The Great Gatsby
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What does "Great" signify in "The Great Gatsby"
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Megha
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Jul 03, 2015 05:50AM
Gatsby is not a perfect character. In fact I see him as flawed personality. What was Fitzgerald's consideration while he decided to put Great in the name?
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A lot of what Gatsby does is just for show - the parties, the lies, etc. It's all an illusionWhen I hear "The Great ----" it kind of sounds like a magician's name/title, and magicians also put up illusions. So that's why I think Fitzgerald put "Great" in the title.
Garima wrote: "A lot of what Gatsby does is just for show - the parties, the lies, etc. It's all an illusionWhen I hear "The Great ----" it kind of sounds like a magician's name/title, and magicians also put up..."
Good analogy. Hes'a performer.
The book's cover tips us off to the "performer" theme by depicting the gaudy brightly-lit carnival scene at the bottom with a Ferris wheel.
Megha wrote: "Gatsby is not a perfect character. In fact I see him as flawed personality. What was Fitzgerald's consideration while he decided to put Great in the name?"I think Fitzgerald uses the term "Great" here in irony. Nick and Gatsby's party-going worshipers think he's truly great, but Fitzgerald has given the reader enough dirt on him for us to see him as the fraud he truly is.
Gatsby is a lot like Elmer Gantry, the fraudulent evangelist created by Sinclair Lewis in 1926, a year or so after Gatsby came out. The names are so similar perhaps Gantry's name was inspired by Gatsby.
I recall reading somewhere that the "The Great Gatsby" title was proposed by Fitzgerald's editor, Max Perkins. Fitzgerald wanted something else, but reluctantly went along with it to sell more books.
Frauds like Gatsby and Gantry fill the bill for the spectators of this world who need heros to worship. In fact, their success depends on the inability of their worshipers to see through the facade they erect.
Garima wrote: "When I hear "The Great ----" it kind of sounds like a magician's name/title, and magicians also put up..."I almost wrote a response, then I read yours. This pretty much sums up my thoughts on the inclusion of "The Great". It seems to be said ironically, perhaps insultingly.
Another interpretation: perhaps it alludes to concepts of value in what is generally depicted as a materialist society of excesses. Without even laying eyes on Gatsby, people accredit him with greatness, because his possessions and his lavishness were held in the highest regard.
Jonathan wrote: "Without even laying eyes on Gatsby, people accredit him with greatness, because his possessions and his lavishness were held in the highest regard."I deem this to be the main point of the novel--that the trappings of success can be misleading. In a capitalistic society we are programmed from childhood to revere people who appear to have "made it." Barby admires Ken and his Corvette, etc.
While the ironic truth is that both drug lords and entrepreneurs drive Ferraris.
Gatsby is an example of how NOT to "make it," and the way people react to him illustrates our willingness to believe what we need to believe--that the "American Dream" can come true, making us suckers for fraudsters like Gatsby and the man who actually "made him," crime boss Meyer Wolfsheim.
I still represent the other side. I think Fitzgerald had the title he wanted. Gatsby loved Daisy and he wanted to be the kind of person that she would love. I think if she seemed to value political power or intellectual greatness Gatsby would have put all his energy into that. Daisy valued wealth and social position more than anything and that is what he achieved.At the beginning of the book, Nick talks about Gatsby and he says that Gatsby was great, but the paragraph seems out of context if "Great" doesn't have its usual meaning.
"And, after boasting this way of my tolerance, I come to the admission that it has a limit. Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes, but after a certain point I don’t care what it’s founded on. When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction — Gatsby, who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away. This responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby impressionability which is dignified under the name of the “creative temperament.”—it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again. No — Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and shortwinded elations of men."
Nick is Fitzgerald. He says it when Nick says "the man who gives his name to this book." He sets Nick up as a trusted narrator. Nick reveals his own faults during the story, but he is still set up to be a trusted narrator and he speaks for Fitzgerald.
If this is just a book about the Roaring 20s or greed, superficiality or any of the obvious faults of these people then this is not a great book. There are all sorts of such books written about the time period. What makes this great is that Fitzerald created a noble soul in a character who got the wrong message but went after what he thought was of value with his whole being. The tragedy was that Daisy wasn't worthy of him. Daisy was never who he thought she was.
