America in the 1920s: the wealthy throw lavish parties, America is divided into the East and the West, where Middle East refers to the America continent rather than to the Arab equivalent that we have become used to since the 1990s. Even the lack of air-conditioning adds to the oppressive atmosphere in the pen-ultimate scene before they "drove on toward death through the cooling twilight," the excellent sentence that Fitzgerald uses to prime us for the climax.
I love the phrases he uses. They are so good that it catches me by surprise and I have to re-read the sentence.
When I looked once more for Gatsby he had vanished and I was alone in the unquiet darkness. (21)
Every one suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known. (59)
Her wan, scornful mouth smiled, and so I drew her up again closer, this time to my face. (80)
He put his hands in his coat pocket and turned back eagerly to his scrutiny of the house, as though my presence marred the sacredness of the vigil. So I walked away and left him standing there in the moonlight — watching over nothing. (145)
It was after we started with Gatsby toward the house that the gardener saw Wilson's body a little way off in the grass, and the holocaust was complete. (162)
Brilliant stuff, if you catch what I mean, old sport.
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