The Buchanan's House And Residents In The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

Plain Classy: An analysis of the Buchanan’s House and Residents in the Great Gatsby F. Scott’s Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby is a novel centered around lavish parties, the upper-class, and elaborate mansions. The two estates mentioned the most include the homes of Jay Gatsby and of Tom and Daisy Buchanan. The novel even devotes entire paragraphs with the sole purpose of defining the house’s build. Gatsby’s house replicates the Hôtel de Ville in Parris, and was built only a few decades prior. Meanwhile, the Buchanan’s home offers an American take on the traditionally English Georgian manor, and was most likely built around the turn of the century. By looking further into the simplistic and elegant style of the Buchanan’s Georgian mansion,

For a visual reference look to page six of this paper. By adding larger windows to the home, the house’s descriptions become more consistent with the novel’s well lit nature, an attribute noticed by Dr. Flannagan of the Governor’s School for Science and Mathematics (2015). In addition to the lighting, the windows provide a romantic and airy tone similar to the aura that Daisy projects. In the scene on page eight, we see a direct correlation between the house and Daisy. When open, the French windows give Daisy a “fluttering” appearance, like that of a bird (8). This aerial imagery is repeated again by the bell like sound of her voice and how like the wind, it flows “up and down” (9). Also due to the use of words such as “rippling” and “balloon[ing]" the house, in addition to Daisy, take on a more delicate nature. A similar idea is suggested in Kathleen Parkinson’s Critical Studies: The Great Gatsby, where she says that the novel creates this romantic and delicate tension around Daisy as a way to heighten the contrast between the two Buchanans and emphasis the brutish nature of Tom Buchanan (52-3). This might offer an explanation as to why the house contains the very different architectural details of French and English, with the English style being harsh and more French delicate and romantic. Thus the house provides not only a masculine backdrop for Tom, but also adds to the feminine and romantic mood associated with