The Great Gatsby (Honors Review)

This photo is taken from a scene in the first version of The Great Gatsby when it was adapted to film.

Quote

"'This is an unusual party for me. I haven't even seen the host. I live over there--' I waved my hand at the invisible hedge in the distnace, 'and this man Gatsby sent over his chauffeur with an invitation.'

For a moment he looked at me as if he failed to understand.

‘I’m Gatsby,’ he said suddenly.

‘What!’ I exclaimed. “Oh, I beg your pardon’” (pg 47-48)­.

This excerpt is taken from the main character’s, Nick Carraway’s, first time attending a party at Jay Gatsby’s house. He tried to search for the host earlier in the evening but wasn’t able to find him and didn’t even know what he looked like. He eventually finds himself conversing with someone who was in the war with him and discovers, through an embarrassing mistake, that it is actually Gatsby that he is talking to.

I chose this section from The Great Gatsby to represent the book as a whole because neither the reader, nor Nick Carraway, even learns the whole truth about Gatsby until about 2/3 of the way into the book. Though Carraway can now put the name with the face, there is still so much mystery surrounding who Gatsby really is. There are rumors about where he came from, and Gatsby doesn’t even tell the truth for some time. Both Carraway and you, the reader, don’t fully understand Gatsby for the majority of the book, and a large portion of the whole point of the novel is trying to figure out the truth of Gatsby.

Connections

One way in which this novel connects back to my life is the author’s use of rumors. In The Great Gatsby, all of those who attend Gatsby’s parties don’t really know him. They speculate that he once killed a man, or that he was a German spy during the war, or that he attended Oxford for college. No one quite knows the truth, and as the lies continue to spread, they get more distorted and extravagant. I’ve never had a particularly bad bout with rumors, but I, as everyone else in high school has, have experienced the awkwardness of hearing untrue rumors spreading.

Rumors are unyielding in their ways, specifically in the sense that, while certain rumors may die down, there will always be an untruth spreading somewhere about someone. An important aspect to comment on is how these rumors, both in the novel and in real life, can distort one’s view of the person in question.

The Great Gatsby is also a great representation of the 1920’s in America, before the stock market crash in 1929. The Roaring Twenties was a time when music and fashion thrived and flourished. It was a time for extravagant parties at which new social standards began to shape, such as the consumption of alcoholic beverages in great quantities by both men and women (especially at a time when it was illegal). The kind of people seen at these parties were slightly more rambunctious than they would normally act during the day at a proper event. All of these elements were seen at Gatsby’s nightly parties. Large crowds of people getting drunk, women wearing odd headdresses in attempt to make a fashion statement and start a new trend, and people constantly socializing with others who they wouldn’t normally have met were all common place at Gatsby’s parties. These parties are an excellent representation of the parties many wealthy people had back in the ‘20s.

Finally, The Great Gatsby is also a good representation people (or their works) who didn’t receive fame until after their death. F. Scott Fitzgerald received much notoriety as an author during his time, but The Great Gatsby was sub-par at best when it was released. It wasn’t until after his death and people began reading Gatsby again that it gained popularity. It is now known to be a classic. The popularity of a works after the death of its creator is something of a common occurrence. It happened with Edgar Allan Poe and Galileo Galilei. In Poe’s case, his many prose and short stories were sometimes published, but rarely for money. Not many people even knew of him. Much after his death, his work became famous as a new style of writing, and his poem, The Raven, is an extremely popular literary work. As for Galilei, he was a scientist, a mathematician, and an astronomer. He proved the theory that the earth orbits the sun, as opposed to the other way around. During his time, he received much criticism for this because it was seen as anti-religious, but now-a-days, all of his work is commonly accepted and is central to much of the scientific community.

Questions

1. Why did Gatsby choose to lie about his past (it didn’t seem horrible when it was finally revealed)?
2. Was Myrtle Wilson running out into the street because she thought Tom was driving the yellow car?
3. Similarities between Daisy and Tom (e.g. Nick says how they are both immature in the sense that they make messes and then hide behind their money with each other, allowing others to clean up)?
4. How does Nick change from the beginning of the novel to the end?
5. What is the significance of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg’s eyes?

Reflection

In my opinion, The Great Gatsby was a fine book. Nothing special, but not horrible like a lot of people say. Some parts of the book—mainly the dialogue—seemed kind of disjointed, though that could just be because language was different in the '20s than it is now.

I found that this novel was really hard to start. The first chapter was intensely boring because I didn’t know who Gatsby was yet, and there was really nothing of interest happening. Once I was about forty pages into the book, I was actually interested in what was happening and wanted to continue reading. Problem is, the book is only 180 pages, so almost 1/3 of the book is unexciting, and the rest is only mildly interesting.