by ARCHIE YELLOP - Friday, 8 February 2019, 10:17 AM
The sense of wealth and glamour is created at the start of the text in the first line. "Whisperings and the champagne and the stars". Whisperings indicates deviance which shows the guests at the party have ulterior motive.
"enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each other's names". Implies they don't care for each others names, brought together by the excitement of the party or could even be networking.
"Confident girls weaving between the stouter more stable". Stouter and more stable is associated with being rich and powerful and mature rather than young and reckless. These confident girls are looking for husbands to spoil and look after them. "Confident" shows these girls know how to play their cards to peacock and stand out from the rest of the heard attending the party.
The perception of wealth and glamour is helped by the perspective of nick who is in awe of this extravagant party. "Hair bobbed in strange new ways". This to people who are rich and wealthy in the 20's was the norm, it was all about,wealth and novelty. However Nick is alien to this lifestyle, and to him this lifestyle is glamorous.
Nick when he talks about the clothes worn by guests . "Shawls beyond the dreams of Castile", he refers to them being extravagant and superior like the kingdom of Castile which was very rich and powerful in it's time.