The Great Gatsby Ch. 3 Reading Journal

The Great Gatsby: Chapter 3 (pp. 39-59)

Summary:

The first page of the chapter is used to describe the huge lavish parties that Gatsby has at his house weekly, and, for the first time, Nick has been personally invited to one.  When Nick arrives at the party, he is overwhelmed by the scene and decides to drink the night away when he sees Jordan Baker, with whom he spends most of the night with at the party.  He later strikes up a conversation with a man about not having met the host and later realizes he is talking to Gatsby himself, but he is extremely comforted by Gatsby’s smile and is not too sorry for the confusion anymore.  Gatsby pulled Jordan aside for an hour or two in his library and she refused to discuss what happened.  Nick is one of the last party-goers to leave but feels special because of Gatsby’s farewell to him, meanwhile, a man Nick had met earlier at  the party in the library was involved in a car accident.  The narrator takes a break from the story to describe his daily work in the bond business, and his growing attraction to Jordan who is dishonest but he is fine with it.

Jordan Baker:

“She was incurably dishonest.  She wasn’t able to endure being at a disadvantage and, given this unwillingness, I suppose she had begun dealing in subterfuges when she was very young in order to keep that cool, insolent smile turned to the world and yet satisfy the demannds of her hard, jaunty body.” (p. 58)

When we first meet Jordan Baker in the first chapter, she comes across as snobby, independent, and unhappy.  Nick believes there is more to her: “I wasn’t actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity.  The bored haughty face that she turned to the world concealed something…” (p. 57).  In this chapter, we find out more about her; she is extremely dishonest and careless, yet Nick seems to like or dismiss these qualities. She is a well-known, successful athlete and doesn’t need a man to make something of herself.  She likes to gossip and doesn’t worry about her appearance: “I noticed that she wore her evening-dress…like sports clothes—there was a jauntiness about her movements as if she had first learned to walk upon golf courses…” (p. 50).  She seems to take a liking in Nick so her role in the novel may be Nick’s romantic interest.  Also, she represnents a new breed of women in those times and she strongly differs from the other female characters in the book.

Significant Quote:

“It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it….It faced…the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor.  It understood you…as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey.” (p. 48)

This quote caught my eye because I was surprised how much Nick took away from Gatsby’s character from a simple smile that probably only lasted a second.  It demostrates Gatsby’s unbelievable way of addressing other people so that they feel good about themselves.  He seems to have more respect and hope for other people than they do in themselves.