Reading Journal - Chapter 4 - The Great Gatsby

Perspective/Voice:

• In the first person from the perspective of Nick Carraway.
• Perspective change to Jordan Baker from "One October day..." - "...Gatsby with the officer in her white car."
• Switches back to Nick

Setting:

• Gatsby's house (at a party again)
• "Forty-second street cellar" - underground bar where dirty dealings happen - illegally selling alcohol against the prohibition in the 1920s
• "Plaza Hotel"

Structure:

• Flashback - new own section for it - importance - "1917" - Jordan Baker's perspective
• "Gatsby's house in the summer" - this novel is spread over some time - events didn't happen close together.
• New section after list of names - jump in tense.

Style

• Auto-biographical which switches to biographical genre after the list of names.
• Prose mainly with tiny inserts of poetry - "I'm the Sheik of Araby... Into your tent I'll creep -"

Language

•  describing in colours again "grey names" - not individuals, ghostly people to Gatsby and Nick really - aren't know personally - mean nothing to them
• Listing names for 1 and a half to 2 pages of the book - trying to explain the character's at Gatsby's parties to no avail.
• More dialogue within the bar.