One of the things I missed from reading this book was the magical realism. Now before reading this book, I was told about magical realism and I was like, fair enough, as this isn’t the first time I have seen it used in stories. I had a zoom conference with my professor on my unit 2 paper draft and told me about magical realism. I couldn’t recall anything as I didn’t read the full book, but it makes me realize how much it plays a huge role in the story and to Jordan’s character.
One of the things on how the author established the magical realism in the novel was from the very first chapter, showcasing Jordan’s character while also making it blend in the Roaring 20s. I believe Jordan’s added magic powers was to showcase that she’s an outcast no matter how much she fits in, due to her race and sexuality, her powers can also showcase her escape from reality, like from the beginning of chapter 1.
One of the uses of magical realism was Jordan’s power to make paper dolls, which is one of the things I missed from book. As stated from the beginning, the zoom conference was the one that made me wake up from reality as she was the one that told me about the paper dolls. There were examples of paper dolls throughout the book. The first one was at Daisy’s wedding and Daisy had a mental breakdown as she got a letter from Gatsby. She was crying profusely and couldn’t keep herself together. This is one of Fitzgerald’s flaws is that he didn’t know that it takes hours to stop crying and have your face be red and puffy. This flaw was fixed with Jordan being the one to make a paper doll based on Daisy and have it taken her place for the rest of the evening. Another is the plot twist of Nick after Gatsby’s death. With my group, we thought it was that Nick came out of the closet; turns out it was more than that. What I didn’t see coming was that Nick was a paper doll the whole time and was created by his grandma, who happen to be half-Vietnamese. It makes sense as it was hinted throughout the novel that Nick looked off or doesn’t have his head straight. This is all I wanted to vent on this blog.
