The Mystery That Was Gatsby The Great — страница 2

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other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again. Also, for someone with such high moral values he doesn’t handle commitment very well. That’s probably a main reason why he left the Mid West and it’s part of why he ended up going back. Nick left the Mid West to be a stock broker in New York but didn’t get rich, yet everywhere he looks, these amoral people are rolling in the wealth. Nick resents that. He even resents it in Gatsby up until he realizes that Gatsby was moral after all. Gatsby efforts to buy Daisy s love are forgiven by Nick once Nick understands that Daisy was in fact for sale. Nick is always very frank about the details of his own life believes that his honesty about himself is evidence of his high moral fiber. Daisy is the woman Gatsby is

trying to win back and coincidentally she is also Nick’s second cousin. Daisy doesn’t have a strong will and she cracks under pressure as is shown late in the book in the hotel scene. There she is forced to choose between her husband and her old lover that reentered into her life (Gatsby). Her selfish desire for both men and their opulence toward her prevent her from choosing. She is the original material girl and focuses on the outward instead of the inward. Tom bought her love with a three hundred thousand dollar necklace, and now Gatsby is doing it with a huge mansion and a lot of nice shirts. Her manner of being swept away by the volume of shirts owned by Gatsby is clear evidence of her primary character flaw. Tom Buchannan is the antagonist in this novel. While Gatsby

was fighting in World War I Tom was using his wealth to sweep Daisy off her feet. Tom is a yuppie and clearly in the way of Gatsby’s love for Daisy. He is having an affair, which he makes no attempt to keep secret, with Myrtle Wilson while stringing along Myrtle’s husband on a business deal. He treats Myrtle even worse than Daisy because in his eyes Daisy is worth a three hundred thousand dollar pearl necklace while Myrtle is worth a dog leash. With that fact in mind it is reasonable to assume Fitzgerald is telling us that Tom considers Myrtle to be his pet. These and other similar actions make Tom s role and personality definite and unmistakable. Tom is just the bad guy in this story and you could not possibly like him, especially if you are female. Jordan is the woman in

this story who connects Gatsby to Nick and consequently Gatsby to Daisy. Jordan is also a friend of Daisy’s while she has a romantic interest going with Nick during the story. She has short hair and plays golf, which back in the twenty’s was uncommon for women. Therefore you can assume she acts like a guy. She is very into the Roaring Twenty’s party scene and is carelessly going through life. The carelessness comes out when she’s driving with Nick on [page 59]: Nick: You’re a rotten driver, either you ought to be more careful or you oughtn’t to drive at all. Jordan: I am careful. Nick: No you’re not. Jordan: Well, other people are. Nick: What’s that got to do with it Jordan: They’ll keep out of my way, It takes two to make an accident Nick: Suppose you met

somebody just as careless as yourself? Jordan: I hope I never will, I hate careless people. That’s why I like you. This also tags her as a hypocrite when she says “I hate careless people” being a careless person herself. Though her relationship with Nick at first endears her to the reader, her careless, hypocritical and dismissive attitude later change that. Never does Fitzgerald lead the reader to think of Jordan as anything but a careless a spoiled woman. Myrtle Wilson is the woman Tom is having an affair with. She let’s Tom push her around and treat her however he wants and she likes it. Tom has all the money and leads the life she wants to be a part of. She always thought she should have done better than her current husband and having an affair with Tom reinforces

this belief of hers. Her current husband, George Wilson, is just a poor gas station owner in the Valley of Ashes who had to borrow a tuxedo for his wedding. Myrtle would rather be treated like a dog by someone who has money instead of being cared for by someone who has no money. in this respect, she turns out to be just as material as Daisy. Obviously her husband loves her very much, or he would not have been driven on a mad rampage at the end. But, Myrtle does not appreciate her husband s love for her. All she appreciates is Tom s money. It is strange that all of Fitgerald s female characters clearly share this intense materialism. Could this somehow relate to an opinion he holds about women? George Wilson is married to a woman who resents him and is having an affair right under