Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby: Character Thursday (63)

Nick is the narrator of The Great Gatsby; he came from a conservative family in the West. His father has planted high morality and honour in him since he was very young, which Nick keeps dearly in his heart when he’s grown up. After the war, Nick leads to the East, studying at Yale, and gets a good carrier in bond in New York. But not after his summer in West Egg, that he seems to realize that his real talent might be in writing.

Nick is fascinated with Jay Gatsby, an enigmatic, wealthy young man who lives in a luxury mansion next door. It might be that Nick has been adoring Gatsby from the first moment he saw him, and his judgment towards Gatsby is more or less affected by the charisma Gatsby possesses; despite of the ‘reserving judgments’ quality Nick always admits proudly to hold.

I imagine Nick to be an innocent man who has been molded by his family to almost become a puritan. But his adventure in the East has given much more than his father ever taught him, I think. Nick came to West Egg with a concept of high morality (he even dreams of uniformity of human morale). Nonetheless, Nick is quickly fascinated by the wild parties held by Gatsby. Little by little he gets used to this new life style; he often has a relationship with Jordan Baker, one of the Buchanans’ friends. When Tom Buchanan takes him to see his mistress, Nick doesn’t seem to be able to refuse, and he’s kind of dragged by this new fascination; although he still feels uneasy with this vulgar affair (he feels that the Dr. T.J. Eckleburg billboard is following him with its gaze when he passes it in Tom’s car).

Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway

The longer he spends time with his new friends, his feeling is mingled between disgusting and fascinated. He helps Gatsby to arrange a meeting with Daisy (Tom’s wife), which means he is part of the cheating. However he begins to feel disgusted by Tom’s rough and brutal manner. Everything becomes clear for him after Myrtle’s accident takes place. Only then that Nick can finally make his fair judgment of them all. He can see now how the ‘Eastern’ (Tom, Daisy, Jordan) are lack of conscience, selfish and arrogant; and how Gatsby stood upon them all by his latest action towards the accident.

I’m glad that Nick breaks up with Jordan at last, for although she might not be as severe as Tom and Daisy, she is too indifferent to scold her friends’ actions, and just stays at their house that night after the accident, which means she more or less approves them.

The talks about whether Nick is a gay or bisexual is I think have been exaggerated. I don’t see anything wrong with him, and I think he builds a healthy relationship with Jordan, he’s attracted to her as a woman. The incident in McKee’s bedroom (which some indicate it a sign of Nick being gay) is nothing but a portrait of how Nick has been doubly dizzy by alcohol and the brutality he has just witnessed. It was when Nick is vaguely remembers the whole things, but McKee’s portfolio of the chaos has reminded him again.

That is my Character Thursday of this week, an analysis of book character of my choice, who is yours?... Just put your post URL in the linky below. Do you like to join us in discussing characters from books you read? See the details of Character Thursday first.

The Classics Spin #2

One of the most excited events in The Classics Club is back: Classics Spin! The participants are required to list their 20 to-read classics. The moderators will ‘spin’ the numbers, and whatever the chosen number would be, we are obliged to read the book we have listed under that number by June. As usual, it is between exciting and worrying, haha! And here are my 20 books, most of them are quite ‘light’, because I don’t want to be burden by the commitment.

5 from new authors:

1. In Cold Blood – Truman Capote

2. Inferno – Dante Allighieri

3. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – Betty Smith

4. The Call of the Wild (& White Fang) – Jack London

5. The Trial – Franz Kafka

5 from plays:

6. An Ideal Husband – Oscar Wilde

7. A Woman of No Importance – Oscar Wilde

8. Richard III – William Shakespeare

9. Caesar and Cleopatra – George Bernard Shaw

10. Saint Joan – George Bernard Shaw

10 from books/short stories from my list:

11. Cinta Sejati (Guy de Maupassant’s short stories collection in Bahasa Indonesia)

12. The Canterville Ghost – Oscar Wilde

13. Greyfriars Bobby – Eleanor Atkinson

14. The Jungle Book – Rudyard Kipling

15. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – F. Scott Fitzgerald

16. The Stranger – Albert Camus

17. Kidnapped – Robert Louis Stevenson

18. Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathan Swift

19. Siddharta – Hermann Hesse

20. Matilda – Roald Dahl

And now let me cross my fingers, hoping the… particular number would be picked by the moderators! :)

The Great Gatsby: Third Level Inquiry

This is the third and last level of inquiries (and the most difficult!) for WEM Project, following my first level and second level inquiry posts.

