Is Gatsby Really Great?
The first thing you see when you pick up this book is the Title “The Great Gatsby”
So already you expect Gatsby to great before you have even opened the book. As the first chapter unravels The Narrator and Gatsby’s Neighbor Nick Carraway, tells us plainly that he loathes Gatsby, however by the end of the paragraph he describes Gatsby’s character as “gorgeous”. He also says
“No Gatsby turned out alright in the end.”
From now we begin to wonder about how great Gatsby really is? On one hand he is “vile” because Carraway tell us he has “Unaffected scorn” for him while on the other hand he is “gorgeous”. We consider Nicks opinions to be very accurate as he is a fair and sensitive person who is also the probably the only person that really knew Gatsby.
Gatsby is the stories protagonist when we first meet him he is very mysterious and “God Like” which adds to his sense of greatness. Nick says Gatsby has :
“come out to determine what share of our local heavens ."
The first thing we see Gatsby doing is reaching for a green light. This green light represents his dream. A dream he is striving to achieve.
When considering Gatsby’s Greatness, we must remember always that this is the 1920’s the “Jazz Age”. And Gatsby was a young successful man with lots of money. Not only is this the ideal of the American dream, but he also through gigantic parties every Saturday in his gothic mansion, where all the rich and famous would gather. He was a perf...
In this family, I cannot ignore the fact that Mr. Sanchez is working extremely hard to provide for his family. Not only does he have to work, but he wants to work and I cannot him any different. From reading the online description of Mr. Sanchez, I can honestly say that I am worried about his physical and mental health but I cannot tell Mr. Sanchez to stop working because that is a violation of the client’s ability to self – determination. As a social worker however, I can warn him of the possible risks and encourage him to visit the doctor but I cannot tell him to top working. As a social worker I have the responsibility to guide Mr. Sanchez and provide him with alternatives and options but ultimately the decision is his to
One of the issues in the case EEOC v. Target Corp. is that the EEOC alleged that Target violated the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by engaging in race discrimination against African-American applicants who were interested in management positions. It is argued that Target did not give the opportunity to schedule an interview to plaintiffs, Kalisha White, Ralpheal Edgeston and Cherise Brown-Easley, because of racial discrimination. On the other hand, it argues that Target is in violation of the Act because the company failed to retain and present records that would determine if there was reason to believe that an unlawful practice had been committed.
One scene that clearly shows the true Gatsby is when he meets Daisy at Nicks house. He is very nervous and wants everything to be perfect for Daisy. To me that shows he is really hung up on what other people think. He wants to impress them the best he can. Obviously Gatsby has little confidence and feels he needs to overwhelm people with appearance opposed to his personality.
One of the traits of Gatsby that makes him truly great is his remarkable capacity for hope. He has faith that what he desires will come to him if he works hard enough. He does not comprehend the cruelty and danger that is the rest of the world. Gatsby, while a man of questionable morals, is as wide-eyed and innocent as a small child in his views of the world. These ideals are evident in Nick’s narration and in the words spoken by the other characters, including Gatsby himself.
At the beginning of the book Nick sees Gatsby as a mysterious shady man. In the beginning of the chapter Nick somewhat resents Gatsby. In Nick’s opinion Gatsby was the representation of “…everything for which I have unaffected scorn.” (Fitzgerald 2). Nick sees Gatsby as what he hates the most in life, rich folk. Since the start of the novel it was obvious that had “Disapproved of him from beginning to end.” (Fitzgerald 154). As time passes, Nick realizes his neighbor has quite a mysterious past. Some think he’s a bootlegger, and a different person wa...
“Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision,” professes Howard Roark, attempting to validate his expression of identity while prosecuting himself during the trial of the Cortlandt Homes (Rand 678). The futuristic society within Aldous Huxley’s 1932 dystopian novel, Brave New World, introduces a paucity in the freedom of the individuals, through a lack in the way the society is allowed to think, to the submission of the actions of the individuals, to the conformity in the overall daily lives. Born in Surrey, England in 1894, Huxley was born into a society in which technological advancements were held in high praise and with full excitement. Striving to one day become
Gatsby is quintessentially presented to us as a paradoxical enigma. As the novel progresses this sense of mystery shrouding him is heightened. We see Gatsby through the looking glass, we catch frequent glimpses of him, yet only through Nick’s trained eye. We are, to a certain extent, unable to judge him for ourselves. Even so Nick is eager to depict Gatsby as a multi-faceted character, one who hides behind his own self concocted images of himself. Is this the ‘indiscernible barbed wire’? Is Gatsby himself the ‘foul dust that floated in the wake of’ his own ‘dreams’?
In the book “The Great Gatsby” we have the character Nick, which at first, gave the impression of a nice person, because in the book he states that keeps all judgments to himself, stated in, this quote, “ In consequence I am inclined to reserve all judgments.” This gives an idea that Nick while knowing the character of another keeps his ideas to himself, in addition, it shows that Nick is aiming to keep the judgments that his father gave him with out giving up, even though it has caused Nick a lot of trouble. That make Nick boring, nonetheless, he continued showing an ambition to keep his fathers advise, ...
