The El Greco
“Even when the East excited me most... Even then it had always for me a quality of distortion. West Egg, especially, still figures in my more fantastic dreams. I see it as a night scene by El Greco: a hundred houses, at once conventional and grotesque, crouching under a sullen overhanging sky and a lustreless moon. In the foreground four solemn men in dress suits are walking along the sidewalk with a stretcher on which lies a drunken woman in a white evening dress. Her hand, which dangles over the side, sparkles cold with jewels. Gravely the men turn in at a house - the wrong house. But no one knows the woman's name, and no one cares......After Gatsby's death the East was haunted for me like that, distorted beyond my eyes' power of correction." (chapter 9,'The Great Gatsby')
Why does Nick see the East as an El Greco painting?
Comments by: Emilio , Licia , Rio , Francesca , Rhona , Rafael, Guido
He thought this because he came from the West and wasn’t used
to all the pressure and excitement of the fast paced East. Back where
he came from everything was old fashioned, I guess that he had a sort
of schedule while in the East he took everything as it came. He had
no time to prepare for what was coming up next. In many cases even
the observant Nick Carraway had to stand back and work things through
in his head one more time. Like he said before, this is a story of
people from the West trying to cope with the East.
Just the idea of what he has gone through haunts him. It was so far
away from the tranquil, well prepared West. He must have felt that it
was unrealistic, almost distorted. It was an unbelievable experience
for all of them. Nick thought that the people were fascinating
because they all had such different qualities, Daisy with her
emptiness and beauty, as Jordan was jaunty and careless. The whole
summer must have been the fastest two months he had ever had, and he
would remember it as the most dramatic period of his life.
Everything is finished now for Nick. He has matured after having lived through an extraordinary experience. So many things happened in just two months of summer. His involvement has made him and us understand many things. We, like Nick understand the story more completely after Gatsby's funeral has taken place. This is when Nick thinks of the East as an El Greco painting.
He has lived these two months with people who are completely different from him. He has talked with 'distorted' people.
If we look at the 'Toledo' painting, we can see that the mood is very hard. It is very obscure and the houses are all attached together. Then we see a valley which is all green and I compare it to the Valley of Ashes. There is nothing, only a valley that is different from the book just because there is nature instead of ashes, but in the valley of ashes there is life and dreams, like, Myrtle's dream of marrying Tom and George's dream of getting Myrtle's love back. So the Toledo painting can be compared to the poor part of the story.
'Laocoon' shows the distorted characters of the story. In this painting people are stretching out like the people in the story. Every single character was stretching out to have something. Myrtle was stretching out for Tom. Gatsby is stretching out for Daisy. Nick is stretching out for Jordan.
So many dreams and so many nightmares haunt the characters. It is just like an El Greco painting.
I think there are a lot of similarities between the East and these paintings. There is a grotesque and extreme sense, with these distorted and sinister landscapes. The sky is so tragic and intense which gives me a sense of impending doom. The distortion of reality in these paintings reflects the East, especially the East as Nick sees it after the events of the summer.
Nick sees the East as an El Greco painting because in his paintings, El Greco creates distorted and unrealistic people and landscapes.
Nick finds these characteristics also in the lives and minds of the people living in the East.
El Greco's figures are all distorted and grotesque. Life in the East is also a bit distorted. The Buchanan's and Jordan have a distorted view of life and they only value material things. Like El Greco's paintings, everything is a bit unrealistic. Life is like a dramatic film. Nick has only lived in the East a few months, yet so much has happened. In El Greco's paintings there are extreme contrasts of dark and light colours. In the same way there are extreme contrasts of good and bad people in the East. For example Daisy is so cruel and thoughtless and Gatsby is so kind and loyal. There is also extreme contrast in people's living conditions. The Buchanans are really rich and live in a huge mansion, but only a few miles away the Wilsons live in a little shack and are poor.
I think there are a lot of similarities between the East and El Greco's style of painting. There is a grotesque and extreme sense, with distorted and sinister land forms. The sky is so tragic and intense which gives me a sense of doom. The distortion of reality in these paintings reflects the way Nick views the people and the experience he has had over the summer. The characters are not like real people, they are extreme. Gatsby, the Buchanans, the Wilsons, have all been part of a grotesque, unreal drama in which Nick found himself increasingly involved.
I think Nick compares life in East Egg to an El Greco painting because in the El Greco paintings, all the people and the images are distorted and unrealistic. This is what the people who live in East Egg are like. They are unrealistic and live unreal lives. Their vision of life is very superficial and they live in a world that is only theirs, a rich world where all is good and nothing can go badly for them. Even Gatsby was like this because he thought that after five years he could bring back everything as it was before and wipe out those years. But that was just a dream.