
- Eyes of God watching the American society and judging the people, their actions
- God abandoned the Valley of Ashes – those eyes used to see, but they are blind now
- Friedrich Nietzsche “God is dead”
- Deism, Benjamin Franklin – God exists but does not take part in contemporary events, does
not participate, but he is present
Lost Generation
*Gatsby to some extent wins, but Daisy eventually choses Tom – she has changed, she’s not the
same as she was before
Gatsby still believes into the ideals from before the war, and still believes that Daisy did not change
Symbolic colors: grey is associated with the poor; white and yellow – white as upper classes, power,
yellow as gold