Hi Everyone:
On our first day of class, I suggested that the most difficult or seemingly odd scenes in a book can often be a route to some of the book's deepest meaning. We also noted that The Great Gatsby is unique in how restrained and mysterious the language of the text can be. And today (Friday) we discussed what seem to be the conflicts and tensions that haunt the book.
In this blog post, describe the strange scene that you selected and (using your notes) explain how this scene may connect to one of the conflicts or tensions that we noted in class. You can also write about why the scene is so different or unusual -- what sets it apart? You can speculate or offer several alternative interpretations; keep in mind that you are not expected to explain precisely and definitively what everything means, as long as you offer some possibilities and impressions. Look at the "Advice for Annotation" page for guidance.
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book, The Great Gatsby, is full of mysterious and confusing scenes. One of the scenes that stood out to me was in chapter four during Gatsby and Nick’s drive to lunch. In this scene Gatsby is telling Nick about his past and his family. He tells Nick that his family has all passed away leaving Gatsby with a great deal of money. Gatsby also tells Nick about his time living in Europe and in the war. Later in the book it is revealed that the story Gatsby tells to Nick is a lie. Upon first reading The Great Gatsby I didn’t understand the meaning behind this scene. However, after taking a closer look at some of the conflicts and tensions in the book I see the connection between this scene and the central conflict of desire.
ReplyDeleteDesire is brought up many times in Gatsby. The scene described above shows Gatsby’s desire for a different life. Gatsby is trying to rewrite his past. He wants nothing more than to be a high class man with the background to support his social standing. By creating this story he is making himself more worthy of the life he lives and more appealing to the people around him. By telling Nick the revised version of his past Gatsby is one step closer to making the desired version of his past true. To Gatsby what matters is what people believe, not the truth. If the truth is hidden it is much easier to obtain what you desire, even if hiding the truth means lying to yourself and the people around you.
In the novel, “The Great Gatsby” written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, holds many mysterious scenes that were not really specified on their importance. An example of one scene would be when Tom Buchanan shows Nick how him and Mrs. Wilson are both in love with each other in chapter two. I was confused on why that was incorporated into the story. It was already clear that he was married to Daisy, so why does Tom need to have another relationship? Also, I did not understand why Tom showed Nick his love for Mrs. Wilson out of all people in the book. I found it strange because Nick is Daisy’s cousin and it seemed Tom felt he was superior to Nick for showing him his mistress even though he is Daisy’s cousin. But it was even more surprising how Nick never mentioned anything about the situation to Daisy.
ReplyDeleteLater on in the story, I tied up “obsession” with being a main part of the conflicts and tensions in the story. Despite the fact Tom and Mrs. Wilson are both married to other people, they are so obsessed with each other that they go behind their spouses back even though they know it’s wrong. But being over obsessed leads to the death of Mrs. Wilson when her husband decides to move out west in chapter seven. She became very angry with plan knowing she will never see Tom again and runs out into the street and gets hit by a car, driven by Daisy. Ironically. If maybe they did not have too much of a desire for one another, and overly obsessed, no one would have been killed, or heartbroken.
The book The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald struck me as very complex and mysterious novel. Many strange events took place in this book. But, I think that one of the most difficult and strangest scenes for me to understand was when Nick agreed to help Gatsby get with his cousin.
ReplyDeleteFor me, I was confused because although Nick knew that this would most likely lead to a conflict and yet he let Gatsby use him anyways. This struck me as weird because, he knew that Gatsby like Daisy and her knew that Daisy was married yet he helped them meet up. I think that Nick had noted that the trust between Daisy and Tom was already teetering so he decided that he would end up helping Jay. But this simple yet very complicated gesture led to jealousy and later great interest in wealth and personal issues. In this scene Gatsby goes over the top to try and impress Daisy and get her to like him as much as she did 5 years ago. The reason this struck me as strange was mostly because everything that Nick was doing and how easily he was persuaded, even though he knew it wasn't the right thing to do.
In the novel The Great Gatsby by: Fitzgerald Francis Scott there was among many scenes, which very odd. One key example in this novel was when Mr. Gatsby revealed his love for Daisy Buchannan (Nicks Cousin) and he agreed to help bring them together. This confused me deeply because Nick knew Gatsby was using him for his cousin love but still went threw with Gatsby’s plan to win daisy over. Why it confused me so very much is because reading the novel Nick sounds very intelligent the way he describes things during the novel. Nick knew helping Gatsby would lead to further more problems which led to Tom’s Jealously because he began to realize later on in the novel Jay Gatsby was winning over his wife Daisy they began spending time together more and more. By helping Gatsby Nick was directly connected to the murder of Jay Gatsby and the suicide of a very distraught Mr. Wilson. Nick Carraway a very intelligent man who made a very poor choice.