If Gatsby isn't "great" in the normal sense of the word, Fitzgerald's opening lines mean nothing. I can't see such a talented writer creating the charater of Nick and having him introduce Gatsby this way for no reason. The introduction to a book is as vital as the conclusion. Any good writer works hardest in introducing the characters and the setting of the book. I can't see any other way to make sense of this chapter than to believe what Nick says.
*Spoiler*
Fitzgerald gives us a true picture of Gatsby's greatness when he creates the car crash. Gatsby has seen Daisy as she truly was and still he said that he was the driver of the car, covering for her appalling irresponsibility. It was a noble act and I think it is why Fitsgerald has him murdered. The paragraphs at the end of chapter 8 seem to give that idea. Go back and read Chapter 1 and Chapter 8 and see if makes sense when viewed that way.
Monty J wrote: "Megha wrote: "Gatsby is not a perfect character. In fact I see him as flawed personality. What was Fitzgerald's consideration while he decided to put Great in the name?"I think Fitzgerald uses t..."
Yes, that is what happened, Monty. And SF blamed the poor sales in part on the name he didn't like. It sometimes surprises me how authors misdiagnose the reasons for poor book sales. I have a friend in Boston whose book had several guest writers introduce and serve as text to his book. The texts are excellently reasoned and brilliant.
The publisher was an extremely small one and lacking in an active publicist. Book sales were abysmal.
My friend has tried over the years to salvage the sales and has given lectures at several universities.(The book is non fiction, the theme hardly of momentous interest and there are plenty in competition)
I have advised him to hire a publicist to promote the book, (he has the money) but refuses and has asked me to offer some help for free. No way.
Anne Hawn wrote: "If Gatsby isn't "great" in the normal sense of the word, Fitzgerald's opening lines mean nothing. I can't see such a talented writer creating the character of Nick and having him introduce Gatsby this way for no reason."It's not for "no reason." Nick's over-enthusiastic description of Gatsby is Fitzgerald's way of defining Nick as an unreliable narrator concerning all things Gatsby.
Nick represents the American psyche that is so over-absorbed, brain-washed if you will, by the "American Dream" (that anybody can become rich) that they become easy prey for the Wolfshiems (and Ivan Boeskys and Kenneth Lays, Bernard Madoffs, Charles Keatings and Michael Milkens and...) of the world.
Nick holds that personna through to the very end, but Fitzgerald, often in third-person voice, provides evidence of Gatsby's corruption, leaving it up to the reader to hold him accountable, or not, depending on their preference. If Gatsby is Great, then his corruption is acceptable. If he's "Great," he's held accountable.
I think it's brilliant of Fitzgerald to have accomplished such a feat. The greatest satire is when the target doesn't even know he's been satirized.
Nick's messianic reverence for Gatsby mirrors the esteem most Americans are taught to have from kindergarten for the unlimited possibility of achieving wealth in America. Through Nick, Fitzgerald shows the downside, the vulnerability inherent in such blind trust in those who bear the trappings of success.
Massive securities fraud led to the bank failures of the Great Depression. In TGG, Fitzgerald illustrated how it was done. It wasn't just an overblown love story, it was a cautionary tale about the corruption of character by unbridled greed.
(More is coming on this in my upcoming documented topic on the subject.)
OK, I guess we will just agree to differ.
Anne Hawn wrote: "Fitzgerald gives us a true picture of Gatsby's greatness when he creates the car crash. Gatsby has seen Daisy as she truly was and still he said that he was the driver of the car, covering for her appalling irresponsibility. It was a noble act and.."It's a noble act only if you accept, as Nick does, Gatby's version of who was driving the car.
Gatsby's version is contradicted by every eye-witness account. Eyewitness all said that the car didn't stop, yet Gatsby says he pulled on the emergency brake to switch seats with Daisy. Two eye witnesses said a man was driving. Gatsby, and only Gatsby, says Daisy was driving, and he has a motive for lying--to curry favor with Nick, a bond salesman whom Gatsby has been courting to join his scheme to peddle fraudulent bonds.
