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Englishsz Posted 19 years ago
Grammar
courtesy bay
It was a matter of chance that I should have rented a house in one of the strangest communities in North America. It was on that slender riotous island which extends itself due east of New York—and where there are, among other natural curiosities, two unusual formations of land. Twenty miles from the city a pair of enormous eggs, identical in contour and separated only by a courtesy bay, jut out into the most domesticated body of salt water in the Western hemisphere, the great wet barnyard of Long Island Sound. they are not perfect ovals—like the egg in the Columbus story, they are both crushed flat at the contact end—but their physical resemblance must be a source of perpetual confusion to the gulls that fly overhead. to the wingless a more arresting phenomenon is their dissimilarity in every particular except shape and size.
What's a 'courtesy bay'?
What's a 'courtesy bay'?
Top answer
I think it is conceit coined by Fitzgerald. Cf this online commentary: In The Great Gatsby, there are two small islands, East Egg and West Egg, which are "identical in contour, separated only by a courtesy bay". Among them, the West Egg is "the less fashionable of the two", on which live Nick and Gatsby.
- I think it is conceit coined by Fitzgerald.
- Cf this online commentary: In The Great Gatsby, there are two small islands, East Egg and West Egg, which are "identical in contour, separated only by a courtesy bay".
- Among them, the West Egg is "the less fashionable of the two", on which live Nick and Gatsby.
- Across this courtesy bay "the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water", on which Tom and Daisy live their carefree and leisure lives.
- The two Eggs, in a sense, represent two camps of social class, while the bay symbolizes a fathomless and unbridgeable gap between the two .
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3 Answers
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I think it is conceit coined by Fitzgerald. Cf this online commentary:
In The Great Gatsby, there are two small islands, East Egg and West Egg, which are "identical in contour, separated only by a courtesy bay". Among them, the West Egg is "the less fashionable of the two", on which live Nick and Gatsby. Across this courtesy bay "the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glitter
In The Great Gatsby, there are two small islands, East Egg and West Egg, which are "identical in contour, separated only by a courtesy bay". Among them, the West Egg is "the less fashionable of the two", on which live Nick and Gatsby. Across this courtesy bay "the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glitter
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Thanks! Micawber.
But can you tell me what's the specific meaning of 'courtesy' in this context, please?
Best Regards!
But can you tell me what's the specific meaning of 'courtesy' in this context, please?
Best Regards!
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It means 'politeness', but I am not sure whether it means ( a ) that the bay separates polite society from the hoi polloi, or ( b ) that it maintains a polite distance between the two levels of society. Either interpretation seems to work-- or maybe there's another. I haven't read Gatsby for ages.
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