Do you sympathize with the characters? Which ones, and why?

The only one character I sympathize with is Jay Gatsby. As his father told Nick, Gatsby is a rare person; in his young age, he has been applying the very way of achieving success: focus and discipline. If only he did not attracted to Daisy, he might have paved his way to success more decently. If only he had not been obsessed to Daisy, he might have had a better life. I think Gatsby is genuinely an innocent and straight forward person, it’s so pity that he dreams of the wrong person, and be mastered by the wrong master.

What does the setting of the book tell you about the way human beings are shaped?

Emerging from World War I, America became the wealthiest country in the world in the 1920s, when people suddenly had money to spend, and stock market boomed. There’s also a revolution in the society when women take part in work force and started to feel the freedom. Then Jazz Age added in the euphoria; lavish parties like Gatsby’s and free sexuality became a new trend. After the depressing war, people wants to break free, they often do crazy things just to release the years of burden from the war. In times like that people pursue easy money and high pleasure; while morality and ethics are abandoned, let alone religious.

What exactly is the writer telling you?

Fitzgerald criticizes the wildness of the Jazz Age that led to moral decays. On the other hand, he also warns us to not falling into a false dream. Everything should be achieved with hard working, focus and discipline (like Gatsby did). Gatsby has done the later, but failed in the previous (false dream), and that’s how he ‘falls’. But above all, we must maintain our morality always in the right path; God never sleeps! (and in this aspect, Gatsby wins from the other).

In what sense is the book true?

All that Fitzgerald says in this book is the reflection of modern civilization. Where hedonistic begins to grow, there would be a moral decay. God, moral, conscience would be abandoned, and replaced by the new gods: money and pleasure; and these are very relevant in our today’s civilization.

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The Great Gatsby: Second Level Inquiry

[source]

Following the first level inquiry, these are my answers for the second level Inquiries.

What does Gatsby want? What is standing in his way? And what strategy does he pursue in order to overcome this block?

Gatsby is crazy in love with Daisy; he’s fascinated by her innocent and glamour image. But Daisy comes from a very rich family, while Gatsby is only a farmer son. Tempted by the idea of prosperity, Gatsby works hard to achieve success in the quickest way. He is a focus and persistent young man, and American vast economical growth gives him chance to do disrespectable business. He succeeds at last, and in five years becomes a wealthy and charismatic man. Gatsby bought a mansion in West Egg—only a bay across to Daisy’s resident—and throws lavish parties every Saturday night only to prove to Daisy that he is worthy for her.

Which point of view does the writer choose to use? What does he gain and lose through it?

The story is narrated by Nick Carraway, Gatsby’s neighbor and (in the end) his best friend; so it’s told from third-person limited point of view. I think Fitzgerald doesn’t lose anything by doing that. If he wants to make Gatsby distinguished (and thus great) from others, he must point out the irony between the ‘old money’ who gain money respectably but their moral is corrupted, and the ‘new money’ (Gatsby) who becomes rich from disrespectable business but has more conscience. That’s why Fitzgerald uses Nick. Because Nick is neither the ‘old money’ nor ‘new money’, he can judge both sides more objectively and thus presented what Fitzgerald wants to criticize.

Further challenge from this question is to do an experiment…

Retell a crucial passage in the novel from a different point of view. How does this change the story?

The most crucial passage of this story is Myrtle’s accident; now let’s pick Gatsby’s point of view. He would have told the accident more vividly, but he won’t be able to describe the chaos in Wilson’s garage after that in intense emotion as Nick tells it. Also, because Gatsby didn’t know that Myrtle is Tom’s mistress, he won’t be able to let us guess why the victim bursts suddenly to the car.

Images and metaphors

There are a lot of images and metaphors here; I think this is a book with the most metaphors I’ve ever read.

Green light—on the East Egg’s dock, to which Gatsby stretch his hands in the first night Nick sees him—symbolizes the dream that Gatsby (and Americans) is longing to reach.

Valley of ashes—where Wilson garage is and where Myrtle died—symbolizes moral corruption. People usually pass this valley of ashes on the way to New York, as if symbolizes that on the way to rapid prosperity, there’s a risk of moral corruption.

