The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald

Completely unrelated, but so cool!

This post is all about the plot-line of The Great Gatsby.

The Exposition:  We meet Nick Carraway who moves next door to Jay Gatsby, who throws extravagant parties every weekend at his beautiful mansion.  Nick's second cousin Daisy lives nearby, and they have a small dinner where he meets Jordan Baker.

Rising Action:  Gatsby invites Nick to his parties and begins to befriend him, although Nick is never really privy to the truth about his new friend.  They grow closer, and finally, Jay begins to utilize his new-found pawn, so Nick invites Daisy over for tea.  We realize why Gatsby chose his house (because Daisy lives just across the bay) and why he chose Nick as a friend (because he wants to get back together with Daisy, the woman he's loved all his time).  Tom introduces Myrtle, his mistress, and they seem to get along very well (the puppy), except when he goes off and punches her face (okay, that only happened once, but I just can't let it go).  Tom is happy with his new woman, Daisy is ecstatic, re-united with Jay, and Nick is actually in a relationship with Ms. Baker.

Climax [chapters 7 and 8]:  The whole little group goes out to the city for the day, and Tom confronts both Myrtle and Daisy about their situations.  Myrtle is supposedly moving away with her husband, and Daisy is having an affair with the man she really loves.  Both are huge blows for Tom: "She's not leaving me!" (Fitzgerald, page 133) he claimed about Daisy, although it would suit the situation for either woman.  The second part of the climax continues with Gatsby, unintentionally, murdering Myrtle with his automobile.

Falling Action and Resolution:  I'll analyze later.

The House of Mirth Book 2, Chapters 9 and 10

The House of Mirth
Edith Wharton

So, stupid me, I didn't really recognize that this scene between Miss Bart and Gus Trenor alone at his house was the climax of the novel.  I guess I kept waiting for something a little more exciting to happen, and when it didn't, I did an overview of the middle of the novel and realized my mistake.  I usually do have a little more trouble deciding on the climax of longer novels, especially those written over a hundred years ago, as was the case with The House of Mirth.  Anyway, the second half of the book made a little more sense after I corrected my mistake, but I still don't see why Trenor did not pursue Lily any longer after she left for Europe, and even when she arrived back in America.  He seemed pretty persistent before this meeting with Lily, and then after it, nothing...  Book II contains the falling action and resolution of the novel--Lily's fall from good graces in society, her new job, and eventual death without ever marrying Lawrence Selden.
      The structure of the novel is pretty simple and straightforward.  It contains 29 chapters, each consisting of smaller sections with breaks in the passages to allow for tone and point of view shifts.  Fifteen chapters make up the slightly longer Book I, which makes sense as it contains the climax, and Book II has the remaining fourteen chapters.  A common pattern throughout the novel is a description of many different characters in each chapter.  Wharton, the omniscient narrator with an objective point of view, relates various events with different characters and leaves out specific scenes so that the audience can make some leaps and bypass any gaps in the plot.  An example of her omniscient narration is "She [Lily] was sure that Gerty knew Selden's feeling for her, and it had never dawned upon her blindness that Gerty's own judgement of him was coloured by emotions far more ardent than her own" (Wharton, page 142).  This sporadic transitioning from one scene to the next is sometimes pretty hectic but make for an enjoyable read after one understands just what Wharton wanted to promote.