Unattainable Things in The Great Gatsby
The roaring twenties. Cars were the things to have and a party was the
place to be. Everybody wanted something. F. Scott Fitzgerald's book, The Great
Gatsby, describes the events that happen to eight people during the summer of
1922. In the book, people went from west to east because something they desired
was in the east; unfortunatly in the end those 'somethings' were unattainable.
...I decided to go east and learn the
bond business. Everybody I knew was
in the bond business so I supposed it
could support one more single man. All
my aunts and uncles talked it over as
if they were choosing a prep school
for me...
Nick went to the east to make money. He was from the midwest, and even though
his family was doing pretty well in the money department, Nick wanted to make
his own money. By going from the midwest to the east, Fitzgerald shows Nick's
desire to have more money. After spending the summer in the east and seeing
how money affects people, he decides to go back west.
I see now that this has been a
story of the west, after all-Tom
and Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan and
I, were all westerners and and
perhaps we possessed some deficiency
in common which made us subtly
unadaptable to eastern life.
In other words, after finding out what the east was really like, Nick lost his
interest in being in the east and returned to the west.
Gatsby came east looking for another type of money - Daisy. Gatsby and
Daisy had last seen each other about five years before, when they were dating.
Then Gatsby had to go to war. While he was away in war, Daisy met Tom and then
married Tom. Daisy had always been rich and thought that in order to get Daisy
back, he need to have money and be able to give Daisy anything she wanted. He
found out that Daisy was in the east and went to go try to get her back.
...I thought of Gatsby's wonder when
he first picked out the green light
at the end of Daisy's dock. He had
come a long way to this blue lawn and
his dream must have seemed so close
that he could hardly fail to grasp it.
What was never realized by Gatsby was that he could never have Daisy again. He
just couldn't accept it.
[Gatsby said] "...Just tell him the
truth-that you never loved him-and
it's all wiped out forever."
..."Oh, you want too much!" she
cried to Gatsby..."I did love him
once-but I loved you too."
Gatsby's eyes opened and closed.
"You loved me?" he repeated.
Nick realized what Gatsby didn't. Right after he spoke of Gatsby seeing the
light on the dock, he said this:
...He did not know that it was already
behind him, somewhere back in that vast
obscurity beyond the city, where the
dark fields of the republic rolled on
under the night.
Gatsby finally stopped trying to win Daisy because, well, he was shot and killed.
Tom and Daisy came east to escape from Tom having to take responcibilty for his
actions.
[Tom said] "And what's more, I love Daisy
too. Once in a while I go off on a spree
and make a fool of myself, but I always
come back, and in my heart I love her all
the time."
"You're revolting." said Daisy. She
turned to me and her voice, dropping
an octave lower, filled the room with
thrilling scorn: "Do you know why we
left Chicago? I'm surprized that they
didn't treat you to the story of that
little spree."
Daisy is referring to Tom having an affair with another woman. Something must
have happened to her that involved Tom and to escape it he came east. They
were looking for a refuge, someplace where they could start again, but they
didn't find it. Tom botched it up again by seeing Myrtle and now Tom and Daisy
have to return to the west to escape ôèéó predicament. In the end it was shown
that the things that Nick, Gatsby, and the Buchanans wanted to have were out of
their reach. The cars were still there, and the parties were still there, but
what they had wanted was gone.
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