The Great Gatsby
question
Fitzgerald's Promise (regarding Jay Gatsby): Did He Keep It?
Monty J
(last edited
Apr 04, 2013 12:44PM
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Apr 03, 2013 10:14PM
When the author introduces the character of Jay Gatsby on page two of the novel, he makes an elaborate promise (quoted below), elevating our expectations about the man. We feel like we're in for a real treat. My question is whether that promise was met. Did the character live up to your elevated expectations?
Here's Fitzgerald's introduction to Jay Gatsby:
[Carraway, narrating] "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 s 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 short-winded elations of men."
To recap, we're looking for examples of: a)"something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life" [like a human seismograph]; b) "an extraordinary gift of hope;" c) "a romantic readiness such as I have never found in another other person."
Here's a climactic scene to start things off, in the hotel with Tom Buchanan confronting Gatsby in the presence of Nick, Jordan and Daisy with his illicit dealings.
[Tom] "And you left him in the lurch, didn't you? You let him go to jail for a month over in New Jersey. God! You ought to hear Walter on the subject of you!"
"He came to us dead broke. He was very glad to pick up some money, old sport."
"Don't you call me 'old sport'!" cried Tom. Gatsby said nothing. "Walter could have you up on the betting laws too, but Wolfsheim scared him into shutting his mouth."
That unfamiliar yet recognizable look was back again in Gatsby's face.
"That drug-store business [bootlegging] was just small change," continued Tom slowly, "but you've got something on now that Walter's afraid to tell me about."
I glanced at Daisy, who was staring terrified between Gatsby and her husband, and at Jordan... Then I turned back to Gatsby--and was startled at his expression. He looked--and this is said in all contempt for the babbled slander of his garden--as if he had "killed a man." ...
It passed, and he began to talk excitedly to Daisy, denying everything, defending his name against accusations that had not been made. But with every word she was drawing further and further into herself, so he gave that up, and only the dead dream fought on as the afternoon slipped away, trying to touch what was no longer tangible, struggling unhappily, undespairingly, toward that lost voice across the room.
Here's Fitzgerald's introduction to Jay Gatsby:
[Carraway, narrating] "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 s 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 short-winded elations of men."
To recap, we're looking for examples of: a)"something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life" [like a human seismograph]; b) "an extraordinary gift of hope;" c) "a romantic readiness such as I have never found in another other person."
Here's a climactic scene to start things off, in the hotel with Tom Buchanan confronting Gatsby in the presence of Nick, Jordan and Daisy with his illicit dealings.
[Tom] "And you left him in the lurch, didn't you? You let him go to jail for a month over in New Jersey. God! You ought to hear Walter on the subject of you!"
"He came to us dead broke. He was very glad to pick up some money, old sport."
"Don't you call me 'old sport'!" cried Tom. Gatsby said nothing. "Walter could have you up on the betting laws too, but Wolfsheim scared him into shutting his mouth."
That unfamiliar yet recognizable look was back again in Gatsby's face.
"That drug-store business [bootlegging] was just small change," continued Tom slowly, "but you've got something on now that Walter's afraid to tell me about."
I glanced at Daisy, who was staring terrified between Gatsby and her husband, and at Jordan... Then I turned back to Gatsby--and was startled at his expression. He looked--and this is said in all contempt for the babbled slander of his garden--as if he had "killed a man." ...
It passed, and he began to talk excitedly to Daisy, denying everything, defending his name against accusations that had not been made. But with every word she was drawing further and further into herself, so he gave that up, and only the dead dream fought on as the afternoon slipped away, trying to touch what was no longer tangible, struggling unhappily, undespairingly, toward that lost voice across the room.
Monty - Here are my thoughts on your three points:
a) His parties are gorgeous, seismic, heightened glimpses of a different kind of life - almost post-modern in their kitch existentialism.
b) The dénouement is neither tragic nor cathartic; almost random. Some characters may think he gets what's coming to him; but heck, unlike Nick, they simply don't know the man.
c) The backstory of his meeting with Dan Cody on the yacht and how this comes to be the making of him is pure romanticism, even if self-realised: the small town hick setting out to become a big shot. And when his father shows up for the funeral clutching the boy's childhood notebook, we see Gatsby as someone almost like Tarzan - teaching himself to read and talk in his jungle hide-out.
As to whether he keeps his promise; well, I'd say yes. And the above are only some of his offerings.
Feliks - I don't know where he got the line you quoted, 'personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures' - it's a star-spangled example of Fitzgerald's dazzling impertinence. Thanks for reminding us of it.
