For Monday please complete the following:
Create a question (centered on a theme, symbol, or major character in the novel). Example: What does the green light symbolize for Gatsby, and how does this green light alter his dreams? Your question should start your post.
Then--please answer this question in at least five-hundred words. Your post should contain a brief introductory paragraph and at least two body paragraphs.
Nuts and Bolts:
-We will revise these posts--but you should put your best foot forward from the start.
-You should adhere to the rules of good analytical writing: do not use I, avoid plot summary at all cost, and focus on writing crisp/clear analysis.
-You should have at least two pieces of textual support per paragraph (not including your brief intro).
-Proof read your post and avoid careless errors.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Best,
AK
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Why does Gatsby think he can recreate the past?
Gatsby, the title character of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s carefully carved and beautifully woven masterpiece of a book believes that the past can be recreated. He marvels at the idea of trying to be back together with Daisy. Gatsby tells Nick that he thinks the past can be recreated, while Nick deems this as being physically impossible. Gatsby wants the past to be fixed, and be better than it was before. Gatsby has lost himself within the idea of trying to recreate the past, that he is tormented by dreams of trying to love Daisy again that have became nightmares. Gatsby believes that the past can be recreated, to hide the dark lies that he has shaped his life by and to find him the love he’s yearned for with Daisy.
The past is impossible to recreate, as much as anyone has ever tried it will never be copied or replayed. Similar events can occur, and one can only hope that they are nearly the same as the ones that were wanted before. Gatsby seems to think that through his wealth, having money and knowing what he wants he can fix the past. He dreams of the beauty that the past holds. To Gatsby the past is important enough to be repeated. Nick thinks that Gatsby wants to “return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly,” (pg 110). Gatsby has lost himself into becoming obsessed within the past. He has thrown himself into loosing himself in dreams of Daisy and when he kisses her in his dream it becomes the start of an obsession. Gatsby finds that his life has been “confused and disordered” (page 110) since he has loved Daisy.
Gatsby wants to go back to the past to fix the lies he had created. The lies he has started have been told so many times that it seems like almost a haunting part of reality to him. He has been surrounded by “that voice [that] was a deathless song,” (page 96) and allowed himself to become tangled in that. He has created an identity of lies in Gatsby instead of being Gatz. The lies have become true for him because he says them so often. Gatsby has worked up to the top by becoming wealthy and now only remembers the beauty of the past, he has developed a “ghostly heart” (page 96) from all of this.
The past to Gatsby is a world of possessions. The possession that he yearns to add to his collection the most is Daisy. He becomes involved in a competition with Tom and almost wants Daisy more than he does. Tom is preoccupied and involved in his relationship with Myrtle to see as Gatsby attempts to store Daisy as a possession. Gatsby is determined that Daisy loves him, and he tells Tom: “Your wife doesn’t love you,” said Gatsby. “She’s never loved you. She loves me,” (page 130). Gatsby says that because he believes that he has recreated the past enough to make Daisy love him. Although, the past can never become recreated.
The past is a notion that Gatsby has perceived as being the better way of life. He wants to recreate it to be able to live in the illusions of a perfect world that he dreamed of. His obsession with Daisy has became the drive he has to discover the past once more as he becomes lost in the dreams that ultimately turn into nightmares.
What do the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg symbolize and how do the characters react to them?
In Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg gaze over the Valley of Ashes, observing every event that happens within his sight. The Doctor’s eyes witness everything that happens in the ash dump, like the time Tom and Nick picked up Myrtle, and the accident with Gatsby, Daisy and Myrtle. His eyes affect the actions of the characters he supervises; he causes them to either embrace and follow their principles or push them aside.
The eyes of Doctor Eckleburg represent the eyes of god, but a god who is now ignored and forgotten by most. The people who live in the ash dump are constantly “under Doctor Eckleburg’s persistent stare” (24), as if he were a god watching over them. He hangs above the Valley of Ashes, the place where the most sins and tragedies occur and a place that is desolate and avoided. He lingers “over the solemn dumping ground” (23), which is overlooked and evaded, just like his poster, which was put up by “some wild wag of an oculist” (23) who “forgot them and moved away” (23). This is a god who has lost his power and influence over the people of Long Island.
