Can't Repeat the Past!

In chapter six we finally come to find out the true origins of Gatsby, although we still are unsure of his source of money. Many questions still linger with him, and I will attempt to address some of those, but I want to focus for a minute on Nick; specifically a quote I found of his concerning Gatsby's newest party, the one thrown to please Daisy:

...There were the same people, or at least the same sort of people, the same profusion of champagne, the same many-colored, many-keyed commotion, but I felt an unpleasantness in the air, a pervading harshness that hadn't been there before. Or perhaps I had merely grown used to it, grown to accept West Egg as a world complete in itself, with its own standards and its own great figures, second to nothing because it had no consciousness of being so, and now I was looking at it again, through Daisy's eyes. It is invariable saddening to look through new eyes at things upon which you have expended your own powers of adjustment (104).

Nick has fallen so deep into this new lifestyle that looking at the party through Daisy's eyes is the only way he can see it for it what it truly is: debaucherous, messy,  and irresponsible. Nick's enamored with the idea of Gatsby and West Egg so much so that he fails in his one true virtue of honesty. It's funny because we, as a class, have made this observation, but I believe it is the first time in the story that Nick has come to a similar realization. Daisy, with all her privilages and wealth, suddenly represents a new degree of morality. She wants all of the luxuries of aristocratic living without any of the drudgery. Fitzgerald always associates her with the color white, representative of purity and innocence (a daisy itself is a white flower). In fact, at Gatsby's party, the only scene she enjoys is a couple - one described also as an orchid flower - sitting under a white plum tree talking and kissing. This perturbs Gatsby because he has obsessively obtained all of his wealth to impress her, and she is not at all impressed!! Nick, back to his usual objective and rational self, tries to plead with Gatsby: "'You can't repeat the past,'", to which Gatsby replies: "'Why of course you can!'" (110).  The idea of time is again introduced. It was suspended before - symbolic of the stopped clock - and now, at least in Gatsby's eyes, he wants it turn back. Obviously, he is immersed in a new time and place, with a new, married Daisy, but he cannot seem to understand that fact. In his mind, he had it all planned out: get the money = get the girl. Not so fast...I cannot wait to keep reading and find out what exactly happens between them. Will Daisy come around, or will she remain satisfied with her superficial, yet protected, world? How will Gatsby respond if that does happen?

Gatsby in Love

I hear what some of you are saying about Gatsby using Nick to get closer to Daisy, but for some reason I find Gatsby to be endearing and a romantic. I think he turns to Nick not to force Nick into the middle of another affair - although Nick is now involved in some scandalous stuff - but rather because Gatsby doesn't have anyone else he can turn to. All of his party-goers do not even know he exists. Nick is trustworthy and seems to care about the condition and well-being of others. He wants to see Gatsby happy, even if he might not agree with the circumstances under which Gatsby pursues Daisy. Simply reading of Gatsby's nervousness, attention-to-detail, and restless nature make me instantly like him. I think we can all relate to this anticipatory anxiety in some way, shape, or form, analogous to the feelings we get when we like someone else and don't quite know exactly how to act around that person. To think that he's been separated from his love for five years and is finally about to see her again for the first time...even if you think he's kind of stalkerish, only the coldest heart would say he isn't sweet. His embarrassment after initially meeting with Daisy reminds of a little kid's. He is shy and nervous, so much so that Nick has to talk him back into the room, almost like a parent must console a child at times. It's funny though, as soon as the weather turns and he is back on good terms with Daisy, he resumes his old, mysterious self. He lets slip that he earned the money to buy his house, and when Nick questions the source of his money (remember before that Gatsby said he inherited his money), Gatsby runs through a litany of thin excuses: oil, drug stores, the war. He is evidently stumbling to fix the error. It's so hard to read this guy! Daisy, too, changes her act when she reconciles with Gatsby. Instead of putting up her usual cynical act, she breaks down crying, showing seemingly real emotion that she has tried to hide before. Her tears at the sight of Gatsby's beautiful shirts are kind of ridiculous, but I think it means she can finally be happy with him. With Gatsby’s wealth, both her desires - Gatsby and money - now are fulfilled. The happiness is beautiful, the materialism pathetic, but I guess love should be love no matter the circumstances. Gatsby seems to realize that; I'm not so sure Daisy does. And maybe the fact that Gatsby had to earn so much money and have so many material goods in order to please Daisy means that she is not the right girl after all. Anyone in agreement? I can say one thing though, already their short affair seems to be the most genuine relationship we have seen in the book, more genuine than Tom and Daisy, Myrtle and Tom, or Myrtle and George. I'm not sure where it's to lead though. Nick is now in way over his head. Tom certainly isn't going to approve of this fling - or whatever we choose to call it - and he certainly won't be happy that Nick has taken part. Things are happening...