Nick needs a hero and can only see Gatsby as a hero, and is blind to countervailing evidence, just like so many investors were blind to the dark rumors about Bernard Madoff before he went belly-up after spiriting away their money.
Gatsby illustrates how easily honest, trusting people are duped by charismatic fraudsters. George Wilson holds him accountable, for the wrong crime, but accountable nonetheless.
Do not forget that Gatsby, like Wilson and Michaelis, is from the working class, whose principles include not only hard work but honesty. His corruption is compounded by the fact that he betrayed the very code into which he was born. It is doubly important that a member of this social class (Wilson) be the one who holds him accountable.
(Madoff's son held him accountable by committing suicide.)
Madoff's son killed himself because he didn't want to spend a lifetime in jail like Bernie.
One can be a fraud and also noble, and that's what Gatsby was. It's not black and white- the story would be awfully boring if it were.
Geoffrey wrote: "Madoff's son killed himself because he didn't want to spend a lifetime in jail like Bernie."That and having to face the shame of his father's legacy and the people from whom he stole.
What baffles me is how people don't see this in Gatsby. They see him as a hero.
Well, I never saw him as a hero, but on a second reading I think many who do would change their minds.
Who sees him as a hero? I certainly don't. He was a scumbag. You are the hardest on him of all of us, tho. I still think Tom was the bigger bastard.
Garima wrote: "A lot of what Gatsby does is just for show - the parties, the lies, etc. It's all an illusionWhen I hear "The Great ----" it kind of sounds like a magician's name/title, and magicians also put up..."
Yes, the Great may refer to the title people bestowed over Gatsby for his sparkling parties. But at the end, on his death, people deserted him, that's a bit conflicting, don't you think?
Geoffrey wrote: "Who sees him as a hero? I certainly don't. He was a scumbag. You are the hardest on him of all of us, tho. I still think Tom was the bigger bastard."I agree he was not a hero. But unlike how people think of him as a fool or a fraud, I think he was a guy trapped in the dreams when he was seventeen, when he created a new personality for himself with a defined dream - Daisy and Money.
My understanding is based on following quote -
"So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen-year-old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end."
What else would this statement mean?
Karen wrote: "One can be a fraud and also noble, and that's what Gatsby was. It's not black and white."I think this is what makes the novel so brilliant--the pain we feel as we realize that he strove so mightily in the wrong direction for an otherwise noble cause.
Megha wrote: "Garima wrote: "A lot of what Gatsby does is just for show - the parties, the lies, etc. It's all an illusionWhen I hear "The Great ----" it kind of sounds like a magician's name/title, and magici..."
I think the irony is part of it. When everyone deserts him in the end, the reader can really see that it's all an illusion.
Monty J wrote: "Karen wrote: "One can be a fraud and also noble, and that's what Gatsby was. It's not black and white."I think this is what makes the novel so brilliant--the pain we feel as we realize that he st..."
Yep, and Fitzgerald created so much sympathy around Gatsby at the funeral no one cared about- I could really feel for Nick as he tried to find people to go.
And you know how I feel about who was driving- a noble gesture on Gatsby's part.
Even though at surface this book looks simple, there's much in it to think and re-think, one thing Fitzgerald do testify -- Love is indeed blind!
Megha wrote: "I see him as flawed personality."Perfectly tragically flawed. Shakespeare in his grave is green with envy. Gatsby's tragic flaw, corrupt greed, put him in his grave.
Daisy was to have been his validating reward for achieving the Holy Grail of success. In pursuing her so relentlessly, he stepped in front of a bullet.
Had he not been in that car with his trophy, Daisy, he might have lived.
Wealth for the sake of wealth is an empty pursuit (represented by the empty house and lack of mourners at his funeral); it's what wealth represents--security and access to love, power and esteem--that is the goal behind the goal.
Gatsby should have read Faust instead of Hopalong Cassidy.
Megha wrote: "I agree he was not a hero. But unlike how people think of him as a fool or a fraud, I think he was a guy trapped in the dreams when he was seventeen, when he created a new personality for himself with a defined dream - Daisy and Money.My understanding is based on following quote -
"So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen-year-old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end."
