Shan’s Blog

A lot happened in these three chapters. First Janie was married, then she’s not, then she’s married again. But the two husbands she has, Logan versus Jody, are two completely different characters. I think it’s interesting how the power in the relationship kind of shifts as she goes from one man to the other. In the first relationship with Logan, Janie has all the power. No matter how hard he tries, he can’t make her work, and she basically does whatever she wants to pass the days. But when she runs off with Logan, she loses that power. This is shown when he refuses to let her make the speech, and how he insists that she ties her hair back, which is supposedly her most beautiful feature. But it’s not only Janie that he tries to control; he tries to control the town as well. As soon as he settles into the new town, he buys land and builds stores, and installs a street lamp.

One quote that I thought was interesting about Jody was in chapter 4, when Janie first meets him. She says (pg. 29) that “he spoke for far horizon.” The horizon is kind of a cliché metaphor, and it’s almost a given that it always stands for freedom and the bright future ahead. But I thought it was interesting how the author said that he “spoke for” it.

I had a lot of trouble reading these first two chapters, merely because of the dialogue that was used. Sometimes, I had to read it out loud just to see what it would sound like, because I couldn’t understand it if I was just reading it in my head. It was difficult to read, and I had to go back and read some paragraphs twice to fully get what was trying to be told.

That said, I can understand why some people would be offended by this because it makes the characters seem uneducated by the way they talk. Compared to the third person narrative, the dialogue seems really inarticulate and even crude. On the other hand, if that’s how people really talk, then the author was just trying to be true to the people and times. However, I do think that she might have laid the dialogue on a little too thick. I found the Jim parts in Huckleberry Finn easier to read than this… mostly because she had her characters tell chunks of the story in their own dialect which, again, was very hard to get through.

One thing that I did find interesting was that she did have some parts that weren’t told by her characters. These parts seemed to be of interesting and defining moments. For example, the part where the author switched to third person narrative in order to talk about Janie and the pear tree, instead of having Janie herself relate that part. For this reason alone, it must be a key part in the book. It compares Janie, when she is sixteen, to the growing and blossoming tree.

“Oh to be a pear tree – any tree in bloom! With kissing bees singing of the beginning of the world!” (11) But she goes on to say that there were no “singing bees” for her and, in that moment, goes and tries to find the answer that will fulfill her needs.

In the last chapter of this book, I swear I was about to cry. I cannot believe that no one came to Gatsby’s funeral, after they all came to his parties and trashed his house and yard. Again, this shows that money can’t buy you everything, and the owl-eyed man comments and says, (175) “The poor son-of-a-bitch.” This is an ironic way of describing Gatsby, because he was everything but “poor.” He was rich in the material items, but not in his personal life. He had, really, no friends and not even Wolfsheim wanted to go to the funeral.

At the end, the green light is mentioned again, which parallels the beginning. Fitzgerald describes it as “the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us” (180). The light represented the future, which, for Gatsby, was Daisy. But he could never reach it because Daisy was forever in his past.

I can’t believe Gatsby’s dead. I wanted to cry, it was so upsetting. But even though I could have guessed what was going to happen, I still very much enjoyed reading it. Fitzgerald has an amazing way of writing that makes you want to read about the major events, even if you already know.

The plot itself, I find, is very simple, but perhaps that is what makes it so magnetic. It’s not by any means a difficult book to understand (like Moby Dick) but has many powerful, underlying themes. Fitzgerald explores the life of the wealthy, which is a concept that’s still being repeated today, in shows like Gossip Girl, and MTV Cribs, etc. People are interested in what’s going on in the life of the rich and famous. But he goes underneath the superficial, and we see that money is not everything. Once you have the money, what can you do besides try and get more and achieve the impossible?

The green light at the end of Daisy’s dock, the one that Gatsby reaches for, I think symbolizes the one thing that every person wants, but can’t get. It’s out of Gatsby’s reach and, even though he can see it, he can’t grab it.

