Chapter Three: Love & Historical Context
English Lit: AQA A Level The Great Gatsby - Specification A, topic 3.3.3
Chapter Three - Love, Historical Context and Historicism
For specification A, you are specifically interested in the implication of texts in history and how the ideology of love is presented in this text. Here are some ideas relevant to that reading:
Contrast: guests and servants
- There is an explicit contrast between the moneyed individuals who attend Gatsby’s parties and those servants who clean up afterward and keep the mansion running.
- This is very much symbolic of the social division in the United States of America at this time.
Gatsby's parties
- Gatsby’s parties are symbolic of how ‘new money’ showed off in 1920s’ America. They also demonstrate a world of freer love.
English culture
- Although the Americans themselves have ‘new money’, it seems they bow down to the culture of Englishness in this world in that it represents sophistication and class.
- At the same time, the English seem to be taking advantage of the admiring Americans, for their own benefit. At this point in history, England was still held up as a symbol of class and wealth, and was thus to be imitated.
Age of salesmen
- This was the great Age of salesmen operating in a new materialist-based culture. However, this connects with the idea of love also being able to be bought.
Superficiality
- Parties in this Age were filled with hangers on, people there through chance and association, rather than by connection or true love. Love can appear to be only surface level.
Chapter Three - Love, Historical Context and Historicism
For specification A, you are specifically interested in the implication of texts in history and how the ideology of love is presented in this text. Here are some ideas relevant to that reading:
Social wheel of Gatsby's life
- The swirling social wheel of Gatsby’s life emphasises his mysterious status. In some senses, he revels in this mystery and gossip.
Gatsby's party
- The party is typical of the era. It has elements of pretend wealth and pretentiousness.
Significance of Owl Eyes
- In this chapter, Owl Eyes is highlighting the superficial nature of the ‘roaring twenties’.
- To him, the whole house is like a theatre set: although the books are real, nobody reads them and they are really just for show: appearances are everything among the ‘new money’ class of the 1920s.
- Books carry status and learning despite the fact that they are not read. Gatsby could be accused of trying to buy love.
Reminder: post-war era
- The fact that Nick and Gatsby both appear to have fought during World War One emphasises that they are living in a post-war era.
Masks and Owl Eyes' car crash
- Gatsby’s charming and endearing smile and manner is like a mask, just in the same way that the supposed ‘fun’ of the ‘roaring twenties’ is really just hiding the hollow reality.
- The reality is embodied by Owl Eyes’ car crash, and in Nick’s eyes, the ‘loose morality’ of the Age. It seems it may well be difficult to find true love in such an era.
Test yourself on Chapter Three: Love & Historical Context
What is there an explicit contrast between at Gatsby's parties?
Which of these are true of Gatsby's parties?
Which word best describes the culture of the time The Great Gatsby was written?
Which characters realise they fought in World War One together?
Which word would you NOT associate with Gatsby's parties?