BTW - I'm glad some of us are still posting about books, instead of whingeing about the management's decision to sell out to Amazon.
a) His parties are gorgeous, seismic, heightened glimpses of a different kind of life - almost post-modern in their kitch existentialism.
b) The dénouement is neither tragic nor cathartic; almost random. Some characters may think he gets what's coming to him; but heck, unlike Nick, they simply don't know the man.
c) The backstory of his meeting with Dan Cody on the yacht and how this comes to be the making of him is pure romanticism, even if self-realised: the small town hick setting out to become a big shot. And when his father shows up for the funeral clutching the boy's childhood notebook, we see Gatsby as someone almost like Tarzan - teaching himself to read and talk in his jungle hide-out.
As to whether he keeps his promise; well, I'd say yes. And the above are only some of his offerings.
Feliks - I don't know where he got the line you quoted, 'personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures' - it's a star-spangled example of Fitzgerald's dazzling impertinence. Thanks for reminding us of it.
BTW - I'm glad some of us are still posting about books, instead of whingeing about the management's decision to sell out to Amazon.
For me, certainly. Gatsby is one of the all-time hopeful and optimistic characters in American fiction.
I wonder where Fitzgerald got this phrase, 'personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures'
I wonder where Fitzgerald got this phrase, 'personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures'
I absolutely loved the character of Jay Gatsby. I think Fitzgerald succeeds.
It's worth noting that Fitzgerald makes no promises about Gatsby because he's not narrating the story -- Nick Carraway is. And many people consider him an unreliable narrator.
Gatsby is one of the most intensely romantic heroes in literature. There are few as completely and intensely alive to the promise of romantic love.
The whole book is really a case in point. But here's some specifics
Gatsby begins self-absorbed, in the extreme, in the picture Nick paints of Gatsby at 17. But his absorption is all about life's possibilities, even if his taste leaves something to be desired.
He knew women early, and since they spoiled him he became contemptuous of them, of young virgins because they were ignorant, of the others because they were hysterical about things which in his overwhelming self-absorption he took for granted.
But his heart was in a constant, turbulent riot. The most grotesque and fantastic conceits haunted him in his bed at night. A universe of ineffable gaudiness spun itself out in his brain while the clock ticked on the washstand and the moon soaked with wet light his tangled clothes upon the floor. Each night he added to the pattern of his fancies until drowsiness closed down upon some vivid scene with an oblivious embrace. For a while these reveries provided an outlet for his imagination; they were a satisfactory hint of the unreality of reality, a promise that the rock of the world was founded securely on a fairy’s wing.
But in Louisville, before the war, Gatsby falls for a girl who so completely engages his heart that he lets go of those dreams and exchanges them for a single dream, a dream of her. And he does with the panache of Cyrano.
…One autumn night, five years before, they had been walking down the street when the leaves were falling, and they came to a place where there were no trees and the sidewalk was white with moonlight. They stopped here and turned toward each other. Now it was a cool night with that mysterious excitement in it which comes at the two changes of the year. The quiet lights in the houses were humming out into the darkness and there was a stir and bustle among the stars. Out of the corner of his eye Gatsby saw that the blocks of the sidewalks really formed a ladder and mounted to a secret place above the trees—he could climb to it, if he climbed alone, and once there he could suck on the pap of life, gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder.
His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy’s white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning-fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete.
When separated from her, his life -- interrupted the war and his heroism in it -- is focused on two things – getting the money he lacked and the lack of which came between them – and getting her attention, which involves the grandest of gestures, the parties where
In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars.
This, along with the Feast of the Pheasant in 1454, which was real but somewhat before my time, were the only two parties I’d wish I’d have been to.
When Gatsby finally meets Daisy, he is overwhelmed. In a famous scene not knowing quite what else to do shows he shows her his wardrobe of custom made shirts which reduces Daisy to tears.
But before Nick leaves them together Nick observes Gatsby coming to grips with the reality.
As I went over to say good-by I saw that the expression of bewilderment had come back into Gatsby’s face, as though a faint doubt had occurred to him as to the quality of his present happiness. Almost five years! There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams—not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart. As I watched him he adjusted himself a little, visibly. His hand took hold of hers, and as she said something low in his ear he turned toward her with a rush of emotion. I think that voice held him most, with its fluctuating, feverish warmth, because it couldn’t be over-dreamed—that voice was a deathless song.
And then when the parties don't please Daisy, he stops them cold. His only interest was in finding her or, rather, making it possible for her to find him.
However, the only thing that's important to him is that Daisy was as totally committed to their connection, to their love, that it was as important to her as it was to him, that there was no moment when she "betrayed" him for Tom.
But though Tom wins because of the almost inhuman demand Gatsby places on Daisy -- which he doesn't realize is an almost inhuman demand -- Daisy can't say she never loved Tom. And Daisy is certainly not able to imagine herself as either the wife or girlfriend of a professional criminal -- even if he was also a war hero.