What else would this statement mean? "
Exactly!
Karen wrote: "Well, I never saw him as a hero, but on a second reading I think many who do would change their minds."I agree Karen. It wasn't until the second reading that I understood who Gatsby really was.
Monty, You are ignoring a lot of evidence which we have presented in quotes or examples. You have to either compromise or explain what these quotes mean. You just can't dismiss them all.
I think you are looking at the actions while we are looking at the intention, but that is just my opinion. Again, you don't have to agree with me or several others. It's just your interpretation, but you have to take all the evidence into account in order to come to a well thought out interpretation.
Anne Hawn wrote: "...you are looking at the actions while we are looking at the intention."The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. It is our actions we are held accountable for, not our intentions.
"You are ignoring a lot of evidence which we have presented in quotes or examples. You have to either compromise or explain what these quotes mean."
I do NOT have to compromise. I have only to follow the logic that I see and the preponderance of evidence, not fragments. I have supplied plenty of quotes and examples and no one has attempted to address them except Petergianquinta, and I am preparing a rebuttal to his comments.
I would like to add I would have preferred that SF had Jay read Horatio Alger stories rather than Hopalong Cassidy. The Alger stories would be more fitting to his delusionary pursuits of wealth.I believe you have a good line on who actually killed Myrtle. That is to say there is some strong logic to your reasoning. But my take on it was that flaky Daisy was the driver. Jay is a pathological liar but he only lies about himself and claims to have done things which he hasn't and for being a person he never was, but the placing of blame on Daisy would've been the only instance in the book that he has falsely placed blame or lied about another, and the woman he is madly in love with at that. That is why so many of us readers accept Nick's assertion of truth that Jay wasn't responsible for Myrtle's death.
Anne Hawn wrote: "Megha wrote: "I agree he was not a hero. But unlike how people think of him as a fool or a fraud, I think he was a guy trapped in the dreams when he was seventeen, when he created a new personality..."Why is this quote relevant to Monty's line of reasoning?
Monty wrote;"I do NOT have to compromise. I have only to follow the logic that I see and the preponderance of evidence, not fragments. I have supplied plenty of quotes and examples and no one has attempted to address them except Petergianquinta, and I am preparing a rebuttal to his comments."
Good luck-I can't find any review or critique of this book that states Gatsby was driving the car- I don't know why you are continuing with this.
Geoffrey wrote;" But my take on it was that flaky Daisy was the driver. Jay is a pathological liar but he only lies about himself and claims to have done things which he hasn't and for being a person he never was, but the placing of blame on Daisy would've been the only instance in the book that he has falsely placed blame or lied about another, and the woman he is madly in love with at that. That is why so many of us readers accept Nick's assertion of truth that Jay wasn't responsible for Myrtle's death."
This makes sense to me!
Karen wrote: "I can't find any review or critique of this book that states Gatsby was driving the car."I don't go by what other people say; I go by what's in the text.
Two eyewitnesses, Mchaelis and George Wilson, stated that a man was driving, not a woman. These witnesses are honest, responsible, hardworking, trusting individuals who show up every day with their nose to the grindstone, pursuing their own versions of the American Dream.* They represent the gullible salt of the earth who are exploited by the corrupt, ambitious likes of Jay Gatsby and hangers-on like Myrtle.
Gatsby, on the other hand, is far less credible. He's a confirmed, perhaps pathological liar and kingpin in a bond fraud scheme who would be nothing if the criminal Wolfsheim hadn't rescued him off the street after he'd wasted what little money he had on a fruitless trip to Daisy's hometown after returning from apparently failing at Oxford.
Again, Gatsby has a motive for lying to Nick to make himself seem heroic. Nick sells bonds and Gatsby has tried twice to recruit him.
Here is Wilson and Michaelis' post-inquest testimony as recited by Nick on page 158-9:
[Wilson] He murdered her."
[Michaelis] "It was an accident, George."
Wilson shook his head. His eyes narrowed and his mouth widened slightly with the ghost of a superior "Hm!"
