Gatsby: Some Help from Google

". . . I was standing beside his bed and he was sitting up between the sheets, clad in his underwear, with a great portfolio in his hands.

'Beauty and the Best . . . Loneliness . . . Old Grocery Horse . . . Brook'n Bridge . . .'" (The Great Gatsby, 38).

Fitzgerald adds quite a few allusions that gracefully place this novel in the Jazz Age. There are references to powerful figures like Morgan and Rockefeller. In Tom's apartment, copies of Town Tattle are on the table at a time when tabloids were becoming very popular (29). The orchestra at Gatsby's mansion plays a song called Jazz History of the World (49). My "things I learned in APUSH" label is slowly but surely climbing up my list of labels.

But what the crap is this at the end of chapter two? Is it even an allusion? I realize that at this point, Nick is completely wasted.  He says that this was the second and final time he ever got drunk, which I think just makes his character more sympathetic (29). But I'd still like to know what he's talking about here. Ready? I'm going to google this quote and see what comes up; hopefully, I can find enough information to do my blog justice.

Oh, I see -- most people seem to think that Nick put Mr. McKee to bed, and the "great portfolio" has pictures in it. Likely, the titles of the pictures are "Beauty and the Beast," "Loneliness," "Old Grocery Horse," and "Brook'n Bridge." That's not very exciting, and if they're allusions, I don't get them. "Brook'n Bridge" kind of sounds like "broken bridge," which could refer to Myrtle's nose.

We Will All Go Together When We Go

"And may there be no moaning of the bar / When I put out to sea" ("Crossing the Bar," 3-4).

I distinctly remember reading this in Channel 1 today and getting "We Will All Go Together When We Go" stuck in my head. Tom Lehrer sings, "We will all char together when we char, and let there be no moaning of the bar." Good allusion, Mr. Lehrer -- he's so smart!

I'm going to dissect the meaning of this metaphor here. "When I put out to sea" (4) is a metaphor for death. Later, "When I have crossed the bar" (16) serves as another metaphor for death, but what about "no moaning of the bar"?

Looking at it in the context of Tom Lehrer's song (which I know I'm not supposed to do, Perrine, but bear with me), we must accept that we're all going to "char" when the bomb drops on all of us. Lehrer sings about why dying together is a good thing -- it's a "comforting fact" that we're all going to be glowing with radiation when we all die, and there's no reason to "moan."

I'm going to use the definition of "bar" in my AHD that says "attorneys considered as a group." A "bar" defined thus is a group of attorneys, who state someone's case on behalf of him. The speaker does not want the "bar" -- those metaphorical "attorneys" -- to mourn his death on his behalf. Rather, he wants a quiet, subdued, and peaceful death.

I need some more tissues if I want to keep analyzing this one.

"A strain of the earth's sweet being in the beginning / In Eden garden" ("Spring," 10-11).

Hopkins's central point is his first sentence: "Nothing is so beautiful as spring" (1). The poem's imagery effectively reflects that beauty of spring. "Echoing timber" (4), leaving and blooming peartrees (6), and a blue sky "all in a rush" (7) within the first stanza let the reader experience the most rich and beautiful facets of spring. As I read this poem, my eyes got watery and I sneezed a few times, so the imagery also messed with my allergies. This is true -- I have witnesses.

This poem contains two allusions in the final two stanzas. First, Hopkins relates Spring to the beauty of the Garden of Eden. The poem glorifies the beauty of spring, but then presents a contrasting warning -- "Have, get, before it cloy" (11). I think that Hopkins wants to express that spring is so beautiful that it cannot last, and anything that precedes or follows it cannot compare to its "sweet being." Next, "Spring" discusses the "innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy" (13). The purpose of the convergence of these two allusions is to realize both the beauty and the innocence of Spring that we must embrace while it lasts.

Hopkins could have reworded a few lines to express his point more clearly, but the poem would have lost its rhyming structure and alliteration. The second line's alliteration jumped out at me -- "when weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush" -- because it gave the poem a rhythm I could follow. The soft, rhythmic consonants repeated in these lines reflect the subtle, sequenced season of Spring. That . . . was unintentional. But I like it.

For the record, I think that this poem's central theme is moot for people who have to deal with this:

Woolworth's

"So we went into the Woolworth's, and immediately I felt much more cheerful. Even now, I like places like that: a large store with lots of aisles displaying bright plastic toys, greeting cards, loads of cosmetics, maybe even a photo booth" (Never Let Me Go, 157).

When the Woolworth's was introduced as a place where Chrissie and Rodney get birthday cards, I highlighted it and annotated, "I've heard of that." Then I thought about it a lot and remembered that it was a significant place in the United States during the Civil Rights Movement.

It started with four black students who sat at a Woolworth's counter in Greensboro. They were not served because of their race, but they stayed at the counter until closing. Each subsequent day, more African Americans gathered at the counter as part of a large-scale sit-in.

I don't even know if the two Woolworth's stores are connected in any way, but I still wonder if the author choose Woolworth's for allusion purposes. I could easily draw a parallel between the students' sitting where they weren't allowed and Kathy's eavesdropping on Ruth and Chrissie. It's probably just a coincidence, but I'm going to pretend that it's an allusion. Either way, I think it's an appropriate choice of store.

". . . I'll stroll into somewhere just like that, where you can hang around and enjoy yourself, not buying a thing, and the assistants don't mind at all" (157).

One time, I went to Walmart for the sole purpose of putting stuff on my head, so I can totally relate to Kathy on this one.

What kind of name is "Aldous"?

"'Going to the Feelies this evening, Henry?'" (Brave New World, 35).

Admittedly, as the point of view got really choppy and annoying at the end of chapter three, I wasn't very interested in Henry Foster's story as much as I was with what the Controller was saying. BUT there were a ton of cool allusions that I liked.

The quote up there is a reference to the "Talkies" of the Roaring Twenties -- movies with sound. I suppose they're "Feelies" in this book to make the world seem more advanced and (I don't think this is too far fetched) sexually free. Before that, the Director sat on a bench made of "steel and rubber" (33), two industries that thrived in that decade because of Ford's automobile. Then, near the end of the chapter, there was a huge focus on consumerism ("'I do love having new clothes'"), which was a defining aspect of the 1920s. All of this really makes sense with the idolization of Ford -- and the "Ford" thing really keeps getting more and more over-the-top.

I have one more quick reference that I enjoyed: "Our Ford -- or Our Freud, as, for some inscrutable reason, he chose to call himself whenever he spoke of psychological matters . . ." (39). The reason was inscrutable to the notebook students because they don't know anything about history, but luckily, I can tell you that Freud (who was influential during the 1920s -- go figure), was a psychologist who studied sexuality and impulse.

Fast forward to abooouuut . . . 2:05. It's number 23.

Also, if anyone was curious, "Aldous" is actually a legitimate name that comes from the German word for "old."