Gatsby's Antecedents

We come to find a great deal more about Gatsby in chapter four, although the truth still seems veiled and watered-down. Gatsby really is a fascinating character - part of why this book has endured in popularity so long. I found the names of his party guests, recorded by Nick at the beginning of the chapter, to be quite funny: Leeches, Cheadles, Dancies, Whitebait, Hammerheads, Belugas, Bull, Duckweed, etc. They all suggest a superficial and bloodsucking nature; the best part though is that Gatsby doesn't seem to mind being used by them. Either he has so much money that he doesn't care, he wants to fit in, or he is simply too nice to shoo them away. I'm not sure. It seems funny for a man with that much wealth to want to please everyone. It almost seems as if he's hiding something. When he begins to tell Nick of his origins, Nick almost instantly thinks that something is wrong: a lie, a fabrication, a degree of hyperbole. But then Gatsby shows him an authentic medal from the tiny country of Montenegro. This shakes Nick's honest core. If you remember back to the first chapter, the very beginning of the book, Nick says that he tends to reserve judgment, which has "opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores" (5). Well, now Gatsby has recognized the honesty within Nick and wants to open himself up to his new neighbor. Nick is now not only an accomplice to Tom's infidelity, but he is entering into Gatsby's mysterious world as well. He first meets Gatsby's friend Wolfsheim, an apparent business partner of Gatsby's, but more than that, a shrewd businessman who fixed the 1919 World Series and whose friends have been brutally murdered in violent mob fashion. Now this is a world completely foreign to Nick, but surprisingly casual to Gatsby. I'm starting to think that perhaps Gatsby's wealth doesn't come from a middle-west inheritance, but rather some shady, illegal dealings. I could be wrong, but there just seems too much mystery to think otherwise. Finally, at the end of the chapter (via Jordan Baker) Gatsby's insular nature, or at least one of his mysteries, is revealed, but I'll let one of you hash out the details...Let's see some responses and posts. Some of you already are getting behind!

Ideas on Nick's Character...

 
Much happens in chapter three, so I decided to narrow my focus solely to our narrator, Nick Carraway. As readers, we've been drawn into this upper-class world of materialism, fancy cars, parties, and loose morals, and it becomes easy to forget about our humble - yet gradually corrupted - narrator. Nick is one of the few guests to be invited to Gatsby's immaculate party. He tells us that the other guests, "...were not invited - they went there" (45), adding to our view of the east as a corrupt society full of users and swindlers. He later says that this relationship of user and used is sort of an understood social hierarchy: "East Egg condescending to West Egg" (49). So where does Nick fit into all of it? For one, he seems to enjoy these drunken excursions. If the party illustrated in the second chapter was Nick's second time being drunk, then his welcome approach to getting "roaring drunk" (46) at Gatsby's party proves to us his complicity in the whole scene. At times, he seems almost disgusted with the riotous nature of the party: husbands flirting with women who are not their wives, drunk drivers so drunk they do not even know they've crashed, and a mild obsession with Gatsby's origins, but deep down, I think Nick is fascinated with the whole scene. While no one at the party knows who Gatsby really is, everyone has an idea, and Nick is lured into this world of gossip and facade. When Jordan meets with Gatsby - the nature of that conversation is very mysterious - she comes out and almost taunts Nick with her secret knowledge about what he will never know. I almost feel a little sorry for Nick...he seems in way over his head. Not that he cannot handle it; he just seems too "nice" for it all. He even says that he is the "few honest people I have ever known" (64). I believe that he is in for a major disappointment. Even though he is reserved, he seems a little too gullible, and either Jordan, Gatsby, Tom, or Daisy will disappoint or break his heart somehow. Someone talk about Owl Eyes....what's he all about?