ReplyDeleteIn The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, there are many scenes that do not quite make sense. The reasons for them being in the book do not add up and it is hard to connect it to the plot. They seem pointless, but in order to understand them, you need to think deeper and analyze these mysterious scenes.
ReplyDeleteOne scene or part in the book that seemed odd, is in chapter 4. Gatsby and Nick Carraway are driving through town. When they enter the city, Gatsby gets pulled over for speeding. When the police officer approaches Gatsby, he presents a white card to the officer. The officer then lets him and Nick continue on their way with no problem after being shown the card. the question is, what was that card? This brought me to think of one of the conflicts we talked about in class, which is wealth or money. Maybe if that white card was an ID, the officer recognized him and let him pass because of his wealth. Or maybe, it connects to the theory that Gatsby gained his wealth from illegal actions, such as bootlegging. Gatsby’s wealth seems to give him certain advantages. Not just his wealth, but also his popularity.
Throughout the whole book, "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the only really strange thing that stood out to me was Jay Gatsby's infatuation for Daisy. From the moment Nick met Gatsby, Gatsby wanted to be his friend. He was so inviting. I wonder why. Oh, Nick is Daisy's cousin. Gatsby practically used Nick to get to Daisy and he was successful. Nick agreed to help Jay despite his cousins marriage. Jay threw several elaborate parties to see if she would show up to one. He didn't really have a better reason to have huge, fancy parties. He didn't know the people who came - he had the parties to see if Daisy would show up to one. Another example is the green light. When I first read that part in the book, I didn't understand what he was doing. When I realized he was literally longing for Daisy, I was pretty sketched out. Lastly, Gatsby's attempts at "past revival" was active throughout the book. When he met Daisy, he had little to nothing. So what did he do? He earned illegal fortune to try and win her back. I don't think JG knew money cannot but you happiness. A lot can happen in five years. Daisy moved on and got married but Jay wouldn't accept that. He tried to brainwash her back in love with him. His greed ending up killing Daisy which ending up killing him. Many more things frustrated me, but these are the main things.
ReplyDeleteIn the novel The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald included countless scenes that can be considered out of place and unusual. In these mysterious scenes, many of the novel’s tensions and conflicts can be connected. One scene in particular that struck me as odd was when Myrtle, Tom, and Nick recently got off the train to New York and all of a sudden Myrtle announced that she wanted a dog. When Myrtle wished for a dog, Tom jumped right in to help her and bought her one. When first reading this scene, it felt sort of peculiar but when I took a deeper look into it, I began to see some relevance.
ReplyDeleteIn this scene, the idea that love controls the things you do, even if it means hurting the people closest to you, is brought up. When Tom bought Myrtle the dog, he realized they would be sharing it the way a family would share a pet. Even though Tom was married to Daisy, and Myrtle to George, he still chose to bring himself closer to Myrtle by owning a dog. In my opinion, this scene shows that Tom truly loved Myrtle because he is willing to be more apart of her life rather than his wife's. I believe that this shines light on the fact that love compromises all morals. Tom may not have been intentionally trying to hurt or separate himself from Daisy, but by buying Myrtle the dog that she wanted, he instantly became closer to Myrtle than ever before. By continuing his affair with Myrtle, Tom is risking his marriage, and ultimately compromising his morals, all for love.
The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald has many peculiar scenes, but one in particular stands out to me. It begins after one of of Gatsby’s lavish parties, and a drunk man seems to have lost a one of the tires on his car. Because of his intoxication the man believes that he can simply back out of the mess he has made and leave the party. However a crowd starts to form, and they begin to inform the man that that is simply not possible due to the absence of one of his wheels. Upon hearing this information the man enters denial and emphatically says that he absolutely can just back out. At first this scene really puzzled me and I thought it it no purpose. But upon deeper inspection and contemplation I realized that Fitzgerald was using the car, intoxication, and crowd as symbols for a bigger picture. The car represents Gatsby’s situation with daisy, and it is stuck in a rut. The drunk man is Gatsby. The crowd is simply the people involved in his life, but specifically Nick. Just as Gatsby wants the relationship he had with daisy in the past, the drunk man wants to back out of the driveway even though he can't. And the crowd informing him is Nick telling Gatsby he cant bring back the past, referring to Daisy. The intoxication that affects the man’s inhibition is Gatsby’s blinding obsession and love with Daisy. At first glance many of these scenes may seem rather pointless, but with deeper thought it is evident that they all have purpose.
