The Great Gatsby Chapter 1

Critical Lenses

Objective: Analyze the first chapter of The Great Gatsby by utilizing critical lenses
(feminist, marxist, race/ethnic, new historicism).

Part 1: Analyzing the Curtain Scene

Which critical lenses can we use to analyze this scene?

Feminist

Claims about the scene with the lens in mind:

The curtain scene, when analyzed through a feminist lens, highlights the dominant
role that men played in the home, as well as in society as a whole. Tom is seen
controlling the scene by aggressively greeting Nick and shutting the rear windows
after entering the house. The women remain stationary on the couch, not doing
anything to take charge and shut the window that is causing everything to be blown
around. They are mentioned in the same way that the objects around the house are,
through observations about how the wind is blowing on them.

“The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which
two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon.”

“There was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind
died out about the room, and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women
ballooned slowly to the floor.”

Part 2: Analyzing scenes in groups (if you are absent, skip this step):
Pick 2 passages to work with (briefly describe which passages you are referencing)

First description of the two eggs

Which lens(es) can you use?

Marxist
 What claims can you make? (try to utilize the vocabulary from the critical lens slide
deck)

Nick’s description of East and West Egg, when looked at through a marxist lens,
reveals the differences in how people of “old money” and “new money” were
perceived.
● Share out

Part 3: Analyze a scene individually (select one of the claims above to develop into a
paragraph – utilize the model on the slide deck to help with structuring)
Your response:

Nick’s description of East and West Egg, when looked at through a marxist lens,
reveals the differences in how people of “old money” and “new money” were
perceived. When first mentioning the two eggs, Nick explains West Egg as, “The less
fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and
not a little sinister contrast between them” (Fitzgerald 5). While Nick is able to get the
point across that East Egg is generally the more desirable option between the two, he
is not able to really articulate what makes it better. When looked at as their real life
counterparts of old money and new money, this reveals that while old money was
clearly viewed as superior, there was no concrete difference between the wealth of
new and old money. This is further supported by the fact that the best word Nick can
find for their differences is that east egg is more “fashionable”. Fashion, and therefore
what is labeled as “fashionable”, is entirely dependent on culture and societal ideas,
not really anything about something’s natural qualities.