"I know," he said definitely, "I'm one of these trusting fellows and I don't think any harm to nobody, but when I get to know a thing I know it. It was the man in that car. She ran out to speak to him and he wouldn't stop." [Not SHE wouldn't stop; HE wouldn't stop.]
Michaelis had seen this too, but it hadn't occurred to him that there was any special significance in it. He believed that Mrs. Wilson had been running away from her husband, rather than trying to stop any particular car.
(Remember, it was an open car, a top-down convertible. It would have been easy to distinguish the gender of the driver. It was twilight, "a little after 7" [per the text] in August in the northern latitude where it can still be light at 10PM during mid-summer. It's only 9:30 when the Buchanan's are home after the accident and Nick refuses Jordan's invitation to come inside.)
Why would Fitzgerald provide such conflicting evidence if he didn't want us to stop and question Gatsby's veracity and Nick's reliability?
Every eyewitness stated that the car didn't stop, yet Gatsby told Nick he pulled on the brake and switched seats with Daisy. (I am compiling citations for these eyewitness accounts.)
Why would Fitzgerald provide a handful of unbiased eyewitness accounts conflicting with Gatsby's if he didn't mean for the reader to stop and question Gatsby's veracity and Nick's reliability as a narrator? None of these witnesses care about the gender of the driver. Only Gatsby has a motive for lying about it.
This technique is common in crime novels, where a gullible narrator is duped by the perpetrator while the reader is provided countervailing evidence. The narrator leads you one direction until you realize he's wrong, and you, the reader, solve the mystery. That's the great pleasure in this kind of story. Fitzgerald included Dashiel Hammett's The Maltese Falcon in a recommended reading list he once gave his nurse, indicating that he had read at least one crime novel and was familiar with the technique.
Nick's bias toward Gatsby is established from page one of the novel, but what excuse to readers have to persist in taking the word of a confirmed liar, adulterer, criminal and con man over the sworn testimony of unbiased observers? Hm?
*"All that Adam had, all that Caesar could, you have and can do. Adam called his house, heaven and earth; Caesar called his house, Rome; you perhaps call yours, a cobler's trade; a hundred acres of ploughed land; or a scholar's garret. Yet line for line and point for point, your dominion is as great as theirs, though without fine names." - from R.W. Emerson's "Nature"
Thanks Monty for those citations. That was an eye-opener for me. It made me go back and take another look.I have a thought - Wilson had seen Tom drive the "yellow car". When later he saw yellow car hitting his wife, it is very natural that he think it was Tom. However your points - 'it was an open car, a top-down convertible' and 'Gatsby telling Nick he pulled on the brake and switched seats with Daisy' make more sense than Wilson's shock theory. And Michaelis not correcting Wilson confirms your premise.
However one thing bothers me - neither Wilson nor Michaelis mention seeing a lady in the car. Isn't that odd?
Megha wrote: " Wilson had seen Tom drive the "yellow car". When later he saw yellow car hitting his wife, it is very natural that he think it was Tom."Wilson's suspicion is resolved when Tom and company first arrive on the scene and Tom rushes up to Wilson, apparently concerned about this very notion of being mistaken by Wilson as the hit-and-run driver. Page 140:
[Nick] Watching Tom, I saw a wad of muscle back of his shoulder tighten under his coat. He walked quickly over to Wilson and, standing in front of him, seized him firmly by the upper arms..
"You've got to pull yourself together," he said with soothing gruffness.
..."Listen," said Tom, shaking him a little. "I just got here a minute ago, from New York. I was bringing you that coupe we've been talking about. That yellow car I was driving this afternoon wasn't mine--do you hear? I haven't seen it all afternoon."
Here, Tom has removed from Wilson's mind the suspicion that he was Myrtle's killer, but NOT not the suspicion that Tom may know the killer. This is why Wilson later goes hunting for Tom, NOT as a suspect in Myrtle's death but as someone who must surley KNOW who was driving.
"...one thing bothers me - neither Wilson nor Michaelis mention seeing a lady in the car. Isn't that odd?"
Only mildly. Nick wasn't reading a court transcript, he was paraphrasing. Nonethetless, during an emergency, people tend to hyper-focus on just certain details.
