Hoje venho partilhar convosco este trabalho que já escrevi há uns bons anos, mas, como o livro, mantém-se sempre atual. Gostaria de vê-lo publicado em livro.
APRESENTAÇÃO
Este trabalho – The Great Gatsby and The American Dream - foi realizado por mim para a cadeira de Língua
Inglesa da Universidade. É um trabalho individual no qual obtive a
classificação de dezoito valores.
Todo o material que li para escrever directamente para o inglês este trabalho
me informava que o personagem Nick Carraway era a biografia do próprio autor,
F. Scott Fitzgerald. Este meu trabalho demonstra que o autor se transportou,
transportou a sua alma, as suas mágoas, as suas vivências e experiência de vida
para Gatsby. Nick é possivelmente o que Scott Fitzgerald gostaria que os outros
pensassem que ele era e que tentou toda a sua vida mostrar que era. No entanto,
estas duas personagens têm algo em comum: o estar permanentemente numa atitude
de observação, de distanciamento do que os rodeia. Acho que esta é a atitude de
todos os escritores. Acredito que esta é a verdade sobre as identidades destes
dois personagens.
Podemos imaginar a alma de Scott Fitzgerald em Gatsby; o espírito crítico
de Scott Fitzgerald em Nick; a esposa de Scott, Zelda, em Daisy, dividida entre
os seus pais e o mundo deles e o seu amor, Gatsby e o seu marido. Contudo Daisy
não consegue ser observadora, pois está demasiado fechada em si própria; mesmo
quando fala dos outros é sempre de alguma perspectiva de si própria que está a
falar. Podemos imaginar os Buchanans como os pais de Zelda e também os
Fitzgeralds e a amargura de uma vida aparece. Assim é!❐
PREFACE
When I heard from my English Language Teacher that there was a work to be
written, I immediately thought of The Great Gatsby and The American Dream.
I had the first contact with this F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel ten years ago
and then, it touched me for many different reasons.
The important is that the idea of going through it again was already
enjoying me.
So, I proposed
this theme to my teacher and he accepted it and encouraged me.
I want to thank him for all the support, help and sharing of
The American Dream and The Great Gatsby.❐
“The only
reward a man gets from helping others comes from himself.” by BARALBA Fernando
I
INTRODUCTION
“You don't write because
you want to say something. You write because you've got something to say.” (F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Crach-up)
“A good novel tells us the
truth about its hero – but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.” (G. K. Chesterton in Heretics)
CHAPTER I – INTRODUCTION
A – FRANCIS SCOTT FITZGERALD'S
BIOGRAPHY
Francis Scott Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, in September
1896. His parents were wealthy and, after finishing a Catholic attending
school, he went on to Princeton, one of the most famous American colleges. At
Princeton he wrote plays and articles to college magazines. He got seriously
ill and had to leave Princeton before getting a degree.
In 1917, Fitzgerald joined the Army, but he never left the USA.
In June 1918, he met Zelda Sayre, the love of his life. She was eighteen
and she belonged to the upper class. Her father was a judge. They got engaged,
but after leaving the Army, he didn't get success as a writer and he had to
accept a job in advertising. Her parents broke Fitzgerald's engagement with
their daughter.
In March 1920, Fitzgerald published This side of paradise and it was a success. Finally, he had the money and the status to
marry Zelda and that happened in April 1920.
Fitzgerald always tried to give Zelda an even better,
astonishing life than she had with her parents. They always lived extravagantly travelling
throughout the USA and round Europe, but Fitzgerald had to work hard to afford
it.
Zelda became ill, unstable person and, in 1930, she had her first of
several nervous breakdowns.
Then he was offered a well-paid job in Hollywood and they returned to USA
where he died in December, 1940.
WORKS BY F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
NOVELS:
1. THIS SIDE OF PARADISE (1920)
2. THE BEAUTIFUL AND DAMNED (1922)
3. THE GREAT GATSBY (1925)
4. TENDER IS THE NIGHT (1934)
5. THE LAST TYCOON (1941)
COLLECTIONS OF SHORT STORIES:
1. FLAPPERS AND PHILOSOPHERS (1920)
2. TALES OF JAZZ AGE (1921)
3. ALL THE SAD YOUNG MEN (1926)
4. TAPS AT REVEILLE (1935).❐
CHAPTER I – INTRODUCTION
B – THE THEME
The theme I have chosen for my English Work asked by my English Teacher was
«THE AMERICAN DREAM AND THE GREAT GATSBY of F. SCOTT FITZGERALD»
The American Dream reflects the hope of creating a second Paradise, not in
the next world and not outside time, but in the bright New World – America.