Doctor Eckleburg’s god-like, omniscient eyes keep George Wilson decent and moral. He is the only character whose actions are good and moral (excluding the ones inspired by his wife’s murder) and who did not lie or cheat. He acts in this manner because he believes “you can’t fool God” (160) and that “God sees everything” (160). While he was saying this to Michaelis “he was looking at the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg, which had just emerged…, from the dissolving night” (160), showing that the Doctor’s eyes are Wilson’s god. The eyes that look over him supervise his behavior, his morals, and his life, keeping him one of the two honest characters, and the only ethical and principled person in the entire novel.
Unlike Wilson, the other characters ignore and are discomforted by Doctor Eckleburg. By ignoring him they are able to guiltlessly lie and cheat and get away with the sins they commit. They look at the old, abandoned poster and convince themselves that there is no one looking over them and no one to punish them or hold them responsible for their sins. They are assured that the poster is just an advertisement and not a symbol of a moral figure who is slowly decomposing and melting into the ash. The eyes lay there above the ash, “dimmed a little by many paintless days under sun and rain” (23), forgotten and abandoned, like the principles and morals of the people who pass by them. Tom is one of these people who dismisses Doctor Eckleburg and his kingdom of ash as a “terrible place” (26) and even “exchanges a frown with Doctor Eckleburg” (26) expressing his disapproval of what the Doctor advertises.
What do East and West Egg represent?
East Egg and West Egg hold within, people that describe the two places and the drastic differences between them. Each Egg represents a diverse way of life and living allowing for the two Eggs to be compared and contrasted. West Egg represents the artificial light that shines on all the people that reside there. Within West Egg there is an extreme want and need for the possessions and wealth that resides in East Egg. East Egg represents reality within a wealthy society. Although East Egg might not represent true reality it represents a kind of reality that works for the rich. In “The Great Gatsby”, F. Scott Fitzgerald places characters in two different Eggs to show the difference between want and have and the competition that goes on between the two.
West Egg is a place of want, a place of envy that brings about a need for the things that it doesn’t have. West Egg wants possessions, money and power and because of this want West Egg is defined by it. The people of West Egg look to East Egg and see all of the things they do not have craving them and wanting to be a part of something they will never get within. “He stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling” (20-21). Gatsby, a resident of West Egg, constantly yearns for the things that are on and reside within East Egg. He constantly tries to make do with the things he has on West Egg, surrounding him in artificial light, but nothing will give him the satisfaction that East Egg would give him. His need for the things on East Egg illuminates West Egg allowing for artificial light to spill on to it constantly. This artificial light allows for a façade, encasing West Egg making it seem like a lavish place from the outside looking in. “The lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun and now the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music and the opera of voices pitches a key higher” (40). West Egg is constantly within this artificial light making it seem like it’s something it’s not. Through the artificial light, West Egg continues to strive for everything that East Egg possesses and the power and wealth it holds within it, allowing for West Egg to represent the want that lives within it.
East Egg represents the truth that lives within the wealthy society. East Egg possesses everything that West Egg doesn’t. Within East Egg everybody has everything any rich person would want. East Egg has the money, power, and safety that West Egg doesn’t have. “Their house was even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful red-and-white Georgian Colonial mansion, overlooking the bay” (6). East Egg contains everything that is elaborate and fancy. Within East Egg is the reality of the wealthy and the truth to the rich. There in East Egg everybody is who they truly are and they are protected by the power that they all possess. East Egg is drastically different from the West and because of this the people in the West constantly yearn for a life on East Egg. “It was sharply different from the West, where an evening was hurried from phase to phase toward its close, in a continually disappointed anticipation or else in sheer nervous dread of the moment itself” (12). The light on East Egg is a light that constantly shines, one that does not need to be artificial and fake. In East Egg people are comfortable in the places they are and do not need the artificial light that the East possesses to be who they want to be. East Egg is represented by the truth and reality that the rich and wealthy possess providing a place for West Egg to envy.
My Conclusion:
Through the wants of the West and the reality of the East the two Eggs are drastically different. The people within both Eggs allow for the two Eggs differences to be seen. West Egg’s envy shines through the artificial light that continues to illuminate the island. East Egg’s power and money is seen through the real light that envelops East Egg all the time. Each Egg is represented by the people that live within them and the light that shines on them. The differences of the two eggs allows for the envy that is shared by the people residing on West Egg and the reality that East Egg encompasses.