I remember exactly where I was the moment I received the news JFK was assassinated. I was in Biology lab with a scalpel in my hand, about to cut open a large brown earthworm that reeked of formaldehyde. Our worms were mounted on small wooden blocks. I remember the look on my professor's face, the time of day, the afternoon November sun cutting across the room. That's all. I don't remember the gender of my lab partner.
The few details we notice when adrenalin is pumping are impossible to forget.
Monty J wrote: "Karen wrote: "I can't find any review or critique of this book that states Gatsby was driving the car."I don't go by what other people say; I go by what's in the text.
Two eyewitnesses, Mchaelis..."
I guess everyone else didn't go by the text.
Megha wrote: "But at the end, on his death, people deserted him, that's a bit conflicting, don't you think?"Yes, if people thought Gatsby was truly great they'd have come in droves to his funeral. The fact that they stayed away in droves underscores and supports my premise that Nick got it wrong when he chirped, "You're worth all of them put together."
Nick's statement, just like the title "Great," reeks of irony. Nick was fooled, and since the book was narrated from his naive perspective, so were a lot of readers.
Hollywood agrees with Nick because it makes such a terrific love story that way. So most of the world views Gatsby sympathetically.
But some of us are inclined to hold him more accountable for his corruption.
Corrupt people like Wolfsheim and Gatsby and Bernie Madoff depend for their livelihood on trusting, gullible human nature typical of midwestern America. It's what makes them so vulnerable, such "easy pickings." (Remember Gatsby's phone conversations about small towns?)
Nick's perspective on Gatsby mirrors the vulnerability of the trusting Midwestern American mindset. At the end of the book, Nick talks about Midwesterners being unadaptable to living the East, calling attention to that innocence.
P.176: [Nick] I see now that this has been a story of the West, after all--Tom and Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan and I,* were all Westerners, and perhaps we possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life.
...After Gatsby's death the East was haunted for me like that, distorted beyond my eyes' power of correction. ...I decided to come back home.
That "deficiency" I take to mean the trusting innocence that makes them easy prey for the Wofsheims of this world, and through him, blindly ambitious people like James Gatz. Yes, Wolfsheim is the "foul dust" that preyed on Gatz, but Gatz had already displayed the inclination to deceive and exploit five years before meeting Wolfie, when he misled Daisy about his family and resources in order to seduce her.
*Did anyone notice how Nick included himself with the women, rather than with the men?
Oh my goodness- you can view someone sympathetically and still hold that person accountable! Nick knew Gatsby and his corruption- he also cared about him and thought the others (Tom, Daisy, partygoers) were worse. Nick was conflicted throughout-.
Karen wrote: "Monty J wrote: I don't go by what other people say; I go by what's in the text....I guess everyone else didn't go by the text."
My point was that, as in life, people can interpret a scene differently. By sticking directly to the source I avoid being led astray by someone else's bias.
Monty wrote;"My point was that, as in life, people can interpret a scene differently. By sticking directly to the source I avoid being led astray by someone else's bias."
We're not biased, we read the book also- critical reviewers read the book too.
Karen wrote: "Monty wrote;"My point was that, as in life, people can interpret a scene differently. By sticking directly to the source I avoid being led astray by someone else's bias."
We're not biased, we rea..."
Yeah, but I don't know which ones are which.
Monty J wrote: "Yeah, but I don't know which ones are which."I think you're smart enough to figure that out.
Monty J wrote: "Megha wrote: " Wilson had seen Tom drive the "yellow car". When later he saw yellow car hitting his wife, it is very natural that he think it was Tom."Wilson's suspicion is resolved when Tom and..."
and for me it was walking out of the lunch room about to go to the boy´s room when Donald Oat, whose father owned the local daily newspaper, comes running down the hall, yelling "the President´s been shot, the President´s been shot." Who gave me permission, for the life of me, I don´t recall
Karen wrote: "Monty J wrote: "Yeah, but I don't know which ones are which."I think you're smart enough to figure that out."
Yeah, but that takes WORK.
