The Great Gatsby: Chapter Three

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

(Note to my teacher: I tried to figure out what a limit was for how long a passage should be, but I couldn’t find an answer. Most things just said an excerpt from a literary piece. I suspect that this one might be a little wrong, but there were so many things that I wanted to include. I tried to cut away the paragraphs that I could though to shorten it.)

Answer:

            Chapter Three begins with Nick describing Gatsby’s parties by saying, “There was music from my neighbor's house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars. At high tide in the afternoon I watched his guests diving from the tower of his raft, or taking the sun on the hot sand of his beach while his two motor-boats slit the waters of the Sound, drawing aquaplanes over cataracts of foam. On week-ends his Rolls-Royce became an omnibus, bearing parties to and from the city between nine in the morning and long past midnight, while his station wagon scampered like a brisk yellow bug to meet all trains. And on Mondays eight servants, including an extra gardener, toiled all day with mops and scrubbing-brushes and hammers and garden-shears, repairing the ravages of the night before….

…At least once a fortnight a corps of caterers came down with several hundred feet of canvas and enough colored lights to make a Christmas tree of Gatsby's enormous garden. On buffet tables, garnished with glistening hors-d'oeuvres, spiced baked hams crowded against salads of harlequin designs and pastry pigs and turkeys bewitched to a dark gold. In the main hall a bar with a real brass rail was set up, and stocked with gins and liquors and with cordials so long forgotten that most of his female guests were too young to know one from another.

By seven o'clock the orchestra has arrived, no thin five-piece affair, but a whole pitful of oboes and trombones and saxophones and viols and cornets and piccolos, and low and high drums. The last swimmers have come in from the beach now and are dressing up-stairs; the cars from New York are parked five deep in the drive, and already the halls and salons and verandas are gaudy with primary colors, and hair shorn in strange new ways, and shawls beyond the dreams of Castile. The bar is in full swing, and floating rounds of cocktails permeate the garden outside, until the air is alive with chatter and laughter, and casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot, and enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each other's names…

…I believe that on the first night I went to Gatsby's house I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited. People were not invited-they went there. They got into automobiles which bore them out to Long Island, and somehow they ended up at Gatsby's door. Once there they were introduced by somebody who knew Gatsby, and after that they conducted themselves according to the rules of behavior associated with amusement parks. Sometimes they came and went without having met Gatsby at all, came for the party with a simplicity of heart that was its own ticket of admission.” (Fitzgerald, 39-41).

One of the things that stick out the most out of what Nick’s saying is that Gatsby’s house, despite him living alone, is most of the time, if not always, filled with people. He recalls that, “men and girls came and went like moths” (Fitzgerald, 39) and, along with the guests, there were many servants (eight plus a gardener). This seems to insinuate that Gatsby doesn’t do well with loneliness or a vacant house. However, it could just be a sign of Gatsby’s extreme generosity and hospitality.

Gatsby’s wealth is made even more obvious with this passage. The aforementioned servants are one sign of that along with other things that Nick spoke of, including: two motorboats, an aquaplane, a Rolls-Royce, a station wagon, a group of caterers and an orchestra. He has the place decorated with amazing lights and tarps regularly.

Gatsby also seems to have a taste for the ‘finer things in life’. Music is mentioned often, like when Nick says, “There was music from my neighbor's house through the summer nights” (Fitzgerald, 39) and “the orchestra has arrived, no thin five-piece affair, but a whole pitful of oboes and trombones and saxophones and viols and cornets and piccolos, and low and high drums” (Fitzgerald, 40). Gatsby orders foods that are rich and decadent, including “glistening hors-d'oeuvres, spiced baked hams crowded against salads of harlequin designs and pastry pigs and turkeys bewitched to a dark gold” (Fitzgerald, 40). He also seems to appreciate liquor, like “with cordials so long forgotten that most of his female guests were too young to know one from another” (Fitzgerald, 40).

Finally, it shows how the guests treated Gatsby and his house. Nick remarks, “I believe that on the first night I went to Gatsby's house I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited” (Fitzgerald, 41). This shows how Gatsby’s parties were treated like public rather than private affairs. Nick refers to Gatsby’s house once as a form of “amusement parks” (Fitzgerald, 41). They didn’t always treat it as his home or him as their host. For example, Nick says “Sometimes they came and went without having met Gatsby at all” (Fitzgerald, 41). It seems as if these guests had no problems with using his home and hospitality, sometimes every weekend, without even giving their host a ‘hello’ or ‘thank you’.