The Great Gatsby: Chapter One

Question: Select a passage that describes the setting. Discuss how this passage contributes to your interpretation of the work as a whole, including literary strategies that affect your reaction to the character.
Answer:

In the first chapter of The Great Gatsby, the narrator, Nick, describes his new home and the area that it is located by saying, “It was a matter of chance that I should have rented a house in one of the strangest communities in North America. It was on that slender riotous island which extends itself due east of New York-and where there are, among other natural curiosities, two unusual formations of land. Twenty miles from the city a pair of enormous eggs, identical in contour and separated only by a courtesy bay, jut out into the most domesticated body of salt water in the Western hemisphere, the great wet barnyard of Long Island Sound. They are not perfect ovals-like the egg in the Columbus story, they are both crushed flat at the contact end-but their physical resemblance must be a source of perpetual confusion to the gulls that fly overhead. To the wingless a more arresting phenomenon is their dissimilarity in every particular except shape and size.

          I lived at West Egg, the-well, the less fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them. My house was at the very tip of the egg, only fifty yards from the Sound, and squeezed between two huge places that rented for twelve or fifteen thousand a season. the one on my right was a colossal affair by any standard-it was a factual imitation of some Hotel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool, and more than forty acres of lawn and garden. It was Gatsby's mansion. Or, rather, as I didn't know Mr. Gatsby, it was a mansion inhabited by a gentleman of that name. My own house was an eyesore, but it was a small eyesore, and it had been overlooked, so I had a view of the water, a partial view of my neighbor's lawn, and the consoling proximity of millionaires-all for eighty dollars a month.” (Fitzgerald, 4-5)

            This passage tells a lot about the setting. Nick refers to it as “one of the strangest communities in North America” (Fitzgerald, 4), which is partly referencing the odd shape of the land that the community sits on, but also seems to be referring to the people that occupy the communities. He also mentions that it is just east of New York, which is important since the characters spend much time in the city throughout the novel. He also talks about his neighbor being named Gatsby, which introduces a character that the novel is named after and shows how Nick is connected with him. Nick describes very thoroughly the size and shape of the lands when he calls them “a pair of enormous eggs” (Fitzgerald, 5).

            More important than the location and shapes of the West Egg and East Egg are the people that occupy them. Both places are very different in that aspect, which Nick addresses by stating, “To the wingless, a more arresting phenomenon is their (East Egg and West egg) dissimilarity in every particular except shape and size” (Fitzgerald, 5) and “the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them (the East egg and West egg)” (Fitzgerald, 5). He lives on the West egg, which is considered the “less fashionable” (Fitzgerald, 5). However, he talks about the houses surrounding him to be huge and occupied by millionaires, so it can be inferred that the West Egg is inhabited by many wealthy people. This being said, the East Egg must either be even richer or maybe just more filled with socialites and people who focus more on fashion than the West Egg.

            While Nick is describing the similar egg shape of both land forms, he says, “their physical resemblance must be a source of perpetual confusion to the gulls that fly overhead” (Fitzgerald, 5). This shows Nick to be a creative thinker that can both think outside the box and look at things from others’ perspectives. When he mentions his own new house, he calls it “an eyesore, but it was a small eyesore” (Fitzgerald, 5) and mentions a water view. He also says that he pays 80 dollars a month while his neighbors pay twelve or fifteen thousand dollars for a season. These things show that, in comparison to his neighbors, he is poor.