Monty J wrote: "Karen wrote: "Monty J wrote: "Yeah, but I don't know which ones are which."I think you're smart enough to figure that out."
Yeah, but that takes WORK."
Well, you're still ticking, you can do it.
To those who would look down on George Wilson and Michaelis while worshiping Gatsby, I offer Ralph Emerson's words in his essay, "Nature.":All that Adam had, all that Caesar could, you have and can do. Adam called his house, heaven and earth; Caesar called his house, Rome; you perhaps call yours, a cobler's trade; a hundred acres of ploughed land; or a scholar's garret. Yet line for line and point for point, your dominion is as great as theirs, though without fine names.
I have just spent an interesting morning reading a great number of articles on The Great Gatsby " in Literature Criticism Online. It's the reference book on literature you used to find on the reference shelf in the library which is now online. There were so many fascinating articles written by scholars who have spent decades studying Gatsby. I found articles on the use of color, the function of eyes, Gatsby as "hero" the mythical legends, and all sorts of fascination information and angles.Basically most follow the mythical view with Nick seen as a reliable narrator, however, there are some that agree with Monty and they sometimes see Gatsby as the embodiment of all that was wrong with the 1920's. Monty, you are in the minority, but a number of people agree with your interpretation.
Most interpretations follow these lines from Sparknotes.
Though Gatsby has always wanted to be rich, his main motivation in acquiring his fortune was his love for Daisy Buchanan, whom he met as a young military officer in Louisville before leaving to fight in World War I in 1917. Gatsby immediately fell in love with Daisy’s aura of luxury, grace, and charm, and lied to her about his own background in order to convince her that he was good enough for her. Daisy promised to wait for him when he left for the war, but married Tom Buchanan in 1919, while Gatsby was studying at Oxford after the war in an attempt to gain an education. From that moment on, Gatsby dedicated himself to winning Daisy back, and his acquisition of millions of dollars, his purchase of a gaudy mansion on West Egg, and his lavish weekly parties are all merely means to that end.
Fitzgerald uses this technique of delayed character revelation to emphasize the theatrical quality of Gatsby’s approach to life, which is an important part of his personality. Gatsby has literally created his own character, even changing his name from James Gatz to Jay Gatsby to represent his reinvention of himself. As his relentless quest for Daisy demonstrates, Gatsby has an extraordinary ability to transform his hopes and dreams into reality; at the beginning of the novel, he appears to the reader just as he desires to appear to the world. This talent for self-invention is what gives Gatsby his quality of “greatness”: indeed, the title “The Great Gatsby” is reminiscent of billings for such vaudeville magicians as “The Great Houdini” and “The Great Blackstone,” suggesting that the persona of Jay Gatsby is a masterful illusion.
As the novel progresses and Fitzgerald deconstructs Gatsby’s self-presentation, Gatsby reveals himself to be an innocent, hopeful young man who stakes everything on his dreams, not realizing that his dreams are unworthy of him. Gatsby invests Daisy with an idealistic perfection that she cannot possibly attain in reality and pursues her with a passionate zeal that blinds him to her limitations. His dream of her disintegrates, revealing the corruption that wealth causes and the unworthiness of the goal, much in the way Fitzgerald sees the American dream crumbling in the 1920s, as America’s powerful optimism, vitality, and individualism become subordinated to the amoral pursuit of wealth.
Gatsby is contrasted most consistently with Nick. Critics point out that the former, passionate and active, and the latter, sober and reflective, seem to represent two sides of Fitzgerald’s personality. Additionally, whereas Tom is a cold-hearted, aristocratic bully, Gatsby is a loyal and good-hearted man. Though his lifestyle and attitude differ greatly from those of George Wilson, Gatsby and Wilson share the fact that they both lose their love interest to Tom.
Nick Carraway:
Nick is also well suited to narrating The Great Gatsby because of his temperament. As he tells the reader in Chapter 1, he is tolerant, open-minded, quiet, and a good listener, and, as a result, others tend to talk to him and tell him their secrets. Gatsby, in particular, comes to trust him and treat him as a confidant. Nick generally assumes a secondary role throughout the novel, preferring to describe and comment on events rather than dominate the action. Often, however, he functions as Fitzgerald’s voice, as in his extended meditation on time and the American dream at the end of Chapter 9.