Jordan Baker says that it takes 2 to make an accident. In the case of The Great Gatsby, it may be many more. Are the people who watch this accident (Nick) responsible? Do they also carry a burden?
Nick Caraway narrates the Great Gatsby, providing the eyes and ears of the readers as an observer of the ongoing events. However, just as in any other book where a reader should not immediately trust a narrator, so must a reader of the Great Gatsby take Nick with a grain of salt. He eschews the judgments of the people and their actions within the book, or at least hides his own assumptions from the reader. While this allows us for a level plain on which to judge without bias, it is evidence that Nick is also averting his eyes to his own troubles and perhaps refusing to face his own burden. Without judging the people around him, and then acting on those judgments, Nick is, in part, responsible for the severity of the accident that ensues. Where he could have made accurate and fair judgments about people, he avoids tainting their images in any way; he had the power to prevent some actions he saw, and to some extent actions which contributed to the larger accident.
Nick commits the first of these errors early in the book, when he revisits Tom Buchanan. Tom is a character completely riddled by the corruption of his money—it leeks through his features and gestures and dominates his life, including his effeminate and vicarious wife, Daisy. In an opportunity where Nick could have revised his image of Tom because he discovers Tom is having an affair, Nick still remains impartial. Nick also witnesses Tom’s “casual dominance” over several people in his life—both women, and his mistress’s husband, who embodies the working class and the struggles of the poor. Tom treats Daisy like she was a possession or else rightly and completely his own, holding onto her with his gestures of aggression rather than an emotion of longing. He begins an affair with another woman, something that was common enough through his marriage and yet never seemed to be enough to push Daisy away from him. Tom ends up beating his mistress Myrtle, with whom he enjoys a more physical relationship, treating her like a possession his money had acquired. Nick, by choice, or by habit, chooses not to contrast these things with his own moral attention.
Gatsby is just as complex a character and just as deserving of a fair and critical judgment. Rumors had circulated around Gatsby about the reasons for his mystique and confidentiality. While Nick does not heed this gossip, he doesn’t heed the gravity of Gatsby’s later actions, nor does he seem to understand the full weight of Gatsby’s burdens. Gatsby is living proof of the American Dream, in both the terms of its success and the scope of its failure. He embodies the sacrifice that seems to, or must, be made in order to become successful in American life. Nick does not pass judgment on Gatsby’s lifestyle, and in some ways, Nick hints that his lifestyle runs parallel to the American Dream, since he works steadily, owns a well-kept house, and dates a well-kept woman. He does not seem to notice when Gatsby reveals his love for Daisy, hidden over the span of almost 5 years, nor does he realize that Gatsby, as a ghost of his former self inhabiting a new life, would do almost anything to achieve that reach of his dream, regardless of the damage he would leave behind him.
Nick also does not pass this judgment upon his own life; not once does he question whether his actions focus on his own wants and needs rather than the wants and needs of others. He never examines the reason why he watches the characters central to the novel, unless he was attempting to hold them responsible for their actions, for which he forfeits his own obligation. Even in the wake of his friends’ ruin does he fail to inquire as to who is ultimately responsible, both for the literal deaths of Gatsby, Myrtle Wilson, and George Wilson, and for Gatsby’s internal demise as well as the destruction of Daisy’s image.
conclusion:
Because he had the opportunity to judge his counterparts, had the ability to act on these decisions, and because he failed to do either of these, part of the tragedy of The Great Gatsby lies in Nick’s inability to intervene in the actions of the people that he watches. He is so guarded and cautious in his movements and his opinions of people that he allows an accident to unfold before him, without ever acknowledging that he had the chance or capability to prevent it.
How does Daisy represent the carelessness of the wealthy?
Daisy is a woman whose character has been corrupted by wealth in such a way that any morality she may have had has virtually disappeared. Living with Tom Buchanan and conforming to his cruel lifestyle, Daisy allows herself to live a sheltered life with an extravagant, protective exterior. Daisy’s morally twisted decisions and comments represent the careless lives of the wealthy, marked by outward ignorance.
The manner in which Daisy treats Myrtle’s death clearly displays her recklessness. As Nick says, she and Tom are people who “[smash] up things and creatures and then [retreat] back into their money or their vast carelessness… and let other people clean up the mess they made” (179). Myrtle’s death is a huge mess that Daisy created; however, Daisy offers no assistance or condolences for the terrible situation. After hitting Myrtle with the car, Daisy proceeds to East Egg without any hesitation and locks herself in her house. This action corresponds to Nick’s description of her as “gleaming like silver, safe and proud above the hot struggles of the poor” (150). Living in ash valley, Myrtle was poor, along with those who do clean up this mess. Daisy on the other hand never even has to witness the suffering she forced upon the poor. She is safe, shielded from the inconvenience by her wealth.