Oh wow. A lot happened in this chapter, and I feel like my head is still spinning from everything that went on. In the last chapter, all four of the characters had come together, and so I had guessed that was the turning point, and I was right. All the action happened in this chapter. Many questions were answered.

First of all, I wanted to say that, Mr. W, did you did ruin everything by showing us that video clip. My guess was right… Daisy didn’t marry Gatsby because he was poor at the time, and so he tried everything (even sketchy businesses) in order to get wealthy and win her back. But Daisy got tired of waiting and married Tom instead, who, as it turns out, she loves too. We also find out that Gatsby is must have another business on the side, because his “drug business” did not get him nearly as much money as he has. Gatsby and Tom deck it out verbally in the hotel room, and then Daisy kills Myrtle in a hit-and-run. And poor Gatsby… I feel really bad for him. He got his heart crushed because Daisy announced that she loves Tom too, he lost Nick’s respect, probably because Nick finds out that he’s lied to him all this time, and he’s left out in front of Tom and Daisy’s house in order to keep an eye on Daisy, while she’s actually with Tom. Nick mentions that they look like a couple who are conspiring, and I’m making a prediction now that Tom has filled Daisy’s head with bad thoughts about Gatsby, and Daisy confessed that it was she who drove the car. But the two of them are going to plan to get Gatsby in trouble for it anyway… so it’s a good thing that Gatsby is prepared to take the blame for the one he loves.

Again, there’s a connection between Daisy’s voice and the secret life of the privileged. Gatsby says (pg. 120) that Daisy’s “voice is full of money.” I’m not sure if he’s saying that in a good or bad way (but because it is Gatsby, it’s probably good), but I think it’s an allegory for the glamorous life. Her voice is full of money, and charms many people and entices them to listen. But underneath her voice is confusion and helplessness. When I think of Daisy, I characterize her as being confused, mostly in her dilemma between Tom and Gatsby. But she seems, to me, like the kind of girl who covers up her puzzlement with her happy and cheerful and exciting voice. Money, too, which can be exciting and new, is able to cover up the flaws of a person’s life.

We’re more than halfway through the chapters now, and Nick, Gatsby, Daisy, and Tom have all met each other. At the beginning of this chapter, I was kind of confused about James Gatz and Jay Gatsby. I first thought they were two different people, but with the sentence, “The truth was that Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself, (pg. 98)” I realized (at least, I think) that they are the same person.

James Gatz was born in North Dakota, and his parents were unsuccessful farmers. He didn’t want the life that his parents had, and wanted to make something more of himself. So when he met Cody, he jumped at the chance to travel with him and learn from the mining millionaire, marveling at all the riches and glamour that the man had. He changed his name to become someone new and in order to change his life.

When Cody died, he left Gatsby the money. However, Gatsby never got it, which makes me wonder how he got rich. There’s still the mystery as to how he actually become wealthy, and no shady assumptions can be ruled out. Hopefully, this question will be answered soon.

In this chapter, Gatsby and Daisy finally meet and reunite. However, there was one part that I would really like to focus on. When Gatsby invites Daisy and Nick over to his house, he showed them his library, and Nick says (pg. 91):

“I could have sworn I heard the owl-eyed man break into ghostly laughter.”

I looked back to Ch. 3, on pg. 45, when Nick meets the owl-eyed man in the library. The man, who appears drunk, is looking at all the books, and remarking on how they’re all real. He says, in reference to Gatsby, “This fella’s a regular Belasco.” I looked up who Belasco was, and found David Belasco, who worked in theater. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Belasco) He was a playwright, director, and theatrical producer. In reference to Belasco, the owl-eyed man was saying that Gatsby’s library was “just for show.”

When Nick seems to hear the ghostly laugh, I think it represented the “show-offy” side of Gatsby’s personality. After all, he did invite Nick and Daisy so she could see all his riches. But in addition to everything being “for show” I also think that it could be “fake.” Yes, he is a wealthy man, and he has all these luxuries that most people cannot afford. However, I don’t think any of it, in a sense, is real.