The eyes of Doctor T.J Eckleburg—a billboard with a pair of enormous eyes looking through a pair of enormous glasses—symbolizes God who sees everything. Wilson points out the billboard when saying to Myrtle that she can fool him (about her affair with Tom) but she can’t fool God. Nick feels the eyes are following him when Tom is taking him to see Myrtle, because he knows that it is a sin. The billboard’s location in a desolate place can also symbolize how people have been abandoning God and morality in their pursuing of money and pleasure.

Yellowish color—in Gatsby’s car, Wilson’s garage, Myrtle dress, etc—symbolizes moral corruption. The accident is caused by the yellow car, Myrtle’s manner changes completely after she changed to cream-colored dress. To contrast it with purity and innocence, Fitzgerald uses white color (Daisy’s dress when she’s young, Daisy’s car by which Gatsby takes her out, etc.)

Other colors—there are several other colors used throughout the book, including pink—Gatsby’s pink suit; grey—the valley of ashes; and blue. They all symbolizes different things (which I haven’t got time to study :P).

Beginnings and Endings

Fitzgerald opened his book with a hint of mystery. Through his narration Nick already hinted that there would be something that would be disgusting him in the story he would tell, but nevertheless he thought Gatsby was an exceptional at the end: ‘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.’ This passage intrigued me at the beginning; what happen to Gatsby? What makes him great? And what makes Nick very disappointed?

The ending of this book follows ‘logical exhaustion’ style. There is an infinite repetition in how Americans is portrayed of pursuing false dreams and falling into moral decay. And this situation is still (and will be) going on when Nick ended the story (and that’s why he moved to the west, to his home). In that Fitzgerald wanted to warn us that having a target and working hard to achieve it is good, but there would be a negative excess of moral decay when we become greedy. So, to answer the last question for this second level inquiry:

Do you agree with that philosophy?

I would say: yes, I certainly agree. Modernization does not always walk simultaneously with civilization, there is always the excess of moral decay with it.

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The Great Gatsby: First Level Inquiry

I have enjoyed re-reading The Great Gatsby for WEM project, and there is so much to discuss about, that I think I am going to do the tasks more thoroughly than I’ve ever done with previous books. This is the first level inquiry, I’ll post the second and third separately.

Actually I have done part of this level; it was the chapter posts I have done last week, they’re part of the tasks—to summarize each chapter and jot down what we are thinking or questioning through the reading. You can read them here:

Chapter 1

Chapter 2 –3

Chapter 4 –5

Chapter 6 –7

Chapter 8 –9

Next we are required to summarize the story by creating our own title and subtitle (which is different from the book’s). But before that, we must conclude this one….

Is there some point in the book where the characters change? Does something happen that makes everyone behave differently?

Myrtle’s accident is the major turning point of this book. The accident—like any other life crisis—reveals the genuine qualities of each character. Daisy is the one who was driving the car, she knew what she had done. She might be panic at that time, nevertheless she never had any intention to admit it and let Gatsby took the blame. She didn’t even do anything when she knew Gatsby was murdered (and she definitely knew, he died because of the crime she had committed). Although it’s not mentioned in the book, I think Daisy told Tom that she was the one who hit Myrtle. Otherwise, they won’t be fleeting so quickly if Tom thought it was Gatsby.

Jordan Baker didn’t say anything although she was also shocked like Nick; and most importantly she kept staying with Daisy and Tom as if nothing had happened. On the other hand, Nick and Gatsby were suddenly in a different side with those three. Gatsby still had a concern for the victim although he didn’t know her, and he took the blame that Daisy should do.

Give the book your own title and subtitle

Gatsby’s False Dream – How a poor man fights persistently to win his dream lover, becomes wealthy by disrespectable businesses and ready to snatch the woman from his husband; but after an accident that has killed a woman, he finds that she is only an empty idea, and that lavish prosperity in the end only leaves traces of moral corruption.

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The Dream Has Gone: The Great Gatsby Chapter 8 – 9

I do this chapter post for WEM project; see also previous chapter 1, chapter 2 – 3, chapter 4 – 5, and chapter 6 - 7.

The revenge

Gatsby told Nick how he met and fell in love with Daisy; apparently Gatsby loved the ideas of Daisy more than the girl. He courted her and gave her false hope that he was at the same level with her. Gatsby went to war and tried to make him rich, but before he could come back, Daisy had decided to marry Tom Buchanan who could give her security. Nick is finally breaking up with Jordan Baker who he includes in the ‘rotten crowd’ together with Daisy and Tom. Meanwhile Wilson, who is still shocked from his wife’s death, finally concludes that it’s the yellow car’s driver who has killed Myrtle; he goes to Gatsby’s mansion and shoots him before killing himself.