Daisy is not oblivious; she chooses to act in an ignorant manner because her wealth allows her to do so. About her daughter, Daisy says that she “hopes she’ll be a fool – that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool” (17). Daisy cannot genuinely be ignorant if she was able to say something like this about her daughter. She believes that the best thing for her daughter, and therefore for herself, is to ignore the struggles of the poor and only allow herself to be occupied by her own wealth. Because she has enough money to survive, she is never forced to witness the harsh reality if she does not wish. Her inability to face reality is also seen during the fight between Tom and Gatsby; before Gatsby reveals to Tom his affair with Daisy, Daisy says “’please don’t!’… helplessly” (130). Although she is not fully happy in her relationship with Tom, she cannot bear to allow Gatsby to make their relationship known. She would rather live in a fictitious world where arguments are concealed than risk ruining it due to the truth.
Daisy’s marriage to Tom is more based on money than it is on love. She married Tom instead of Gatsby because “she wanted her life shaped now, immediately – and the decision must be made by some force – of love, of money, of unquestionable practicality – that was close at hand” (151). Although she loved Gatsby, her desire for being secure in money overcame this. After all of Gatsby’s attempts to encourage Daisy to act on her impulse to be with him rather than to do as her wealth guides her and stay with Tom, Daisy still returns to Tom. Nick describes the image of Tom and Daisy after the confrontation to have “an unmistakable air of natural intimacy” (145). Daisy brushes off Gatsby’s love and presumably remains with Tom. Although it may hurt her to leave Gatsby, it would be even more difficult to leave Tom, and Daisy is willing to sacrifice her desire to be with Gatsby in order to avoid the difficulty of leaving Tom.
How does Gatsby’s desire to recreate the past alter reality and ultimately cause the death of Myrtle?
Often time’s people who acquire wealth soon become blinded by it and it becomes their god. Gatsby was brought up as a poor man, however, when he finally acquires wealth, it in fact, becomes his all. To him, everything becomes a thing including Daisy who becomes a possession to him, rather than a person. It is Daisy that Gatsby wants once again and it soon becomes his dream to recreate the past and make Daisy apart of his life again. As a result of this, Gatsby moves to the West Egg in order to be closer to Daisy, and throws parties hoping that one day Daisy will return to him. Daisy becomes the core of Gatsby’s actions, and ultimately causes the death of Myrtle. Through Gatsby’s determination to fulfill his dream of recreating the past, he ruins the lives of some others, and alters reality for himself.
Gatsby’s dream is to recreate that “one autumn night, five years before” (110), but it soon becomes what his life revolves around. Gatsby moves to West Egg in order to live across the bay from Daisy in a chance that he once again might meet her. When Nick first see’s Gatsby, he’s standing with “stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way” (20) and Nick “could have sworn he was trembling” (20). This could be a portrayal of Gatsby’s desire to have Daisy back in his life, and ultimately the beginning to his recreation the past.
However, Gatsby is more interested in Daisy as an idea, and who she once was, rather than who she actually is a person. Because he is so stuck in his dream, he doesn’t realize that the five years that passed must have changed Daisy as a person. Or maybe Daisy was never as great as he thought so. But, he thinks having Daisy in his life, as the person he loves will increase his own personal value and self esteem. It excited Gatsby “that many men had already loved Daisy” (149) and “it increased her value in his eyes” (140). If Gatsby truly loved Daisy, it wouldn’t matter how many men had loved her before, in fact her name and value wouldn’t be in the same sentence. However, Gatsby see’s Daisy as a possession because he is so caught up in his own personal appearance, that his dream alters who she truly is.
