Bill’s $28 shoes

Fitzgerald chooses to open the story in medias res, with Bill in mid-conversation with Brancusi, discussing his $28 shoes (roughly $500 in today’s dollars). This choice to place such significant emphasis on Bill’s shoes characterizes him as someone who values outward appearances, with the cost and quality of his shoes symbolizing his social status.

Emmy’s stockings

In the first section, when Bill and Emmy first meet, Bill notices that she has holes in her stockings, with the narrator reporting that “holes in stockings always moved [Bill], softened him” (436). Though it is not explicitly stated, the reader may infer that the holes in Emmy’s stockings soften Bill because they show her to be of a similar social strata as Bill, and thus symbolize their connection by class.

A separate train

When Bill’s play opens in Atlantic City, the fact that his fianc...