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THE GREAT GATSBY
© Barbara Ann Lyons
Oct 23, 2001
STORY
The Great Gatsby story is a non-judgemental journal by Daisy's cousin, Nick Carraway, who is simply an observer, uninvolved in the emotions and passions of the East Egg inhabitants. A reasonable, sane voice to tell Fitzgerald's tragic Shakespearian style story.
We don't often relate men with emotions/feelings. Their fuel is "get on with it reality". Jay Gatsby is different. His first love is his only love. His whole life is lived in the backdrop of his memories of Daisy. He climbs the social ladder, amassing millions and purchases a mansion across the water from Daisy, his dream that won't depart. She lets him down, she soils his senses, she is self-centered, materialistic, unevolved and Gatsby's disappointment is absorbable. Yet, he clings to the past. He is a romantic and he pays a heavy price for his obsessional choices. THEORY
The story is classically tragic in that the consciousless character, Daisy's husband, Tom Buchanan, succeeds, finds happiness, lives beyond Gatsby; while Gatsby, who follows his heart, never achieves his dream, lives a frustrated, obsessed, shorter existence, missing the moment in the fog of the past.
But Gatsby's plight was transformational while Tom Buchanan's adventures were grounding and stagnating. He didn't grow. He didn't learn. He had fun but he didn't make the necessary progress that the life experience is all about. He will be "kept back" in life's school and have to repeat the lesson. We must all suffer in life. There is no escape. The bitter and the sweet mingle, touch, and mix all through the life journey. It's not to be feared because it cleanses and purifies, and is essential to our upward spiritual climb. ANOTHER POINT OF VIEW
What follows is an interesting, thoughtful, insightful clip of a review I came across in my article research: Gatsby's subsequent death seems very much an anticlimax, and almost an afterthought. Little detail is given other than the bare essentials, and the aftermath of the murder seems very unsatisfactory and strangely unfulfilling. He chose to live his life on one simple dream, choosing to unhealthily, yet gloriously, bask in the glow of past joys instead of going out and creating new ones. From most people's standpoints, Gatsby's material wealth would qualify him as a success, but Gatsby's idea of success ran so much deeper than that, and society in their superficial manner, rejected him to the point where no one could be bothered to show up at his funeral. The title of the story is The Great Gatsby as if the significance of "Gatsby" transcends Gatsby, the person, and instead becomes an entity, or an idea - the idea of undying hope. Fitzgerald found what Gatsby symbolized "great". And the subsequent downfall of "Gatsby" is what makes The Great Gatsby one of the great American tragedies of our era.
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The copyright of the article THE GREAT GATSBY in Classic American Literature is owned by Barbara Ann Lyons. Permission to republish THE GREAT GATSBY in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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