I remember the movie clip that we watched, which, if I’m right, might have ruined the book (again, Mr. W, thanks). There was a woman who said, “Rich girls don’t marry poor men,” and, if that girl was Daisy, then I think she was referring to Gatsby. I think she didn’t marry him because he was poor, and he got all his money in ways that might be… shady. This goes back to my point about all his material possessions not being exactly what they seem.

There are many things to talk about in Ch. 4, including the unraveled love story between Daisy and Gatsby… which has too be the cutest thing ever. I can’t wait until we get to the part when they meet at Nick’s house… although that would have to be awkward for him. I think Nick’s a little bit of a push-over, and he always manages to go along with other people’s plans, which get him into uncomfortable and/or awkward positions (such as meeting Tom’s mistress).

Anyway, on another subject, one quote that really caught my interest was (pg. 69):

“‘Anything can happen now that we’ve slide over this bridge,’ I thought; ‘anything at all…’ Even Gatsby could happen, without any particular wonder.”

This is when Gatsby and Nick are driving off the island, heading to the city. At first, I was completely confused about this quote, especially the last sentence. The first part is self-explanatory; that anything is possible in the city. The city, as I see it, has some mystery and something foreign about it. There are so many things to do and people to see, and a lot goes on. In a place where no one knows who you are, you are able to be whoever you want. In this case, Gatsby, in the city, will become the man he says he is without anyone wondering. In the sentence, Nick uses “Gatsby” as a verb or an occuring event, which I find odd. Verbs show movement and life and action. Perhaps this choice of word shows a transformation of the character.

In chapter three, we finally meet the great Mr. Gatsby, who isn’t anything like I imagined him to be. I was expecting some old, refined gentleman with a long white beard and glasses who walked with a cane. Instead, we see someone who is Nick’s age, which I assume is on the younger side. Nick comments on Gatsby’s smile, which has the power to make people feel as if they are the most important person in the world. However, we also hear rumors about Gatsby, like the one saying that he once killed a man. Yes, Gatsby was in the war, so he wouldn’t he have killed people there? But the way the woman was saying it, it sounded as if Gatsby had murdered someone outside of war, and on purpose. This I find very unbelievable, but Gatsby does seem like a man with secrets.

I think that Gatsby himself could be an allegory for the life of the wealthy and privileged. Yes, he seems perfect on the outside, with his charming house and brilliant smile, but he harbors dark secrets. This reminds me a lot of the life of Daisy and Tom. On the outside, their life seems wonderful, full of riches, but there are definitely cracks beneath the surface, with Tom’s other woman and Daisy being too preoccupied to pay attention to her only child. But we only see the superficial side of things, and, especially at Gatsby’s party, we’re introduced to the things that are only on the outside. But looking deeper through Nick’s eyes, we see all the potential problems.

In this chapter, we meet Tom’s mistress, who isn’t anything I expected. When we first heard of Tom’s lady in New York, I imagined a prissy, up-scale woman with a determined air and flirtatious quality – Definitely someone who could be considered the cliché ‘gold digger.’ However, Myrtle wasn’t anything like that. She wasn’t beautiful, and she didn’t blatantly order Tom to buy her things. Yes, she did get him to buy her the puppy, and, yes, she did verbally announce that she had to make a list of things she needed to buy, but I felt that those clues were subtle. If she was after Tom’s money, she didn’t make a big show of it.

The part where Tom broke Myrtle’s nose, I think, was possibly the most important part of the chapter. The two were arguing over whether she had the right to say Daisy’s name, and when Tom told her she didn’t, she openly flaunted him and continued chanting his wife’s name. To this, Tom broke her nose. I think this just shows that Tom really does care for his wife, even if he may not admit it. Perhaps he just likes the idea and feeling of superiority that goes along with having another woman. But this part just made it clear that Myrtle was, and will always be, just the ‘other woman.’ The protectiveness that Tom displayed just showed that he didn’t think of Myrtle as anyone who could be, or take the place of, his wife. Actually, I believe it’s sort of a relief, knowing that Tom doesn’t have any interest in divorcing Daisy and making this other woman his wife instead.