West+Egg

**Introduction: ** In his novel, //The Great Gatsby//, the author, F. Scott Fitzgerald develops a tragic story of a man named Jay Gatsby. Fitzgerald carefully presents one of the major settings of the story, West Egg. The author’s ideas are clearly reflected through Nick’s view of West Egg which first perceives the place as lacking in true sophistication. However, as the story progresses, Fitzgerald reveals the qualities he looks up to by gradually providing more insights into the true merit of West Egg – its respectable sense of morality. Finally, Fitzgerald also utilizes the setting, West Egg, to carefully delineate the changes in Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship, closing with the final theme that Gatsby’s dream of returning to the past was a mere illusion.
 * West Egg **

**Body: ** 1. Topic Sentence: Fitzgerald presents West Egg as lacking in sophistication, unlike the East Egg where real aristocracy can be found, to underline the class division that was deeply rooted in the society from his time; even when many people were gaining quick wealth and success, status disparity still existed.  l “Twenty miles from the city a pair of enormous eggs, identical in contour and separated only by a courtesy bay … (9)”  Ø Similarity on the outside in general: both being exceptionally rich (although west gained wealth recently and trying to mimic east’s luxury)  Ø Yet, difference exists: physical division (“separated by a courtesy bay…”) is symbolic of the division within social classes  l “[West Egg was] like the ragged edge of the universe … (7)”  Ø Simile: describing West Egg as having a strikingly simplistic style <span style="display: block; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 60pt; mso-list: l1 level2 lfo1; mso-para-margin-left: 0gd; text-align: left; text-indent: -20pt;"> Ø <span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">West Egg = lacking elegance/sophistication that is often found in old aristocracy <span style="display: block; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 40pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; mso-para-margin-left: 0gd; text-align: left; text-indent: -20pt;"> l <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">“East Egg condescending to West Egg… (49)” <span style="display: block; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 60pt; mso-list: l1 level2 lfo1; mso-para-margin-left: 0gd; text-align: left; text-indent: -20pt;"> Ø <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Money could be acquired through hard work (West Eggers), but class-based sophistication could not be acquired through such efforts – the reason why East Eggers keep looking down on West Eggers. Appearances can be misleading - superficial qualities that do not reveal so much about the innermost qualities. *Separation/Division by the wall

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; text-align: left;">2. Topic Sentence: <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; text-align: left;">While presenting West Egg as lacking in noble grace, Fitzgerald later highlights West Egg’s veiled true qualities – moral and spiritual values as represented by one of the West Eggers, Gatsby’s loyalty and sincerity regarding his love – that he believes should be more cherished.

<span style="display: block; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 40pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; mso-para-margin-left: 0gd; text-align: left; text-indent: -20pt;"> l <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">“They [Daisy, Tom] were careless people, (187)” “I found myself on Gatsby’s side… (172)” <span style="display: block; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 60pt; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo2; mso-para-margin-left: 0gd; text-align: left; text-indent: -20pt;"> Ø <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Daisy and Tom representative of the East Eggers in general: brutally careless (moral decay) <span style="display: block; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 60pt; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo2; mso-para-margin-left: 0gd; text-align: left; text-indent: -20pt;"> Ø <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Gatsby representative of the West Eggers in general: sincere, loyal (i.e. Gatsby's love for Daisy) <span style="display: block; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 60pt; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo2; mso-para-margin-left: 0gd; text-align: left; text-indent: -20pt;"> Ø <span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Through the contrast of the people from two different places, Gatsby’s spiritual supremeness is further highlighted: leads Nick to admire Gatsby despite the sophistication or elegance Gatsby lacks <span style="display: block; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 40pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; mso-para-margin-left: 0gd; text-align: left; text-indent: -20pt;"> l <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">“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. (184)”  <span style="display: block; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 60pt; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo2; mso-para-margin-left: 0gd; text-align: left; text-indent: -20pt;">  Ø <span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">After feeling disgusted by the carelessness of East Eggers: u nderlines the author’s intention to emphasize the importance of strong sense of morality (found in West Egg) <span style="display: block; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 60pt; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo2; mso-para-margin-left: 0gd; text-align: left; text-indent: -20pt;"> Ø <span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">W hat the author was most concerned with was people's moral values; no one after all should have been able to adjust to the predominantly materialistic life of the East if they had possessed those spiritual, moral qualities. Yet, living in East Egg has damaged their sense of morality, creating the characters who lived in East (i.e. Daisy, Tom) to be brutally careless. <span style="display: block; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 40pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; mso-para-margin-left: 0gd; text-align: left; text-indent: -20pt;"> l <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">"West Egg especially still figures in my more fantastic dreams (185).”   <span style="display: block; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 60pt; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo2; mso-para-margin-left: 0gd; text-align: left; text-indent: -20pt;">  Ø <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Final summary of Nick’s perception of West Egg, equivalent to Fitzgerald’s belief   <span style="display: block; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 60pt; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo2; mso-para-margin-left: 0gd; text-align: left; text-indent: -20pt;">  Ø <span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Utilization of the word “dream” to clearly convey to the readers that it is Fitzgerald’s ideal/desire to find some essential spiritual qualities in the middle of such materialistic, status-driven society *dull city (East Egg) contrasted with beautiful outside surrounding (West Egg); the boundary marking the two places is the heart (spiritual qualities).