Gatsby and Tom arguing over Daisy, is not truly over her love, but rather an argument between them, and who is the better person. Their definition of better person is who has more wealth. During this argument, Gatsby tells Tom that “[his] wife doesn’t love [him]” (130), and that “she’s never loved [him]” (130) because “she loves me” (130). Although Tom and Daisy’s relationship has been rocky, Tom isn’t ready to hear these words from another man. The reasoning that Tom and Gatsby are fighting over who is the better person comes when they both “insisted with competitive firmness that [Jordan and Nick] remain” (130) when they tried to leave. If they truly loved Daisy for who she is, they wouldn’t need an audience to watch this argument. As Daisy is driving back from New York City, she hits Myrtle and keeps on driving. Although this is Daisy’s fault because she was driving, her mind isn’t in the right place due to the conversation they had before which is ultimately built off of Gatsby’s dream to recreate the past.
The actions that Gatsby makes for Daisy aren’t truly over Daisy, but rather Gatsby’s desire to recreate the past. Because he is stuck in this dream, he isn’t able to see what truly is, and doesn’t understand Myrtles death is caused by his dream. While he is stuck in this dream he doesn’t see reality, and the present passes by him without him noticing. Gatsby believes that he is the one who will be able to recreate the past, but by doing so he doesn’t realize how many other lives he hurts.
What are the eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg, and whose eyes are they? Perhaps most importantly: what do they watch over?
Fitzgerald establishes this bizarre disembodied entity as a pair of glasses that gazes over the Valley of Ashes. This figure, while taking on the physical shell of an average billboard, is representative judgment – of an immortal being passing judgment on mortals incapable of such a task. The eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg are the only things that reveal the truth behind the book’s characters.
In the center of the billboard sits a disembodied face – nothing more than “a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a non-existent nose” (23). It is something separate from humanity. It is something man-made and material, but it is not organic. Some characters, such as Wilson, even subtly hint that Eckleburg is a god. When Wilson laments to Michaelis over the death of his wife, he proclaims: “’God knows what you’ve been doing, everything you’ve been doing. You may fool me, but you can’t fool God!’” (159). At this point, Michaelis turns around and finds himself face-to-face with the omnipotent oculist. These features suggest that the eyes possess something far more powerful than humans do.
What is this power contained within those eyes? The eyes, in all of their divine wisdom, see the sins committed by these characters. The eyes watched as Tom Buchanan, a married man, stole Wilson’s wife right from under his nose. They were watching the day Daisy and Gatsby killed Myrtle with a car, and they are the only eyes that still look over where her body lay. As Wilson bitterly says, “God sees everything” (160). The eyes are a presence nobody can ignore because they know that, secretly, everything they do falls under scrutiny.
These eyes, however, are impartial. They, like Nick, claim to withhold judgment; they simply passively observe. They may be the eyes of the Owl-Eyed patron at Gatsby’s parties, who never interacts with other guests and who always comments from a distance. Perhaps the eyes belong to Fitzgerald, to watch over his creations as they act on his stage. They could be the reader’s eyes – left without bias so that we are free to make our own decisions and judge people without influence. However, they may be the eyes of everyone who has ever judged anyone. We all like to raise ourselves above the others who we criticize, looming over. In our moment of almighty judgment we try to make ourselves the omniscient ones, feeling free to pick apart people’s lives and behaviors while concealing our own errors and sins. We fear that there may be someone trying to loom over us as well, waiting with a persistent stare for us to make a vulnerable mistake.
Homework due Tuesday:
The West Egg is home to Jay Gatsby. It is associated with “new” wealth; wealth that is acquired through means other than inheritance. Its residents aim to model their lives after the residents of East Egg, although East Egg residents generally find the West Egg to be distasteful. The West Egg is home to those who had the American dream of wealth and were able to obtain its definition of success. However, behind its material achievement, the West Egg is as hollow as the East Egg.
The Valley of Ashes lies between the two Eggs’ and New York City. It is based on the Corona Dump in the borough of Queens. It is home to Myrtle, George Wilson and the people that serve the East and West Egger’s. It is a place that brings no satisfaction to the people that live within it and to the people that pass through it. The Valley of Ashes is continuously burning the people inside it adding to the heaps of unsuccessful ashes that are already there. It is the only place that is not defined by money, but by the reality of life and the working class. The Valley of Ashes is a place that is defined by its lack of success and the peoples need and want to get out of it.
In F. Scott Fitzgeralds novel The Great Gatsby, we watch the tragic lives of fabulously wealthy people living in East and West Egg, in Long Island, New York. The character jay Gatsby is the vision of the American dream, a man rising from nothing to become someone who could be looked up to. As his story is told, the structure that Gatsby was built on starts to erode beneath him, and we see him for who he really is. Not only is Gatsby’s dream corrupt, it is one that has been so planned out that it can most certainly not be achieved.
