Monday, April 9, 2007

East Coast vs. West Coast - Robert Flores


VS
The Great Gatsby
East Cost vs. Midwest/ West
At the commencement of the novel the reader is attune to the fact that the novel takes place in New York. New York is located on the Eastern Seaboard, wile many of the character’s in the novel made their starts in the Midwest. There is a great amount of contrast between the attitudes of the Northeasterners and the attitudes of the Midwesterners. The liberal thinking of New York sets the scene for opportunity, that is hoped for in the American Dream. New York also sets the scene for radicalism and change which is different from the traditional values of the Midwest.
“My family have been prominent, well-to-do people in this middle-western city for three generations” Shows traditionalism in the Midwest
“The last swimmers have come in from the beach now and were dressing upstairs; 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.” Shows the radicalism of New York
“That’s my Middle West . . . the street lamps and sleigh bells in the frosty dark. . . . I see now that this has been a story of the West, after all—Tom and Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan and I, were all Westerners, and perhaps we possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life.” Shows the contrast between the two ways of life

“...I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors’ eyes- a fresh, green breast of the new world.” Shows the opportunities made possible in New York

VS.

Works Cited:

30 Mar. 2007 .

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York, New York: Scribner Paperback Fiction, 1995.

Oberlin College. 30 Mar. 2007 .

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

You show outside information on the idea of West coast vs. East coast. It gives me a better understanding of the symbol.

E. White

Unknown said...

Your explanation and detail on breaking down the core differences between the two regions shows the extremisms between them, and how the characters changed as they began to live on the East Coast. Very well done.

-Dan P.

Anonymous said...

I really like this picture of the house. This is most likely the exact picture i would use describe gastby's house
steven m 6th