The American dream

Despite of the crowd that always comes to Gatsby’s parties every weekend, nobody seems to care about his death except Nick, who takes care of the funeral preparation. Gatsby’s father comes, and completes the story of how Gatsby was always discipline and focus since he was very young. Nobody attends Gatsby’s funeral except his father, Nick and another person. Few months later Nick meets Tom, and from him Nick gets the final piece of Gatsby’s murder mystery. Apparently Wilson has come to Tom, as he thought Tom was the driver of the yellow car. Of course Tom said that it was Gatsby who drove the car, and that’s how Wilson had found Gatsby. Being disgusted of the Eastern moral decay, Nick finally decides to return home to the West, but not after he reflects Gatsby’s faith, in which Fitzgerald concluded how he thought about the American dream.

Illustration of Carey Mulligan as Daisy

Buchanans the cowards

It is so annoying to see how the Buchanans just ran away from the crime scene, and not even saying anything to Gatsby. I’m wondering whether Daisy told Tom the truth, that it is she who had driven, not Gatsby. I believe so, and that’s why they ran away so quickly (when Wilson came, they were just about to leave). And how could Daisy did not even call Nick to at least say her sympathy for Gatsby’s death? So, I’m very glad that Nick refused to shake hand at first when he met Tom; just let him know that he is a low-disgusting creature! 

“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made….”

Favorite passage

This passage from The Great Gatsby has been one of my favorite ending quotes…

“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter — tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning— So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

It is full of cynical expression and irony, yet melancholy and, in a way, beautiful. It is confusing at first, with the contradictions—future that recedes; we beat on but borne back ceaselessly. But in the end I realized that that was what Fitzgerald wanted to point out. I think it expressed how Fitzgerald saw his country at that moment. Just like Gatsby, Americans have been struggling to reach their dream, and when they thought they were about to reach it, it suddenly eluded them because they dreamed something pure that was already in the past; they did not realize that everything has changed to the worse. They pursued prosperity, but on the other hand, their moral have been corrupted.

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Tom Tulliver in The Mill on The Floss: Character Thursday (62)

Tom is the older boy of the Tullivers, not good as a student, but grows up as a determined young man to accomplish family’s wish. When he was only a teenager, the Tulliver had a crisis that forced young Tom to leave school and his youthful to bear huge responsibility. Tom has a sister Maggie who loves him very much; and I’ve been thinking whether Tom ever truly loved his sister.

When they were children, Tom bought Maggie a fish-line from his saving; he said he had quarreled with his friends because he wanted to save money to buy the lines (for him and Maggie). At first I thought, it’s so sweet of Tom to do that for his little sister; I found it sweet for a boy to love playing with his little sister, instead of ignoring and teasing her with other boys (like boys used to do to their little sisters). But then, when Maggie made mistakes (and it’s a huge one in Tom’s eyes), he scolded Maggie and refused to play with her. So, I was thinking, does Tom purely love Maggie? Or does he love to play with Maggie? Love her presence?

Later on Tom always forgives Maggie and get on well with her again. And Maggie does a lot of mistakes indeed, that I can’t really blame Tom for getting annoyed at his sister. When they were grown up, Tom gets angry with Maggie when she disobeys family’s restrictive orders and acts on her own; he wants his sister to be respected by others. So I think, Tom really loves Maggie with his own way, which is a rather selfish and authoritative love, but it’s love all the same.

Tom gets so rigid and stubborn when he’s grown up; he only focuses in the business and ignores his conscience to be more humane. I think it’s because Tom must bear a burden before he’s prepared for it. And as the only man in the family other than the invalid father, Tom had been brought up with a passive obeisance to his father, so Tom—with his limited talent and imagination—must bear a huge responsibility to fulfill his father’s wish, although he doesn’t think it right. Because of that, he also set up a high expectation for his sister; he expected Maggie to sacrifice her dreams just like he had done it, because all he did is also for her own good. There’s selfishness there, but again, Tom was brought up by unfriendly circumstances and society.

I don’t think I’d be able to hate him, I just pity on him. I’m proud that at least he had succeeded to pay the family’s debt and brought back their honour. Now I’m wondering what Tom would be if his life is convenient, would he be better than he was, after all?

That is my Character Thursday of this week, an analysis of book character of my choice, who is yours?... Just put your post URL in the linky below. Do you like to join us in discussing characters from books you read? See the details of Character Thursday first.