Chapter 3 begins with a description of Gatsby’s legendary parties. ‘’There was music from my neighbour’s house through the summer nights’’ is the first sentence of the chapter, and I think that it is a very short but good description of Gatsby’s parties that start early in the morning and last until the next one.
Gatsby’s parties are legendary. Whomever Nick met so far, they all said that they know Mr. Gatsby from West Egg and had been to one of his parties; though no one actually knew Mr. Gatsby himself, and only heard rumors about him. As we can see, his parties contain all kinds of people: ‘’People were not invited- they went there.’’ Gatsby’s parties bring together the ‘’old rich’’ of the East Egg and the ‘’new rich’’ of the West Egg. Personally I really liked how this chapter started in a colorful way; I wanted to be at one of Gatsby’s parties when I was reading the description.
The fact that Nick was ‘’one of the few guests who had actually been invited’’ was honoring for him, as well as surprising. Nick wasn’t expecting an invitation to one of the legendary parties of his mysterious neighbour, and neither was I. ‘’The honour would be entirely Gatsby’s, it said, if I would attend his ‘little party’ that night’’ was the invitation Nick received. I loved how this invitation was so ironic; inviting Nick to attend the legendary ‘little party’.
In this chapter, we finally witness one of Gatsby’s parties, and actually meet Gatsby for the first time. We only saw Gatsby once, at the end of first chapter, and that was only a silhouette. As the reader, I was particularly curious about Gatsby’s parties and of course Gatsby himself, the man we heard so many rumors about.
Nick finally arrives to the party and is surprised to see ‘’number of Englishmen dotted about.’’ He gets bored since he is alone and doesn’t know anyone, so he tries to find his host, Mr. Gatsby. When he asks people about Gatsby, the look at him amazed and deny any knowledge; which seemed surprising to me and increased my curiosity in meeting Gatsby. I wondered why people were so afraid of the man, but still showed the courage to come to his house.
When he can’t find the host after all his attempts, Nick goes to the cocktail table- ‘’the only place in the garden where a single man could linger without looking purposeless and alone.’’ I particularly liked this description; probably because that it was true in 1920’s and still is in 2010’s. I wasn’t surprised when Nick ran into Jordan Baker at the party, and I knew that something would happen between these two.
Later on in the party, Jordan and Nick join a group at a table and they start to talk about Gatsby. ‘’He doesn’t want trouble with anybody’’ they say; they also say that they heard he killed someone, and that he was a German spy during the war. The fact that Gatsby is so mysterious, and we still don’t know anything about him besides his parties and that isn’t a rumor sharpens my curiosity. One of the girls’ comment surprised me when she said ‘’I’ll bet he killed a man.’’ Personally, I don’t think that Gatsby is a violent man, and is capable of killing someone. You may not know someone, and you may have heard rumors about him; but it is stupid to believe a rumor, unless you know that it isn’t, and judge a person by a possible lie that you heard.
When Jordan and Nick were looking for Gatsby, they go to a Gothic library. Inside there is a ‘’stout, middle-aged man, with enormous owl-eyed spectacles.’’ At first I thought that this somewhat drunk man was Gatsby, but later on I understood that it wasn’t.
Nick and Jordan then go out to the garden after having a little chat with the middle-aged man in the library. Nick starts talking to a man near his own age at the table. The man says that he remembers Nick from somewhere and it turns out that they were both in the First Division during the war. When this man turned out to be Gatsby, I was shocked. The fact that Nick and Gatsby knew each other from war was surprising. Nick says ‘’I had expected Mr. Gatsby would be a florid and corpulent person in his middle years’’ and I agree with him; I also expected someone in his middle ages.
‘’When Vladamir Tostoff’s Jazz History of the World was over, girls were putting their heads on men’s shoulders in a puppyish, convivial way, girls were swooning backward playfully into men’s arms, even into groups, knowing that someone would arrest their falls- but no one swooned backward on Gatsby, and no French bob touched Gatsby’s shoulder, and no singing quartets were formed with Gatsby’s head for one link.’’ People avoid Gatsby, even when they are at his mansion. Gatsby is a lonely man in a crowd. Maybe that is why he throws all these massive parties; in order not to feel so isolated.
When Gatsby wants to talk to Jordan alone I wondered what he said to her, especially when she came saying ‘’I’ve just heard the most amazing thing,’’ This will be a very significant moment in the novel; what Gatsby said to Jordan in that room is very important, and I am sure that it is going to come up later in the story and we will find it out.
From the words ‘‘The familiar expression held no more familiarity than the hand which reassuringly brushed my shoulder’’, we understand that Gatsby is familiar to Nick from somewhere, they already have seen and probably know each other from before.
Fitzgerald describes the end of the party very well with ‘’A sudden emptiness seemed to flow now from the windows and the great doors, endowing with complete isolation the figure of the host, who stood on the porch, his hand up in a formal gesture of farewell.’’
Towards the end of the chapter Nick says that he has feelings for Jordan, which only proves me right, it was obvious.
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