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Why Does Fitzgerald Tell The Story In Chapter 4 Of The Great Gatsby

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Why Does Fitzgerald Tell The Story In Chapter 4 Of The Great Gatsby
How does Fitzgerald tell the story in Chapter 4?

In the Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses various aspects of narrative to bring the story alive and help the reader become immersed in it. In the duration of the first few chapters the reader is introduced to each of the main characters needed for the story and by Chapter 4 almost all of the plotlines have been opened, ready to be explored. Nick is the first-person narrator, telling the story in retrospective and we continue to learn more information about his self-conscious attitude and the way he views particular situations as the novel progresses. The structure of the chapter helps to slow the pace of the novel and this helps to build excitement and tension as the reader is slowly told pieces of Gatsby’s story.
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Gatsby who is claimed to have ‘once killed a man' and be ‘second cousin to the devil.’ Despite meeting him in the previous chapter he is still depicted as ‘mysterious’ as even Jordan. Nick continues to list the names of all those that visited Gatsby and describe all those that had come ‘to Gatsby’s house in the summer’. The vast array of ages and backgrounds of these people only increase the frustration in understanding Gatsby, as we cannot place him within any of the structured groups of ‘grey names’. The use of ‘grey’ here links to the dullness and lack of individuality of the ‘valley of ashes’ and how the people that entered Gatsby’s house for the parties were all blank and

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