ReplyDeleteThe Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is an insightful, yet extremely subtle and mysterious book. There were several scenes that I had to reread in order to understand, but even after that there were still some that had me questioning why they were in the book to begin with. The scene that probably stood out the most to me was when Nick and Daisy found the owl-eyed man sitting in the library. It is to my understanding that this man shows up again, yet at the end of the book as one of the only people to attend Gatsby’s funeral. However, this doesn’t even begin to clarify his dialogue during his first appearance.
ReplyDeleteThe owl-eyed man was sitting in the library when Jordan and Nick came in, and was completely astonished by the fact that the books were real. He proceeds to show them the realism of the books. It almost seemed as though he didn’t believe that they would be real. This led me to question his trust in Gatsby and the rest of society, which happens to be one of the central conflicts. Could it be that his personal ideals or his belief in cultural ideals got in the way of his trust? The man says, “This fella’s a regular Belasco.” By comparing him to this figure, he is essentially saying that Gatsby’s life and wealth is a facade. He also mentions that the pages weren’t cut. This is most likely referring to Gatsby’s money issues in the past. These lines only further prove the man’s distrust in Gatsby. Also, aside from the fact that he’s had too much to drink, the owl-eyed man seems to be “obsessed” with the realness of the books. This is yet another central conflict, and slightly mirrors Gatsby being obsessed with Daisy and his own past. At the end of this scene, the man asks whom Jordan and Nick came with. He tells them that he came with a woman by the name of Mrs. Claud Roosevelt, and then asks them if they know her. He attempts to make a connection with them, but his drunkenness gets in the way. This could symbolize the constant static in life that sometimes prevents us from making connections. The owl-eyed man doesn’t seem to know Gatsby personally (at first), and most likely only comes to the parties for a night out. In the big picture, he represents the typical Gatsby houseguest. As mentioned before, this novel has many unusual scenes, but this analysis proves that they are not inexplicable.
The novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is an intense story about the twisted morals of society. A scene that puzzled me was the re-introduction of Daisy to Gatsby. It had not occured to me why Jay Gatsby was so intent on having Daisy back in his life that he was willing to stage a reunion, until I took a closer look at their history.
ReplyDeleteJimmy Gatz, who later changes his name to Jay Gatsby which indicates his ambition for success, falls in love with a girl from high class named Daisy. Daisy is from a wealthier family, but the two perservere with their affair until Gatsby is sent to war. Upon returning, Gatsby is set on re-capturing his past with Daisy and with a very American themed mindset, persevers in obtaining wealth- a barrier that had been between the couple. Years later, Gatsby looking for the perfect way to introduce Daisy into his life again, and in stumbles Nick Carraway, cousin of Daisy. So there you have it. American willpower and an obsession with the past are two very strong themes woven into this story, and in this particular case it killed three people- Gatsby, Myrtle, and George. So, I guess the moral is do not get obsessed over someone because years later when they are married with a child you will find them and ruin.
The novel, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is full of complicated scenes. The strange scene I selected in the Great Gatsby was in chapter 9. The scene was Gatsby’s funeral. The only people who showed up to the funeral were Nick and Gatsby’s father and then later the man with owl-eyed glasses, who Nick met at one of Gatsby’s parties. Gatsby’s parties were considered to be famous and many people attended. I wonder why so few people who showed up to the funeral? A strange part surrounding the funeral was when Klipspringer called and spoke with Nick. The conversation was going great between the two until Nick asked him if he would be attending funeral. Klipspringer’s response was that he would try. He told Nick he was actually calling him to get some tennis shoes that were at Gatsby house. The funeral scene was unusual for the reader because it was expected that Gatsby being as popular as he was more people should have attended his funeral.
ReplyDeleteIn the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, many scenes seemed odd or did not show their relevance to the story plot. One scene that stood out to me as strange was the scene the scene when Gatsby was going through his closet and pulling out shirts of various colors and fabrics, and throwing them down, creating a mound around Daisy. Suddenly Daisy starts crying. “It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such-such beautiful shirts before.” she sobbed. This scene at first glance seemed out of place and random. Its also laced with a few questions.The main question being why did Daisy suddenly start crying?