But still Gatsby looks out for her, waits in the bushes in case Tom gets physically violent.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott (2003-05-27). The Great Gatsby Simon & Schuster, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
I could go on but it's a short book, just reread it a few times. :-) It's one long testament to Gatsby's "romantic readiness" which is itself both a testament to hope and sensitivity to life's possibilities.
There are questions you can ask, but I don't think there's a question of the romantic readiness or Gatsby's hope for a life filled with exceptional possibility.
Gatsby is one of the most intensely romantic heroes in literature. There are few as completely and intensely alive to the promise of romantic love.
The whole book is really a case in point. But here's some specifics
Gatsby begins self-absorbed, in the extreme, in the picture Nick paints of Gatsby at 17. But his absorption is all about life's possibilities, even if his taste leaves something to be desired.
He knew women early, and since they spoiled him he became contemptuous of them, of young virgins because they were ignorant, of the others because they were hysterical about things which in his overwhelming self-absorption he took for granted.
But his heart was in a constant, turbulent riot. The most grotesque and fantastic conceits haunted him in his bed at night. A universe of ineffable gaudiness spun itself out in his brain while the clock ticked on the washstand and the moon soaked with wet light his tangled clothes upon the floor. Each night he added to the pattern of his fancies until drowsiness closed down upon some vivid scene with an oblivious embrace. For a while these reveries provided an outlet for his imagination; they were a satisfactory hint of the unreality of reality, a promise that the rock of the world was founded securely on a fairy’s wing.
But in Louisville, before the war, Gatsby falls for a girl who so completely engages his heart that he lets go of those dreams and exchanges them for a single dream, a dream of her. And he does with the panache of Cyrano.
…One autumn night, five years before, they had been walking down the street when the leaves were falling, and they came to a place where there were no trees and the sidewalk was white with moonlight. They stopped here and turned toward each other. Now it was a cool night with that mysterious excitement in it which comes at the two changes of the year. The quiet lights in the houses were humming out into the darkness and there was a stir and bustle among the stars. Out of the corner of his eye Gatsby saw that the blocks of the sidewalks really formed a ladder and mounted to a secret place above the trees—he could climb to it, if he climbed alone, and once there he could suck on the pap of life, gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder.
His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy’s white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning-fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete.
When separated from her, his life -- interrupted the war and his heroism in it -- is focused on two things – getting the money he lacked and the lack of which came between them – and getting her attention, which involves the grandest of gestures, the parties where
In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars.
This, along with the Feast of the Pheasant in 1454, which was real but somewhat before my time, were the only two parties I’d wish I’d have been to.
When Gatsby finally meets Daisy, he is overwhelmed. In a famous scene not knowing quite what else to do shows he shows her his wardrobe of custom made shirts which reduces Daisy to tears.
But before Nick leaves them together Nick observes Gatsby coming to grips with the reality.
As I went over to say good-by I saw that the expression of bewilderment had come back into Gatsby’s face, as though a faint doubt had occurred to him as to the quality of his present happiness. Almost five years! There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams—not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart. As I watched him he adjusted himself a little, visibly. His hand took hold of hers, and as she said something low in his ear he turned toward her with a rush of emotion. I think that voice held him most, with its fluctuating, feverish warmth, because it couldn’t be over-dreamed—that voice was a deathless song.
And then when the parties don't please Daisy, he stops them cold. His only interest was in finding her or, rather, making it possible for her to find him.
However, the only thing that's important to him is that Daisy was as totally committed to their connection, to their love, that it was as important to her as it was to him, that there was no moment when she "betrayed" him for Tom.
But though Tom wins because of the almost inhuman demand Gatsby places on Daisy -- which he doesn't realize is an almost inhuman demand -- Daisy can't say she never loved Tom. And Daisy is certainly not able to imagine herself as either the wife or girlfriend of a professional criminal -- even if he was also a war hero.
But still Gatsby looks out for her, waits in the bushes in case Tom gets physically violent.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott (2003-05-27). The Great Gatsby Simon & Schuster, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
I could go on but it's a short book, just reread it a few times. :-) It's one long testament to Gatsby's "romantic readiness" which is itself both a testament to hope and sensitivity to life's possibilities.
There are questions you can ask, but I don't think there's a question of the romantic readiness or Gatsby's hope for a life filled with exceptional possibility.
For some reason the quote reminds me of Teddy Roosevelt's statement about how it's better to be in the arena fighting for something than to stand aside as a pallid and unconcerned nonentity....
Shelley
Rain, A Dust Bowl Story
http://dustbowlstory.wordpress.com
Shelley
Rain, A Dust Bowl Story
http://dustbowlstory.wordpress.com
I was disappointed in Jay. He´s a scoundrel purporting to be a scion,a bogus,a fool, an innocent in way over his head. Nor is he a believable character.
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Oh, crap (whine), I hadn't heard. This explains the lax attitude (lack of policing) of management tow ...more
Apr 04, 2013 01:44PM