Anne Hawn wrote: "Monty, you are in the minority, but a number of people agree with your interpretation."Yes, I've known that from the beginning. It is not in my nature to be swayed by majority opinion, however heavy. I go by my own instincts, and when they differ from the majority, I like to know why. It piques my curiosity.
For me it's not so much a matter of who's right and who's wrong, although glaring misperceptions are hard to overlook ; it's about mining an author's material for meaning, sometimes hidden meaning.
Everyone is biased by their upbringing, education, social exposure and personal experience. For example, I don't expect people who've not experienced PTSD to understand war veterans on welfare, or people who have not been raped to understand the consequences of rape. People who are aware of their bias are rare.
It is human nature to look for what we can and need to see, and in the process overlook significant meaning, sometimes meaning that is deliberately hidden, such as Hemingway did in "Hills Like White Elephants." Abortion was a tabu topic, but he got it aired by cloaking it in symbol.
William Golding wasn't aware when he wrote Lord of the Flies that it could be taken as a warning about fascism. Or so he said. But it was.
That said, how anyone can consider a lying criminal who steals from innocent people to be "loyal and good-hearted" is beyond my comprehension. But they clearly have.
A fundamental weakness in the novel is that everything we know about Gatsby (and the the others) comes from Nick, whose heavy prejudice in Gatsby's favor is evident from the beginning.
Anne Hawn wrote: "...and his lavish weekly parties are all merely means to that end"This notion that the parties were to attract Daisy is not supported in the text, an example of how wrong the majority can be.
p.79: "I think he half expected her to wander into one of his parties, some night," went on Jordan... .") Drawing the sweeping conclusion from this oblique reference that attracting Daisy was the reason for the parties is an example of how perceptions are skewed to fit an eagerly embraced romantic notion.
The purpose of the parties is never stated outright, but conclusions can be drawn from the substantial evidence sprinkled throughout the novel that Gatsby is the kingpin of a bond scam, such as when Nick notices a group of "Englishmen" he thinks may be peddling securities. (P. 42: I was immediately struck by the number of young Englishmen dotted about; all well dressed, all looking a little hungry, and all talking in low, earnest voices to solid and prosperous Americans. I was sure that they were selling something, bonds or insurance or automobiles. They were at least agonizingly aware of the easy money in the vicinity and convinced that it was theirs for a few words in the right key.
Oddly, even though Nick is suspicious of these men, he seems to shrug it off, so readers follow suit, except for a few of us.
The "majority" seems oblivious to the tact that Gatsby is a hustler looking to steal money from people. The "majority" is so wrong I could almost laugh. Which I suspect was Fitzgerald's intent, for had he made more an issue of Gatsby's bond scam, it could have conceivably made him a target of organized crime for blowing the whistle on them.
The book was released well before the Crash of '29 that was caused by widespread securities fraud, including bond scams. Fitzgerald was perhaps the first Wall Street whistle-blower, but has never gotten credit for it.
Monty wrote;"A fundamental weakness in the novel is that everything we know about Gatsby (and the the others) comes from Nick, whose heavy prejudice in Gatsby's favor is evident from the beginning."
This is in fact the novel's strength, not weakness. It is the trick of the novel- we are left questioning throughout reading if Gatsby is in fact "great", and Nick also questions this- it is what makes the novel so interesting. Other people subtly alluded to Gatsby's questionable character- one of the parties, where a woman said she heard that Gatsby had killed a man once.
Karen wrote: "Monty wrote;"A fundamental weakness in the novel is that everything we know about Gatsby (and the the others) comes from Nick, whose heavy prejudice in Gatsby's favor is evident from the beginning..."
Yes, all that is true, but I found it highly distracting that in order to present essential plot and character information Fitzgerald kept slipping out of first-person to read peoples minds, like some omniscient entity.
He's been roundly criticized for that, but he got away with it. (Sometimes a flaw can also be a strength.)
Your distraction is what I found unique- therefore he succeeded, it kept me interested!
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