The assignment is a short and focused exercise in what is commonly phrased as close reading. Only 250 words are required; however, this is enough for you to work on a small piece of text in detail. The objective is for you to begin developing a practice of sustained textual analysis with a primary text, but also, for me to see how you engage with the text, or rather, how you read and how you interpret. The attached passage that you’ll be studying is from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. The scene: Nick Carraway’s seeing of Jordan Baker and his moment of “I thought I loved her.”
A few words to get the wheels turning ...
In class we discussed the original 1925 cover art of The Great Gatsby by Francis Cugart, focusing on my question: “What are the categories through which you see and read the figure?” In an effort to complicate notions of gender representation (specifically femininity), I prodded you to re-think how you read the feminine figure’s eyes, her lips, her mascara, her eyeliner, and her missing nose. To extend our reading outside of gender, I cued us to think how a nose doesn’t reveal gender but how it might reveal race (or, to challenge us further, class). You might also consider the tear, the cityscape, and/or why the woman’s eyes reflect nude female figures.
Drawing a parallel between our reading of the cover art, I prodded you to examine character portraits of Nick Carraway and Tom Buchanan (as a class we read the middle of page 6 and top of page 7 for passages related to Tom).
For your writing assignment I want you to concentrate on the character of Jordan Baker. The passage you'll be providing your own close reading from, pages 57–58 (end of Chapter Three), starts with, "For a while I lost sight of Jordan Baker ... " and concludes with, "It was on that same house party that we had a curious conversation ..."
For your assignment, although you may use concepts from lecture, please do not treat this passage as a mere demonstration of these themes. Any claim you make about this passage must proceed from a very close attention to its voice, language, and structure. (You might find helpful to recall our in-class readings of the cover art and of Tom Buchanan’s character). Remember, close reading is about effective reading. Go deep with your thinking. “If you were an artist, you’d be painting with a fine brush here, and not a roller,” as a friend-scholar once put it.
One common weakness of student writing is its tendency to paraphrase or generalize. In an effort to make meaningful statements, students sometimes end up making broad pronouncements meant to apply to all mankind. Steer clear from this type of distant reading. Another pitfall is “padding,” or saying the same thing over and over again in slightly different ways, as if an argument could be made through sheer repetition. Close reading is a remedy to both these well-meaning mistakes.
Put simply: close reading is at the heart of literary analysis. It is a deep engagement with language itself, or rather with the words on the page and what they are doing there. When we read for plot or summary, it sometimes seems that words get in the way, pushing literary language aside so that comprehension can plow its way through the details. This is often the first way we learn how to interact with a text: you are asked to “tell the story in your own words.” But to paraphrase is always to stay on the surface, and satisfying literary criticism is never a surface phenomenon—that’s why I call literary analysis a deep reading. Paraphrasing is exactly the opposite of close reading. In fact, it makes close reading impossible. Remember the primary text is not a “message” but an act of representation. As such, it displays thousands of choices about how to use language. Therefore, instead of moving alongside of (and eventually outpacing) the text, you will enter the text itself, and thus enter into a world of expression, manner, language, and meaning in all its richness and complexity. In this moment of entering the passage of Jordan Baker then, I want you to enter the world of reading gender through Nick Carraway’s eyes—in his seeing Jordan Baker, Nick even states, “for a moment I thought I loved her.” You might also think about what seeing and love have to do with each other. But, please, show me how you are reading gender in this passage.
Please bring two copies of your “Close Reading” to class on Session 3, AND please email me your 250 words (as a Word document or throw it in the body of an email) no later than Session 3 at 12 p.m.—you can still revise your 250 words after you submit it to me by email. I only want to read these before Session 3. Only your hard copy will be graded.
Useful vocabulary:
- Gender criticism
For a definition of “gender criticism” and/or "feminist and gender criticism" see:
Gardner, Janet E. Reading and Writing About Literature: A Portable Guide. 3rd edition. Bedford/St. Martin's, 2012, p. 189. ISBN: 9781457606496. [Preview with Google Books]