Домашнее чтение. Контрольные задания для 3 курса – заочники Chapter I

Characters:

Nick Carraway

Daisy Buchanan

Tom Buchanan

Jordan Baker

Jay Gatsby

Answer questions in writing:

1. Who is the narrator of the story?

2. From what part of the country does Nick originally come?

3. Why has Nick moved to New York?

4. How does Nick come to live next door to Jay Gatsby?

5. Where had Nick Known Tom Buchanan before?

6. What is Jordan Baker’s relationship to Daisy Buchanan?

7. What does Nick learn from Jordan when Tom is called to the phone?

8. What is the “secret society”?

9. What does Nick see Gatsby doing at the end of the chapter?

Vocabulary focus (write your own situations (three minimum) with the words):

Prominent

Well-to-do

Bonds, banking, credit, investment securities

Enormous eggs, enormously wealthy

Mansion

Polo ponies

To scarcely know smb.

Women were buoyed up

Things went from bed to worse

A heart to heart talk

To vanish

Vocabulary list

(Present orally original situations of the novel, using the following words and phrases)

To reserve (judgements), in uniform, gorgeous, a heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, to descend from smb., to overlook smth., one’s second cousin, to drift, sturdy, arrogant, to hate smb.’s guts, a bond man, hulking, to be sophisticated, a libel.

I. Give (in writing) a summary of Chapter I.

II. Be ready to discuss the following:

A.

1. Who is charged with relating the story?

2. In the preface (or really afterward to the novel) F. Scott Fitzgerald establishes the narrator’s moral position. What is it? Are the narrator’s initial judgements modified?

3. Some critics say that F. Scott Fitzgerald wanted to impose some kind of order on the haphazard circumstances of life: “He tried to find an ordered cosmos in his own terms. Fitzgerald seemed to think he could discover in that magic world of the rich ’safe and proud above the hot struggles of the poor’ the sanctuary he seems always to have sought.” Find some words of confirmation of this opinion in the opening lines of the novel.

4. Speak on the narrator’s first mention of the central figure of the novel. Don’t you find Carraway’s attitude towards Gatsby ambivalent? Give your reasons.

5. Comment on the way the novel begins. What is the role of the preface?

B.

1. What is Carraway’s background? Comment on the way Nick Carraway’sgreat-uncle gave his family “economic ballast.”

2. Comment on the following: “I enjoyed the counter-raid so thoroughly that I came back restless.” Pay attention to the word “restless” used throughout the chapter and explain what it suggests. What do they call the generation Carraway belongs to? Say why the heroes of the novel note the frequency of the “motion terms” (drift, move, run, ride). Explain what they suggest. Sum up, your observations and characterize, the period Carraway came East.

3. Describe the community Carraway began his new life in. Describe Gatsby’s mansion; the Buchanans’ mansion. What is the role of the descriptive paragraphs? What colours prevail in the descriptions? What do they symbolize? Describe the atmosphere of the dinner-party at the Buchanans’.

4. Speak on the narrator’s first mention of the following characters:

a) Tom Buchanan;

b) Daisy Buchanan;

c) Jordan Baker.

Describe their appearance (prepare in writing a list of “terms of appearance” used by the author). What features of the characters are accentuated in the descriptions of their appearance and behaviour?

Speak on Tom Buchanan’s social standing; his views. What does the word “scientific” used by Tom Buchanan suggest? Was Tom capable of comprehending the metaphorical and symbolic meaning of the nightingale, “the bird that was not born for death”? (Here F.Scott Fitzgerald relies upon an understanding of Keats to reveal aspects of character that are important to the meaning of the novel. Keats in “Ode to a Nightingale” longed for “a state of eternality while recognizing that he [was] subject to a state of temporality.” This is the Keatsian element that runs through his fiction—the belief in golden world, a beautiful moment that will never fade.)

Speak of Daisy’s married life. What kind of person is called “sophisticated”? What does the root-repetition of “promise” suggest? Why did Nick Carraway feel the basic insincerity of what Daisy had said? Why do you think she had no intention “to rush out of the house, child in arms”? Speak on Jordan Baker’s life-style. Express your opinion about it.

5. Speak on Carraway’s first glimpse of Gatsby.

С.

What is the narrator’s attitude towards the heroes of the novel? Are they depicted with sympathy? irony? contempt? humour?

What are the methods by which Nick Carraway informs the reader of what is happening or has happened:

a) his own eye-witness account;

b) the account of other people (in their words or in his own)?

What are the advantages of first-person narration Fitzgerald resorts to (after the manner of Joseph Conrad)?

Speak on the composition of the chapter.

Judging by the descriptive passages of the chapter say whether they testify to Nick Carraway’s romantic or realistic disposition of mind.