With the change that the 1920’s brought to America, the idea of the “self made man” or the “American Dream” has seen drastic changes as well. Gatsby does not care what he does in order to achieve his dream, but ultimately “he did not know that it was already behind him….where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night” (page.180). While he thought he was chasing his dreams, he was actually leaving them behind, trying to become something that he wasn’t. Jay Gatsby was created out of this dream and it was he “who borrowed a rowboat…and informed Cody that a wind might catch him and break him up in an hour” (page.98). When he borrowed that row boat that day, he completely forgot about who he was leaving behind on the shore. It was also Gatsby who eventually killed his own dream, and lost sight of what he actually wanted. Dreams and success “founded securely on a fairy’s wing” (page.99) is bound to shatter against reality at some point.
Gatsby’s elaborate dream was conceived the day that he met Dan Cody. His ideas are so extravagant that they are almost impossible to live up to. He projects his love (Daisy) in a way that she must have “tumbled short of his dreams” (chapter 5) but it wasn’t the way she was, it was because of the “colossal vitality of his illusion” (chapter 5). Gatsby is obsessed with perfection, and will do anything to achieve it, even under the ugliest terms. His “dream was so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it” (page.180). Gatsby was successful in grasping his dream, but it was eventually his dream that led to his complete and utter destruction.
The characters of The Great Gatsby change the idea of the American dream into something that is very different but very similar to the idea of the modern American dream. People want to have a lot of money and not have to worry about problems that everyone else has, they want to focus on themselves, and that is what Gatsby’s dream ultimately creates.
Who is Dr. T.J. Eckleburg? Like Dan Cody, What does he symbolize? What is he watching?
What does Dr. T.J. Eckleburg symbolize, and what is the significance of his eyes?
“But above the grey land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg. (27)” The eyes of Eckleburg hold together the fabric of what is and what was the past, present and future. He is the proprietor of dreams and reality, yet the foundation of the past and present. He is to George what Dan Cody is to Gatsby, a dream, and a desire. However, with this dream, this desire, the very foundation of Gatsby’s life trembles in the wake of his past, while George loses himself within the ash-heaps of the present.
While Dan Cody and T. J. Eckleburg both fundamentally represent the dreams that men desire, it is the work of Eckleburg, who rediscovers the truths of Gatsby’s past while creating the facade of George’s present. Ultimately Eckleburg is the greatest force at work, welding together the story full of lies and misfortune. He is the “unreality of reality. (105)” Even with the divine wisdom and solidarity of character that Eckleburg stands for; he observes as those who chase after the very things that unimaginable and ultimately unachievable find nothing. His judgment rests upon the ash-heaps of time, as he looks to the past for justification. He is some kind of God who stands high above the Valley of Ashes, watching as everything unfolds itself into oblivion, leaving nothing but a trail of dust.
He is the ultimate Being, the Observer. He is the embodiment of everyone’s secrecy and failures. He Watches as everyone’s lives unfold, shatter and reveal the hidden truths that were locked away far behind the “shadow of a garage. (29)” Can he be trusted? He may have watched as the Eggs became the “rock of the world, (105)” and he does nothing to interfere in the lives of those he looks up, but he is the catalyst to those who do act. He is the persuasive passenger, the reckless driver. Like Daisy’s voice, his eyes give him power as well as knowledge and wisdom. But better yet, are the eyes of T.J. Eckleburg, the eyes of the forgotten, and the memories of those who wished to be erased and as a result of this, could they be the eyes of Gatz? What are these eyes condemning, is it the truth or the lies?
(George Wilson)
What does Wilson do for a living?
In Chapter 7, where does Wilson say he wants to go and why?
What church does Wilson belong to?
In Chapter 8, what does he find in his wife’s drawer?
How long had he been married to Myrtle?
How do the differences between East Egg, West Egg, and Valley of Ashes affect the interactions between the main characters?
Society is generally divided into Lower, Middle, and Upper classes, but in the case of The Great Gatsby it is geography that separates the classes, being the Valley of Ashes, West Egg, and East Egg. The setting of each location not only represents who each character from that place is but also helps to lead into the conflicts around the central figure of this novel, Jay Gatsby.
