AO2 – Narrative methods
•Narrative viewpoint
•Time and sequence
•Language and imagery
•Setting
•Characterisation
•Openings
•Endings
Looking at narrative viewpoint
•Who is telling the story?
•How much do they know?
•What is the narrator’s attitude towards the
events and people he is describing and how
can we tell?
•How do the narrator’s word choices and
comments influence the reader’s view of
events and characters?
Looking at time and sequence
•Over what period of time does the story take place?
•Are events in chronological or non-chronological order?
If in non-chronological order, how does what we learn first
affect our response to what we’re told afterwards?
•Does the writer want us to link events from different
times? Do some events prepare us for others or explain
why others happened?
•Which events are ‘shown’ in detail, unfolding slowly? Which
are ‘told’ briefly? Why?
•How are suspense, tension and anticipation built up, e.g.
by references to time or by delaying important events?
•Useful words and phrases for talking about time were
given to you on a green sheet.
Looking at language and imagery
•Mood?
•Vocabulary – connotation, words from the
same semantic field, Romantic vocabulary?
•Sensual imagery - sounds, smells, colours, etc.?
•Poetic devices -simile, metaphor, symbolism,
personification, etc.?
•Sentence structure used for effect - very short
sentences, lists, etc?
•Tone – sad, serious, regretful, ironic, etc?
•Sound of the language –harsh or soft sounds,
onomatopeoia
Looking at characterisation
Characterisation = the methods a
writer uses to portray a character
what the character says
physical
appearance
body language
what other characters
say and think about the
character
setting the
character is
placed in
speech style
Looking at setting
•Where do the events take place?
•What are these places like?
•How are they described?
•Why/ how does the writer use this setting? e.g.
- makes certain events likely or possible
- creates mood/atmosphere
- is symbolic
- reflects character
Section A first question
(Write about the ways Fitzgerald tells the story…)
AO2 (Form, structure & language)
Introduction
SEE NEXT SLIDE
Main body
•Narrative viewpoint – must include this for FORM
•Time / sequence – must include this for STRUCTURE
•Setting
•Characterisation
•Language / imagery – you must write about LANGUAGE
but this could be part of your discussion of one of the
other narrative methods
Section A first question
(Write about the ways Fitzgerald tells the story…)
AO2 (Form, structure & language)
Introduction
An introduction is not necessary. (SEE NEXT FEW
SLIDES FOR EGS OF ESSAYS THAT ‘GO STRAIGHT IN’)
If you do write one, keep it to one or two sentences.
You could sum up:
• what we learn /what is revealed in this chapter
• which characters are introduced / developed
• moments of crisis / tension in the chapter.
Section A first question
(Write about the ways Fitzgerald tells the story…)
AO2 (Form, structure & language)
Good essays immediately focus on narrative methods:
(Slide 1 of 5)
Section A first question
(Write about the ways Fitzgerald tells the story…)
AO2 (Form, structure & language)
Good essays
immediately
focus on
narrative
methods:
(Slide 1 of 5)
Section A first question
(Write about the ways Fitzgerald tells the story…)
AO2 (Form, structure & language)
Good essays immediately focus on narrative methods (Slide 3 of 5)
Section A first question
(Write about the ways Fitzgerald tells the story…)
AO2 (Form, structure & language)
Good essays
immediately
focus on
narrative
methods:
(Slide 1 of 5)
Section A first question
(Write about the ways Fitzgerald tells the story…)
AO2 (Form, structure & language)
Good essays
immediately
focus on
narrative
methods:
(Slide 1 of 5)
Revising The Great Gatsby – AO2
For each chapter, make notes on:
•The chapter’s importance to the story as a whole, e.g:
- what we learn
- which characters are introduced or developed
- key events/developments
•Key events/moments of greatest drama in the chapter
•Ways the following are used for effect in the chapter:
- time and sequence
- setting
- characterisation
- language and imagery
- narrator
Example of notes on a chapter
Chapter 5
Importance of this chapter to the story as a whole
•Reader finally sees how Daisy and Gatsby behave when they meet
•More of Gatsby’s character revealed – vulnerability, feelings for Daisy
•More of Daisy’s character revealed – her feelings for Gatsby
•Unease – readers are all the time aware of Tom
Time and sequence
•Meeting between Daisy and Gatsby delayed by 3 pages – builds reader’s
anticipation
•Specific references to time leading up to Daisy’s arrival help build tension
and anticipation
•Their meeting described in detail – their words, body language, etc.