Gatsby is a local celebrity, and everyone that goes to his parties has a theory about how he's made it in the wealthy world. In reality, everyone seems to know his name and is endlessly interested in his life for unknown reasons. So in that way, he seems to be pretty great, he even wins back the girl of his dreams for a short period of time.
Of course, we cannot deny that Gatsby has achieved a great deal in his lifetime, all, apparently, in the name of love. Indeed the narrator of the story, Nick Carraway, describes Gatsby as having “an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person”, and this forms the basis of his opening argument for the greatness of Gatsby. We must, however, examine the reliability of the narrator. Nick says himself that he is “inclined to reserve all judgement”, but then quickly goes on to say how “it has a limit”, that he cannot reserve judgement on everyone, and also that Gatsby was “exempt from my reaction”, following this with how Gatsby “represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn”,...
Gatsby is not so great because he is a liar. From the very start Gatsby is said to be an alumnus from Oxford, who fought in WWI, hunted big game, and had parents from the Midwest. He even justifies himself when Nicks asks and Gatsby pulls out a picture of him at Oxford and a WWI medal that he carried around in his pocket. He even changed his name, James Gatz to Jay Gatsby, but why? “James Gatz – that was really, or at least legally, his name. He had changed it at the age of seventeen and at the specific moment that witnessed the beginning of his career” (6). Gatsby is mysterious and mystifying, known for his large parties yet no one knows why he has them. Keep in mind this is the prohibition era, but at Gatsby’s parties there is always plenty of alcohol to go around and no one knows where it comes from or how he acquires so much, one of the many mysteries. In attendance at these parties there are people like Meyer Wolfshiem “the man who really did fix the 1919 World Series” (118), to the mayors and governors. More questions arise in this company as to how Gatsby is associated with gangsters and why they attend these large parties. It is completely ironic how so many attend these parties but none ...
No one can be perfect in everything; it is good to make mistakes as long as we learn from them. Jay Gatsby was a man of secrets; he leaves an insightful mark on every person he talks to. Gatsby’s neighbor, Nick, says “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 short-winded elations of men.”(Fitzgerald 6-7). Nick was simply appalled by Gatsby and wanted to know about him and any secrets he may have, Nick felt Gatsby was a great man of mystery and was extremely interesting. Gatsby told Nick “I don’t want you to get a wrong idea of me from all these stories you hear” (69), then opened himself up to Nick and told him “My family all died and I came into
Gatsby is ultimately a great man because his ability to hope and persevere in the accomplishment of his dreams gives him a "quality considerably above the normal or average". His corruption and distasteful practices do little to take away from the greatness of a man who could create an entire persona for himself as a goal and maintain it throughout his life. His ceaseless commitment to his dreams drives, to this day, a comparison of Jay Gatsby from The Great Gatsby to the American Dream. There is no doubt that even through his corrupt dealings, Gatsby’s greatness is justified because of his unusual capacity to hope. Gatsby’s greatness has often been debated, but he clearly emanates qualities above the average, and therefore characterizing him as “great” is justified.
But Gatsby missed much of this, the character developments feel empty adding to the fact that the novel is being told from a boring point of view of the character Nick Carraway. As a result, the book becomes psychologically vacant. Schulz asserts, “The Great Gatsby is less involved with human emotion than any book of comparable fame I can think of. None of its characters are likeable. None of them are even dislikable, though nearly all of them are despicable” (Paragraph 11). It is sadly true, just look at the main character, Jay Gatsby. He seems like an interesting person who is lovable and charismatic, but it would be wrong and unlikely for the readers to feel connected with him because of his criminal past. Daisy Buchanan also display to the audience uncertain characteristics of likability and unlikability. If she is solely portrayed as a careless character who kills Myrtle Wilson and allows Gatsby to take the blame for her then she would truly be despised, but she is simultaneously depicted as an innocent and naive girl which pacify any intense feelings the readers have for her other than the feeling of disgust for nearly all of the characters. In addition, Gatsby fails to engross the readers to a degree of many books of comparable popularity. The book does not appeal to the interest of readers, in that, it does not strike
I asked myself this question as a means to truly assess whether I am looking at people who are doing the right things and doing these things right. “Theoretically, you could behave as though you were encouraging the heart, but if your intentions were not to help people better at what they do, it would merely be manipulation” (Blanchard, 2004, pg. 103). This section opened my eyes to the possible hidden meanings of the heart. I enjoy helping people at work and making sure that they are fully trained and know exactly what they are doing, but I also find that sometimes I can be hard to teach. I mean this in the aspect that, at my job, we have a meeting each month specific t the group of people that are in the same position as me. Basically, these meetings are training sessions on the things that I feel I have ‘mastered’. I find that my heart gets extremely hard towards these meetings because I feel that they are a waste of my time; should I really view them this way? Especially if the managers are setting