Chapters 5-6

In today's lesson we were looking at how Fitzgerald uses different types of narration to tell the story of The Great Gatsby in chapters 5 & 6.





First we looked at the Tredellon Structure:





*Modified 1st person: Fitzgerald uses this because the disadvantage of having only one persons narration is that they cannot tell you about what has occurred at events which the narrator wasn't involved in. Therefore another character tells the 1st person narrator about these events. The narrator then filters this information through to the reader. Fitzgerald also uses another technique in The Great Gatsby by making Nick (the 1st person narrator) put some of Gatsby's narrative into his own words.





*Scenic Method: Fitzgerald borrowed this method from Henry James. The novelist dramatises the scenes by making the narrator produce a running commentary of images instead of just retelling a story. The narrator then directs you to the things he sees e.g:body language, actions.

Voices

Extradiegetic narrator: is part of the diegesis but tells a story within the the diegeis.

Intradiegetic narrator: is part of the diegesis but tells a story that creates or is set in another diegesis.

Nick is a extradiegetic homodiegetic narrator in The Great Gatsby

There are 7 ways in which Fitzgerald modifies the first person narration:

1. Recounting dialogue between character.

2. Direct quotation of another character's sustained account. (Jordan as an intradiegetic narrator)

3. Paraphrasing another character's words.

4. Piecing together fragments of a story into a continuous narrative in Nick's voice.

5. Speculation about what might have happened.

6. Speculation about how a character might have felt. ('he must have felt')

7. Evocations of another character's consciousness. ('he felt')

By Mumtas