Example of notes on a chapter
Chapter 5
Setting
•Meeting at Nick’s house: Daisy more likely to agree to go to cousin’s
house; also Daisy more impressed at Gatsby’s house after meeting him at
Nick’s more modest house
•Symbolic use of clock on Nick’s mantelpiece – Gatsby wants to go back
to past
•Nick’s garden described in detail as he waits
•Pathetic fallacy – rain and sun to reflect emotions of Gatsby and Daisy
•Private areas of Gatsby’s mansion shown for first time – gives insight into
his character, e.g. his bedroom ‘simplest room of all’, colours - lavender
Example of notes on a chapter
Chapter 5
Characterisation
•See dramatic shift in Daisy – quiet, serious rather than flirtatious and
childlike
•Daisy’s reaction to shirts – shallowness, concern with wealth
•Lot of dialogue used
•Gatsby vulnerable, almost pathetic – body language, speech, Nick’s
impatient speech and comments
•Gatsby’s façade vs inner feelings reflected in his house
Example of notes on a chapter
Chapter 5
Language and imagery
•‘peninsula was blazing fire’ – mocking ironic description of Gatby’s
showy & tasteless house
•descriptions of Gatsby as vulnerable – ‘pale as death’, ‘glaring tragically’,
slightly ironic – conveys Nick’s irritation
•use of colour in Gatsby’s and Daisy’s clothing – ‘lavender hat’, his
‘lavender’ shirts – links them
•shirts – ‘soft, rich heap’, ‘sheer linen’
•odour of flowers, rain, lots of sensory description; pathetic fallacy
•Daisy in car, framed, filmic description
Example of notes on a chapter
Chapter 5
Narrator
•Nick surprised at how ‘modest’ Gatsby’s request is – evokes sympathy
for Gatsby and conveys strength of his dogged pursuit of Daisy
•Nick uncomfortable with the situation
•finds Gatsby irritating/childish & mocks him
•time spent in garden – Nick not present so reader can’t know what
exactly Gatsby and Daisy say to each other – element of mystery
AO3 - Interpretations
Key themes in The Great Gatsby
•Class, money, the American Dream
•Morality, corruption, decadence, greed
•Love, marriage, adultery
•Truth, pretence, deceit
•The past
•Friendship, loyalty
Revising The Great Gatsby – AO3
Brainstorm examples of each of these
themes in the novel
•Class, money, the American Dream
•Morality, corruption, decadence, greed
•Love, marriage, adultery
•Truth, pretence, deceit
•The past
•Friendship, loyalty
Example of a theme brainstorm
Nick looking back on events of past summer
and how they’ve affected him
symbolism of clock
(Ch. 5, p. 93)
Jordan’s narrative (Ch. 4) of Gatsby
& Daisy’s past relationship
refs. to WW1
The past
Nick says ‘you can’t repeat
the past’; Gatsby says ‘Of course
you can’ and ‘I’m going to fix
everything just the way it was
before’
(Ch. 6, p. 117)
Gatsby met Dan Cody and
reinvented himself (Ch. 7)
Gatsby’s ‘extraordinary
gift for hope’ (Ch. 1)
Constant ref. to
Gatsby’s ‘dreams’,
Gatsby’s father shows
Nick’s narrative
Nick Gatsby’s teenage
of Gatsby and Daisy’s e.g. Ch. 1, p. 8
journal
Kiss (Ch. 6, p. 118)
(Ch. 9)
rumours about Gatsby’s
past (party, Ch. 3)
Some critical Interpretations of
The Great Gatsby
portrays ‘a group of people bent only on the gratification of their
own desires’ (Parkinson, p. 23)
the tale of the irresponsible rich (eNotes, p. 62)
define[s] the moral chaos of a society which has rejected any
values but wealth (Parkinson, p. 23)
The characters are morally blind (Parkinson, p. 94)
deception, self-deception and delusion are important features of
the lives of all the characters. (Parkinson, p. 37)
West and East are two opposing poles of values: one is pure and
idealistic, and the other is corrupt and materialistic (eNotes, p. 62)
Some critical Interpretations of
The Great Gatsby
without his idealism, Gatsby is just a crook (John Sutherland,
2001, lecture)
[Gatsby is] a tragic figure…yet…implicated fully in the corruption of
the 1920s’ (Parkinson, p. 37)
Nick is a romantic, moralist and judge (eNotes, p. 62)
Nick recognize[s] parallels in his own impulses and desires [and
Gatsby’s] (Parkinson, p. 23)
In a letter written in 1937, Fitzgerald says that he tried to create a
quality/mood of ‘hauntedness’ in the novel. (Parkinson, p. 37)
Revising Contexts – AO4
You should know something about all these and be able to relate
them to specific examples in The Great Gatsby.
See the green sheet with summaries by different students)
Jazz Age/Roaring Twenties
Decadence
The American Dream
Prohibition
Conspicuous consumption (Veblen)
The automobile
The Lost Generation
Modernism