"I wanted to get out and walk eastward toward the park through the soft twilight but each time I tried to go I became entangled in some wild strident argument which pulled me back, as if with ropes, into my chair. Yet high over the city our line of yellow windows must have contributed their share of human secrecy to the casual watcher in the darkening streets, and I was him too, looking up and wondering. I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life" (Fitzgerald 40).
This passage most aptly describes the central passage for the first two chapters of The Great Gatsby because it depicts the chaotic nature of the novel. There is a continual movement of characters, setting, and action in the novel that makes the form of the novel seem disjointed-chaotic like the characters themselves. The "soft twilight" is a complete paradox to the insanity of Mrs. Wilson's nose being broken by Tom Buchanan. The characters seemed very unsettled as they talk in fits of passion and anger.
This page is also very central because it is one of the few times that we get a lengthy look into what the narrator is thinking amidst all of the chaos. It is interesting how he feels he is somewhat apart of what is going on in this apartment and also how he is just like the silent onlooker on the street who wonders what is going on in the apartment above. Nick has a way of being in the setting, but always distancing himself to some point that he is never completely there.
I agree that this passage is important because its entirety is based on the perception of the viewer, but it never really tells us what the viewer is like. I think with Nick the reader sacrifices knowing him intimately for his wide perspective on the "inexhaustible variety of life" (Fitzgerald 40). It is sacrifice for Nick too ,I think, he doesn't make lasting or perosnal relatioships of people, he seems himself as "transcendent" as the men of the "Valley of Ashes" (23).But,in return he sees what others might not. Nick's observations of how Myrtle spreads "a copy of "Town Tattle" over tapestry scenes of Versailles" seems to suggest that he is able to see the low-class of this society that tries so hard to be elitist (42). He may not pass his judgement outwardly but his subtlety seems to be more effective. In that way, he does not add to the chaos you mentioned but creates his own sort of haze ro deal with that chaos. I'm predicting that this quote will be important throughout the book.
ReplyDelete