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; text-align: left;">3. Topic Sentence: Fitzgerald utilizes the setting West Egg to illustrate the rise and fall of Daisy and Gatsby’s relationship, and finally concluding with the underlying theme of disconnection with reality: past cannot be repeated. <span style="display: block; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 40pt; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo3; mso-para-margin-left: 0gd; text-align: left; text-indent: -20pt;"> l <span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Daisy gazes at the “sunset,” facing towards west – West Egg during the “longest day in the year and then miss[es] it (16),” while Gatsby in turn, often gazes at East Egg, facing towards [Daisy's house] (25). <span style="display: block; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 60pt; mso-list: l2 level2 lfo3; mso-para-margin-left: 0gd; text-align: left; text-indent: -20pt;"> Ø <span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Sun rising in the east = symbolic of beginning, past   <span style="display: block; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 60pt; mso-list: l2 level2 lfo3; mso-para-margin-left: 0gd; text-align: left; text-indent: -20pt;">  Ø <span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Sun setting in the west = symbolic of the now until the end, (what’s ahead) - future   <span style="display: block; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 60pt; mso-list: l2 level2 lfo3; mso-para-margin-left: 0gd; text-align: left; text-indent: -20pt;">  Ø <span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Gatsby, longing for Daisy, gazes at East Egg where Daisy is: looks back at the past, wanting to return to the time when he was with Daisy. Daisy, quite unsettled with her present life, faces West Egg where Gatsby is: looks ahead, better future. <span style="display: block; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 60pt; mso-list: l2 level2 lfo3; mso-para-margin-left: 0gd; text-align: left; text-indent: -20pt;"> Ø <span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Draws parallel between Daisy and Gatsby at opposite directions (West and East Egg), longing for each other. <span style="display: block; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 40pt; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo3; mso-para-margin-left: 0gd; text-align: left; text-indent: -20pt;"> l <span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">“The rain was still falling, but the darkness had parted in the west, and there was a pink and golden billow of foamy clouds above the sea (99).” (At the reunion of Daisy & Gatsby) <span style="display: block; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 60pt; mso-list: l2 level2 lfo3; mso-para-margin-left: 0gd; text-align: left; text-indent: -20pt;"> Ø <span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Imagery of darkness being replaced by pink and golden clouds in west: representation of Gatsby’s growing hope regarding the future (dream about being with Daisy) <span style="display: block; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 60pt; mso-list: l2 level2 lfo3; mso-para-margin-left: 0gd; text-align: left; text-indent: -20pt;"> Ø <span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Underscores Gatsby’s firm belief that the reunion is successful (golden WEST sky = bright FUTURE for the two) <span style="display: block; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 60pt; mso-list: l2 level2 lfo3; mso-para-margin-left: 0gd; text-align: left; text-indent: -20pt;"> Ø <span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">The pink, golden color: tinted with pink, rosy color which symbolizes that Gatsby’s belief about the future is perhaps misleading, rising only from his illusion, dream not necessarily from the reality. (links to the theme of illusion) <span style="display: block; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 40pt; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo3; mso-para-margin-left: 0gd; text-align: left; text-indent: -20pt;"> l <span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">“The truth was that Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself (104).” <span style="display: block; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 60pt; mso-list: l2 level2 lfo3; mso-para-margin-left: 0gd; text-align: left; text-indent: -20pt;"> Ø <span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Explicitly stating that Gatsby was a West Egger (“Jay Gatsby of West Egg…”): highlight that he resides in West Egg (in reality) <span style="display: block; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 60pt; mso-list: l2 level2 lfo3; mso-para-margin-left: 0gd; text-align: left; text-indent: -20pt;"> Ø <span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Platonic conception: living in West Egg (as highlighted above), always failed to look at where he was in the present. Instead, faced East Egg (Daisy’s place) dreaming of returning to the past. <span style="display: block; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 60pt; mso-list: l2 level2 lfo3; mso-para-margin-left: 0gd; text-align: left; text-indent: -20pt;"> Ø <span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Theme of illusion/disconnection with reality: past cannot be brought back. *Sun sets in the west; the pink sky seen during the sunset (in west) can be representative of Gatsby's illusion and dream of returning to the past, back together with Daisy.

Citation: //Separation, Division, Wall//. Digital image. //Welcome to Flickr - Photo Sharing//. Web. 04 Sept. 2010. []. //Sincerity of Soul, Heart//. Digital image. //Welcome to Flickr - Photo Sharing//. Web. 05 Sept. 2010. []. //Sunset//. Digital image. //Welcome to Flickr - Photo Sharing//. Web. 04 Sept. 2010. [].