The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The last blog of the 2012 summer...yay! I would first like to start this blog evaluating Tom and Nick's brief meeting that concludes Nick's involvement with that couple and all of the drama that is inherited through them. Through all of their interactions, I can distinctly pick out differences from when he met with Tom at the beginning of the book. It appears that Nick has become much more brass and intolerable of people he does not enjoy. You can clearly tell from this interaction, in which I commend Nick for greatly,
"What's the matter, Nick? Do you object to shaking hands with me?"
"Yes. You know what I think of you." (Fitzgerald 178)
I find this interaction quite awesome and totally different from Nick's submission to Tom early in the book. Throughout the entire conversation, Nick is leading the charge and asking the questions that Tom wishes to cowardly avoid. My favorite part is when Nick finally comes to terms with who Tom truly is. He realizes when listening to Tom's reasoning for telling Mr. Wilson the truth. Nick originally thought it was because of Tom's own deceitful subterfuge for the indirect killing of Gatsby but then learns that it was merely his lame fear of not being killed by Wilson himself. Nick no longer feels that Tom is some menacing, plotting brute but feels as though, "[He] were talking to a child." (Fitzgerald 179).
What I am most proud about is the subtle pick up I had on the Middle West theme in one of my earlier blogs. It appears from one of Nick's long monologues at the end of this chapter. Nick talks about his fondest memories of "my Middle West" (Fitzgerald 176). When hearing him talk about his happy memories of his old MidWest Wisconsin, he conveys this positive and loving attitude towards life that is distinctly absent throughout his tale of life on the East coast. Being from the MidWest myself, I feel that the way he describes it is spot on; the old traditional values, loving and comforting families, christmas time and snow and a real reason to live. That is what was missing from his East Coast home. Just as Gatsby was detached from it all so was Nick, detached from the East itself. There was always something about this book that gave me a peculiar depressed outlook on life. It appeared that none of the characters were heading anywhere through their lives. Nick, the entire time, was sitting at some low wage job, in a large unfeeling city where he scarcely knew anyone and was fairly lonely and pessimistic about the future. A part of Nick's detachment from the East is obviously due to his love and attachment to the MidWest but I feel the biggest reason is that this book conveys that the MidWest is just simply better than the East. Looking back, it is so simply spread throughout all of the pages. The constant allusions to the joyous and nostalgic times back in the Midwest are juxtaposed over and over with the current problems and misery's that all these characters endured in such a place. Its overall a comparison between two very opposite lifestyles, the traditional and honest image of the Midwest compared to the fast living and lonely lives of the East. I guess that the one greatest outcome of reading this depressing book during my summer is that it has greatly reminded me how blessed I am to be from the great MidWest. That is all.
No comments:
Post a Comment