Although covered in its own waste and debris, the Valley of Ashes and the people who live in it represent the life that almost every American finds themselves caught in. It is this image of the American Dream that keeps them going and it is only death that can stop Mrs. Wilson from “giving up the tremendous vitality she had stored so long”(pg.137) It was this vitality and vision of a richer world that drew her to Tom and kept her clinging to life in her dust covered world in the hopes that one day she could escape. It is the Valley of Ashes that is there to serve for the rich, and to help the rich get richer for even the eyes of T.J. Eckleberg were set there “to fatten his practice in the borough of Queens, and then sank down himself into eternal blindness or forgot them and moved away.”(pg.24) This idea that the poor are only present to deal with the aftermath of the rich’s decisions can be seen by brushing off the ash that covers this valley and its people.
Between the two extremes Jay Gatsby finds himself stuck on West Egg, caught in turmoil of money and love. In this egg Gatsby surrounds himself with his possessions and a rich lifestyle in order to draw his one true love, Daisy, towards him. It is his inability to achieve the East Egg lifestyle that creates the mystery around him and ultimately fuels “what preyed Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams”(pg.2). Though closer to his dream due to his money and position in society, Gatsby is still surrounded by the wrong people like Wolfsheim and Owl-Eyes who only further distance him from reality. Even after all that he has gone through to find love he is still truly alone on West Egg and on East Egg left “standing there in the moonlight-watching over nothing.”(pg.145). With all the money he’ll ever need Gatsby can still not achieve this dream of East Egg and the life with Daisy.
The village located farthest away from the Valley of Ashes, and rightly so, is the wealthy and proper East Egg. The glamour and wealth on East Egg truly cannot be achieved through hard work and perseverance, but only through inheritance like in the case of Tom and Daisy. It is this life and money that every other character is after especially Gatsby, who sees this “ladder and mounted to a secret place above the trees…once there he could suck on the pap of life”(pg.110), and he lets this image consume his life. Tom and Daisy continue to reign over the characters like Gatsby, Myrtle, and George and watch the utter destruction they create as the others revolve around them. George needs Tom for business, Myrtle needs Tom to escape, and Gatsby needs Daisy for love and all of them give up their lives in the chase for these dreams.
(Jordan)
Why does Jordan avoid clever, shrewd men?
Why is Jordan so tired and bored throughout the book?
Who is Jordan’s escort to Gatsby’s party?
What happened to Jordan at her first big golf tournament?
Why is Jordan referred to as golden?
The cars in this novel play an important role in representing the people who drive them and the wealth they have. Gatsby having a “triumphant” car shows the persona that the money creates around him, as he uses it to raise himself above the others around him. On the other hand George Wilson owns an old dusty car repair garage, which shows the real American, working class life that he lives, always trying to obtain the ever-disappearing money. Wilson is responsible for accidents of the rich, and it is he who has to deal with the wreckage while the rich hide themselves in their own wealth.
Who is Gatsby without Daisy?
Throughout the time we come to know Gatsby, we see that most of his life has been decided based upon what he thinks Daisy would like to see. His first major transformation was as simple as changing his name. Then going on through the years he follows a specific path, which is mainly followed for the woman who he is in love with. Daisy is Gatsby’s light, all of his dreams and desires are created with her in the center.
In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald never lets us see firsthand how Gatsby is, and how he functions without Daisy in his life. Gatsby is a character completely defined by mystery, so looking into his past, and seeing how he would be if things in his life were slightly different is difficult.
Before Daisy he was strong in his decisions, and didn’t hesitate to go from being “James Gatz loafing along the beach that afternoon” to transforming into “Jay Gatsby who rowed a rowboat, pulled out to the Tuolomee, and informed Dan Cody that a wind might catch him and break him up in half an hour.” (98) Once he became Jay Gatsby he lost all sense of being, and started following the ideals he thought Daisy had.
For Daisy he needed money, status, a well known name, and the belongings to go along with all of these. He needed to be a person where he could be both mysterious and well known at the same time. It was important to him that “Even Gatsby could happen, without any particular wonder.”(69) If Gatsby didn’t grow to have all of his money and status that defines him, he would still be really passionate about specific things. He has taken all the passion he could have for other people, or activities, and focused them onto one person, which is what caused his downfall. If Gatsby never fell in love with Daisy he could be leading a more fulfilling life, and not have died surrounded by problems, and lies. James Gatz could have had a fulfilling life doing things he really cares about, or making a difference to people rather than hold parties and just become another gray name in the books.
