Chapter 3

• "In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars" Moths - attracted to light. Potentially, the people of west egg see light in Gatsby. They see how he has taken it upon himself to create hedonism personified in the form of his parties. They see the success and they are willing to collaborate with it. Or - They are clueless. They could be moths being led to a flame, and tha instead of caring for his guests the only purpose served in his parties are part of his grand plan to find Daisy once again.
• "On weekends, his Rolls-Royce became an omnibus (Containing many different items)" Conspicuous consumption - Using his items to attract.
• The organisation of Gatsby's parties shown at the beginning of Chapter 3 echoes the end of the novel where his dad reveals his routine he followed as young child. Gatsby's work consumed him.
• "Enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each other's names" - Superificality. Relates to the Tower of Babel where god changed the language of the workers who were trying to ascend into heaven unlawfully.
• "Somehow they ended up at Gatsby's door" Gatsby has mastered the law of attraction.
• "I had actually been invited" - Nick. Shows hubris attitude
• "Someone told me he killed a man once" "German spy during the war" "American Army during the war" - Allure continues.
• Delayed introduction of Gatsby is most intense here.
• "Stout, middle-aged man with enormous owl-eyed spectacles, was sitting somewhat drunk on the edge of a great table" - Owl Eyes - Human embodiment of Eckleburg. Here to expose truths.
• "Absolutely real - have pages and everything"

  "Knew when to stop too - didn't cut the pages"

  The whole scene is metaphoric for Gatsby's illusory facade. He has all the money in the world, like all the books on the shelf, but beneath the front cover of it all, lies an uncut truth that is not suspected or revealed.

  Owl Eyes is ironic, he was drunk for an entire week, and yet he speaks the most truth out of all the characters. Symbolises the disorientation of New Money in West Egg and how gullible people are to be caught up in Gatsby's facade.
• "He snatched the book from me and replaced it hastily on its shelf, muttering that if one brick was removed the whole library was liable to collapse" One part of Gatsby's endeavour to get back with Daisy is disturbed, the whole situation collapses.
• "Single girls dancing individualistically" "Vacuous bursts of laughter" "Champagne was served in glasses bigger than finger bowls" The whole party is disorientated and crazy. Almost like a big distraction. The alcohol keeps the life of the party going.
• "The scene had changed before my eyes into something significant, elemental and profound" Nick is under the spell of magic that Gatsby's parties create. Alos he is in the presence of Gatsby.
• "He smiled understandingly - much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life" Gatsby instantly captivates and resonated with Nick. Gatsby understands he isn't what the lore makes him out to be. He desperately tries to fit the supposed persona by throwing these parties - but his presence is unsuspected. Only raises the intrigue to his person. He is nothing like what we expected him to be like.
• "It understood you just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, ans assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey" - Nick goes on a tangent whilst admiring Gatsby's smile, it's clear his affection runs deep for Gatsby which is a stape notion even after Gatsby dies. Nick is trying to fit in the West Egg and Gatsby is making him feel welcome.
• "Precisely in that moment it vanished - and i was looking at an elegant young rough-neck, a year or two over thirty, whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd" - Gatsby's allure has passed - Nick sees straight through him almost immediately. Presents Nick as the ultimate observer.
• Nick already sees past the facade + This quote reinforces his traditional views on how you must be born into riches to make a name for yourself "I would have accepted without question the information that Gatsby was from the swamps of Louisiana or from the Lower East side of New York (Suburban area)" "In my provincial experience i believed they didn't - drift coolly out of nowhere and buy a palace on Long Island"
• "Gatsby, standing alone on the marble steps and looking from on egroup to another with approving eyes" Placed himself on a pedestal and focused on finding Daisy. And he observes things, much like Nick. 'He was not drinking" level headed.
• "She wore her evening dress, and all her dresses, like sports clothes" Perpetually bound to giving a masculine impression. Lesbian connotations.
• "She was not only singing, she was weeping too" - Alcohol only heightens emotions, it doesn't displace them. The upper classes remain unfulfilled. Money cannot buy happiness.
• "Most of the remaining women were now having fights with men said to be there husbands" Fitzgerald echoing his personal life - Relates to Zelda and Fitzgerald's arguments that occured regarding the often conflicted status of their relationship
• "A dozen headlights illuminated a bizarre and tumultuous scene" - The whole night is a blurred formation of events with carelessness and confusion. The lack of organisation and safety at his parties amplifies Gatsby's forced sense of formality. He will never have the natural uptight snobbish nature that natural born upper class members adapt from young.
• "In the ditch beside the road, right side up, but violently shorn of one wheel" - Relates to the Wall Street Crash. Also, this partnered with Myrtle dying to a car crash may be a political diatribe from Fitzgerald on significant motor development in the 1920s from entrepreneurs such as Henry Ford. The upper classes may abuse this new found technology and hence tragedy will unfold. GOOD.
• "But i wasn't even trying" "I wasn't even trying" - Ignorance to responsibility. Also whole scenario is metaphoric for how the upper classes strive for wealth, and then when faced with difficulty, they turn to the lower classes to blame "I know nothing whatever about mechanics" - Like George Wilson eg. Echoes how George is simply labelled a 'Mad Man" when he kills himself and Gatsby - they are prime targets for blame.
• Drunken man crashes the car, "careless people" in the upper classes.
• "I even had a short affair with a girl from Jersey City.. so when she went on her vacation in July i let it blow quietly away"

  "I liked to walk up Fifth Avenue and pick out Romantic women from the crowd and imagine that in a few minutes i was going to enter in their lives" - Nick picks and chooses his women -He has standards.
• "I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes" - Beginning to like New York but he doesn't feel a part of the lifestyle yet. He is too moral and humble for the flamboyance of this part of America.
• 'For a while i lost sight of Jordan Baker, and then in mid summer i found her again" Floating about carelessly - like the Buchanans.
• Jordan "Incurably dishonest" Golf Scandal, lied about the roof of her car being open when rain lashed down, and avoided clever men who could outsmart her. Jordan is presented as rather unlikable.
• "I hate careless people. That's why i like you" - Nick is careless, he is free-flowing and open. First hint that their relationship will not prevail. Not a clear cut understanding of eachother.
• "I am one of the few honest people that i have ever known" - Hubris and ego, but partly true in this world of facade in the West Egg.