The Manhattan Party

Chapter two finds us meeting Tom's mistress, Myrtle Wilson, a classic social climber. I almost felt sorry for her...almost. She fully embraces the role of mistress - buying expensive perfume (and even a dog, which she neglects the rest of the night), throwing parties, living the high life - but like any mistress, especially one from a lower social rung, she is at the mercy of Tom's demands. He forces her to ride on a separate train car so as to not displease "the sensibilities of those East Eggers who might be on the train" (31). Real classy of Tom in all respects. Fitzgerald uses two symbols here that I picked up on. The first is the "valley of ashes" (27), which seems to represent the poor, the wasted, all that the rich do not have to deal with. Looking over the valley is the faded billboard of T.J. Eckleburg, a more complex symbol. Does he represent government, God, society? I'm not sure, but he does symbolize some sort of lost entity, an omipresent figure who has given up on or forgotten about the poor toiling below him. As readers, we see this sort of forgotten, tossed-away feeling amongst those lower-class individuals. Tom uses George Wilson for his business and his wife. When Myrtle speaks out about Daisy, looking for a hint of love from the man who supposedly cares so much about her that he cheats on his wife, Tom backhands her, breaking her nose. The chapter is full of debauchery, drunken riot, and, to me, empitiness. I thought that Nick would hate it, but he kind of likes running with the "in" crowd. It excites him. I imagine it is what he was looking for when he came out east. Either way, his innocence, his reservation of judgment, is losing ground. We know that he ends up coming back west after a while, so I imagine he eventually gets fed up with it all. One thing I do know for sure: Tom and Myrtle will not last. He is a user, and will get rid of her when he finds it necessary. The rich using the poor...still wondering how Gatsby fits in.

The Dinner Party

 

I just finished reading chapter one of Gatsby. The fact that Fitzgerald moves Nick out east and into the lives of his super-rich neighbors seems an intentional mixing of classes, and with Nick inclined to reserve judgment, chapter one - the dinner party as I like to call it - is then a great episode to find out who these different characters are. Upon first impression, Tom seems a wealthy, cruel, macho, meathead-type. He sounds foolish and racist when discussing a book about the submergence of the White race by minorities. Readers also very overtly learn that he has a mistress on the side, one who has the effrontory to call during dinner. All-in-all, he seems like a jerk, but then again Fitzgerald writes that Tom was "one of those men who reach such acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterwards savours of anti-climax" (10), meaning that he has to overcompensate for his shortcomings. His mistress and racist attitudes might be a way to cover-up deep insecurities about his boredom with life now that he is no longer a college athlete. Daisy, Tom's wife, also seems to mask her insecurities with sarcasm, idle conversation, and wit. Only after the party - and upon Nick's revelation that Tom is cheating on her - does she tell Nick that her life is miserable. She wants her daughter to grow up to be a "beautiful little fool" (21) because to Daisy, it seems that women cannot amount to much more. Daisy seems constantly under Tom's rule, even though she is intelligent and capable, and her response to such oppression is dimwitted ignorance. Sad really. Jordan, the last character we meet, seems to be a progressive woman - a professional golfer - but somewhat a cheat and a phony. Her act of just lounging around all the time making light conversation seemed a little like an act as well. I'm not sure quite what will happen with her, although I wouldn't be surprised if Nick fell for her. After meeting these characters at the dinner party, life on East Egg doesn't seem all that thrilling. Tom and Daisy's relationship seems marred by infidelity, lost dreams, ignorance, and greed. Something has to happen between those two, but with their total denial of life's misery, I could see them sticking it out and living the rest of their days in a rich fantasyland with all the bells and whistles, but without love, emotion, or happiness. The dinner party symbolizes an emptiness amongst these upper-class suburbanites, a new generation unaccustomed to hard-work. They float through life instead. I am interested to see how Nick and Gatsby fit in with all of them. Brief mention of Gatsby, but I'll tackle that next time. Goodbye for now!