The Great Gatsby chapter 9 notes

• meta narrative- Nick can't escape his past either

How does it make you feel as a reader?

• It makes you feel sentimental and thoughtful. It also can make the reader feel pessemistic and hopeless- (last 4 paragraphs) emptiness?/ profunditiy/ philosophical tone

Does the close of the novel confirm it is a critical chronical of the Jazz age?

• No, I think it is a critical chronical of society

• sentance fragment/minor sentance- hopelesness- never reach a destination
• elipsis "..."- echo of Gatsby and the green light- a hopelessness
• ambiguous but sentimental?- difficult to believe- not in keeping with Nick's cynical nature
• idea of new world- an attempt to restart or create a new- create ideal/utopian society?- prosperous escaping persecution
• "fresh green breast of the new world"- natural metaphor/figurative language- mother nature metaphor- Myrtle's "breast hanging loose like a flap"- echo of Myrtle's death- can't have new world without death- death underpins
• inclusive pronoun- colonial fantasy "brooding...wonder"
• "orgastic"- fudged spelling? may not really be a word?- adjective unusual, connotes orgasmic pleasure
• Idealisim- not achieved in the novel- hopeful for future, tragically limited by past
• nihalistically optimistic/ ambiguious- hopeful and tragic (meaning isn't clear)
• no revelation about…