ReplyDeleteAfter looking the scene over, it exhibits some hidden tensions like desire. The main desire that the scene was based on was the desire to re-live the past and rekindle past love. The shirts are symbolic to the two different men she does/once loved. Tom her husband is represented by boring and dull shirts, compared to the vibrant and lavish shirts that represent Gatsby and his life in the fast lane. Daisy realized as Gatsby is tossing down his shirts, that compared to the glamorous and eventful life Gatsby lives, her life with Tom is boring and cold. By looking deeper into the symbolization of the shirts, I was able to understand why Daisy was so upset and I finally understood why this scene had such a big impact to the over all book.
The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald had many scenes that appeared out of nowhere to me, and had nothing to do with other current events in the plot of the book. They the book was written made it harder for me to understand what was happening at certain parts like when Tom Buchanan introduces Nick to his mistress mrs. Wilson. It took me a while to recognize their relationship to be more than just friends, after I realized that the book was implying an affair it made a little more sense to me. The whole scene where they're in the village of ashes and get on the train to the city was peculiar at first. As the story goes on throughout the chapter I got the feeling the book was touching on the vanity of the people of america in the 1920's. Before first ordering his wife to come into the city with him to have an affair, he teases Mr. Wilson. The utter disregard that Tom shows for anyone but himself is so shocking but becomes clear after Nick is forced to sit through a horrific party which underscores Tom's relentless awful behavior towards others.
ReplyDelete"The Great Gatsby" By F. Scott Fitzgerald has many scenes that can seem odd or out of place but in the end, they all tie together with the plot and main theme of the book. For example, one scene that seemed odd at first was when Nick, Jordan, Gatsby, Daisy and Tom were all in a suite in the Plaza Hotel. Tom and Gatsby were in a heated argument about their past and current relationships with Daisy. Tom bragged about how he and Daisy have a history that Gatsby would never understand. Gatsby, even though he knew that Daisy had feelings for him, tried to force her to say that she never had truly loved Tom, at least not in the way that she loved Gatsby. Daisy admitted that she did once love Tom but that she didn't feel that way anymore. Gatsby got very upset by this, seeing as he claimed that Daisy never loved Tom. What I didn't understand at first was why did Gatsby need to have Daisy say that she never loved Tom? As I looked deeper into to the meaning behind this scene, I realized that nothing was enough for Gatsby anymore; not even the fact that Daisy, the women he had been trying to be with for years, loved him. He had gotten so deep into the criminal way of making money that he just wanted more and more. He was cradled by the criminal franchise and was left to believe that his ways of bootlegging alcohol and other illegal activities entitled him to whatever he wanted because he “worked” for it.
ReplyDeleteIn the great Gatsby there were several mysterious scenes. the one that stuck out most to me however was when Gatsby's father talks to Nick after Gatsby's death. this scene reveals Gatsby's low upbringing and his aspire to become famous. This is shown in the fact of Gatsby's schedule form his youth which shows all the stuff he planned out for his day. In succeeding in making himself rich he continues on one of the themes of the book which is " anything is possible". The irony is that Gatsby's riches were acquired all because of blind luck and illegal actions (most likely) and all his preparing did not help him out that much.
ReplyDeleteA scene in "The Great Gatsby" that was unusual for me was in chapter 5. In this scene, Gatsby begged Nick to get him a date with his cousin Daisy. Nick agreed being the nice guy that he is and Gatsby wanted to thank him. Except Nick bass different values than Gatsby so his way of thanking him meant nothing to Nick. Gatsby offered him a job to make money, sent a gardener over to cut his grass, and he sent flowers over the day of the date. This is when it got weird, Daisy finally gets there and Gatsby "left" so he could make an appearance and as soon as he got there he wanted to leave. Obviously things would be awkward a first, he wanted to just give up and go home. AFter all of those nights he spent looking at her green light at the end her dock he could just leave. That was what really stuck to me the most. Throughout the night, as expected, things became less awkward. Actually, Nick left them alone at one point and a when he came back they where having a lot of fun and enjoying each others company. In the book "The Great Gatsby" there where some unusual scenes.
ReplyDeletein The Great Gatsby there were a lot of scenes in the book that seemed irrelevant and odd but were described in such detail that they had to be important to the story. I chose the scene in the beginning of the book where nick first sees Gatsby on the dock and hes just standing there looking at this green light in the distance. Nick watches him as he slowly reaches for it as if he longs for the light. later in the book i realized that the light symbolized daisy and how much he longed for her. She was so close to him and so far away at the same time. Gatsby was fixated on that light, he was obsessed with it and with daisy. He loved her so much he formed his life around her and that light. His obsession destroyed him it changed his life and the way he thought. his desperation to bring back the past, to bring back that love ,to be reuinited with daisy and finally capture that light would be resolved with his death.
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