Is Nick a moral character? Does he bear responsibility for the overwhelming tragedy in this setting?
Nick, as the eyes and ears of the book, is able to view every event, but makes no judgment upon it. As an observer of other people’s lives, he forgets his own powers to see his judge his surroundings based on his own moral standards. Because he is the narrator, he will not reveal any times that he regrets his passiveness, or sees an opportunity to change the course of events before him. His apathy eventually ruins his situation the most, because it is the result of a conflict between two different moralities, paralyzing him between conforming to one of these sets of beliefs. He was aware of his opportunities, and yet his inaction and refusal to acknowledge his own power in his situation leads to an even greater final consequence.
Nick has sustained a relationship with Tom since their college days; they both attended Yale and Nick is distantly related to Daisy, Tom’s wife. However, the reason Nick commits himself to his friendship with Tom is because Tom represents a success in Nick’s eyes: he has succeeded at Nick’s dream, which is to be rich and stable in his social position. He is everything that Nick wants initially to become. Tom represents the achievement of the American Dream; and Nick is drawn heavily to him, under powerful influence “like [that of] new money from the mint, promising to unfold the shining secrets that only Midas and Morgan and Maecenas knew. And [he] had the high intention…to bring back all such things into [his] life and become again that most limited of specialists, the ‘well-rounded man’. This isn’t just an epigram—life is much more successfully looked at from a single window, after all.” (4) Nick, initially, can only see his own life through this window of financial success and the hope of a future disentangled from his upbringing and ties in the Middle West. Tom is part of the scene he looks out on, a focal point in the landscape of his own aspirations.
Nick finds himself in a friendship with Gatsby because they are next door neighbors and Gatsby eventually reveals his desire of Daisy, enlisting Nick in his dream to obtain Daisy. However, Nick and Gatsby are also working towards a similar goal: they are trying to realize a national dream on an individual scale. Gatsby is not the firmly planted success that Nick admires; while his goal is to become richer and keep his wealth, he realizes that “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.” (110) Nick sees in Gatsby the tragedy of this path, and he sees that Gatsby has sacrificed almost everything he had the power to give, including his own identity, all for the sake of his monetary and social achievement.
East Egg is the hierarchy of a vastly wealthy establishment fostering vastly wealthy people. It is the highest that any one person can ascend. However, its ownership is preserved and kept static, because its money is inherited and not earned. East Egg becomes the most powerful cemented social force in the area for this reason and “preserve[s] a dignified homogeneity, and assumed to itself the function of representing the staid nobility of the countryside—East Egg condescending to West Egg, and carefully on guard against its spectroscopic gayety.” (44) Everyone acknowledges its power as legitimate; the people of this society see East Egg as the greatest achievement and yield to the authority of their goal.
last paragraph & conclusion
West Egg is where people move to, die, and move out of. It is never permanent, but always changing hands and never having occupants long enough to leave a legacy behind or produce the next generation of inhabitants. It represents the people climbing up the social and monetary ladder, fueled by “its raw vigor that chafed under the old euphemisms and by the too obtrusive fate that herded its inhabitants along a short-cut from nothing to nothing.” (107) Ultimately it represents the point that they can climb no further, where they are forced to stop, because either the sacrifice required to go forward is too great, or else everything has already been sacrificed up to this point, and there is nothing left to throw forward in pursuit of being rich. It is the mix between morality & money, and its life is in a constant cycle of acquisition, change, downfall, and acquisition again, which nobody understands or connects to their drive to reach the highest social plane.As an observer of other people’s lives (where “life is much more successfully looked at from a single window”), Nick forgets his own powers to apply their lives to a personal moral standard. However, his chosen apathy is perhaps what causes the most damage, because it puts him in conflict with two different moralities: the morality of the wealthy, successful aristocrats living on East Egg, and the morality of the lesser shining inhabitants of West Egg, possibly just as rich but with a wealth just as fleeting as their identities. The options he sees in how to pursue his dream paralyzes him between conforming to one of these sets of beliefs; and in the way he tries to mingle these two systems of belief into his own, so he is paralyzed when the time comes to intervene in the course of events before him. When he is still stuck between choosing his loyalty, he allows himself to be stationary, resulting in the obliteration of any possible alternative for a different outcome based on his intervention.
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