From the time of its first settlement, America has been from European eyes
as a land of all opportunities, a place where men and women, after centuries of
poverty, misery and corruption could have a second chance to fulfil their hopes.
It is interesting how these people, after making their dreams come true,
became as prejudicial as the ones who discriminated their grandparents in
Europe, in what concerns the newcomers who have been arriving after them.
The Great Gatsby tells us about dressing,
appearances and behaviour, about social
surroundings and class and the attitudes and values that may go along with them
of the moneyed upper-class, but also of the hangers on, the criminal surroundings
and the poor.
Gatsby, a character, himself uses his wealth with some extravagance, yet,
ironically, it is unimportant to him. It is only a mean to an end, the fulfilment of his dream: to attract Daisy to him and
to be accepted by the aristocracy. Daisy represents the ones who are falling
apart and being poorer and poorer. This aristocracy is using the financial
capital of the recent moneyed people, like Gatsby, but, at the same time, they
don't accept them in their surroundings and make them feel not welcome. This
American aristocracy has very little to do with the European aristocracy as it
emerged through the English Army during colonization times.
For Nick Carraway, the narrator, Gatsby, in spite of his involvement in organised crime and bootlegging, this is, the
illegal manufacture, sale and distribution of alcohol, spiritually he is far
richer than the Buchanans who are the moneyed upper-class, but reveal moral
poverty and irresponsibility. At the end of this novel they betray
Gatsby and the Wilsons, but there isn't any sign of concerning about that fact
on them.
In The Great Gatsby we live the great social change of 1920s in America whose axiom was “Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.”
The American Dream also describes an attitude of hope and faith very well
expressed in the Declaration of Independence of 1776.
“certain unalienable rights
... among these are life; liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
To the Puritan Fathers,
America represented a new life of freedom and a promise of spiritual happiness.
For some authors, the material
side of the Dream was soon and easily achieved, but also put quickly
away the early spiritual ideals.
Others say that the American Dream has totally failed: poverty, discrimination and
exploitation still exist in America. Instead of morality, there are hypocrisy,
corruption and suppression.
After 1918, the American
decided to enjoy themselves and to forget the horrors of the First World War.
Entertainment flourished;
Hollywood produced a great number of films. The radio became very popular and
sports were highly organized.
Yet, at the same time, the
organized crime rose. Ku-Klux-Klan reappeared and there was a general feeling
against Jews, Roman Catholic, Negroes and all those who were not “one hundred per cent Americans”.
This was “The Prohibition Era”, too. It was the State intention and decision to
forbid the sale of alcoholic drinks and to eliminate the saloons in
America.
At the same time, new methods
of production produced more goods: the output of cars rose from 5 000 000
(1914) to 24 000 000 (1928). Industry wished to make things bigger and better.
People invested their money trying to make as much money as they could out of
this boom.
Yet, by 1929, the Great
Depression devastated the country: factories were making more goods than people
could buy. Profits went down. Many firms closed down. Thousands of people had
no work. Banks failed. The Stock Market collapsed. Unemployment rose to many
millions.
Yet, in The Great Gatsby,
Scott Fitzgerald separates the people from Mid-West from the ones living in
East. For him, Mid-West means stability, unchanging values, the old pioneer
spirit of industry and purpose, close relationships, the hopeful spirit
represented by Gatsby (spiritual purpose).
The Eastern Seaboard means an
aimless way of life only concerned with material things. The Buchanans, though
Mid-Westerns, have become like the people in the East having lived in New York
for a long time (materialistic concern).❐
CHAPTER II
AMERICAN MENTALITY
AFTER WORLD WAR I
After the war, there was a cry
for liberty/freedom for the individual to express himself, but also for sexual
liberty opposing the Puritans and Victorians. It was demanded to walk out of
marriages that ceased to be satisfying, sexually or socially. Writers were
writing about
“people who take off their
shoes and perhaps their clothes as well to walk in the grass, to lie close to
the soil.”2
Negroes were free from the
Puritan Fathers' ways of believing, thinking and acting. They were much more
close to Nature, much more primitive, so they were the ones to imitate: this
was the Jazz Era.
Women gained the right to vote
and were fighting for their emancipation. The richer were the ones living on
the edge of this mentality as their money and status permitted them
to live beyond rules.
Scott Fitzgerald grew up in
the Middle West, but he came to East to college, exactly Princeton.
“The Middle West was the
place of origins; the destination was somewhere splendid, improvident,
aristocratic, where everyone was (like himself and his wife) young, handsome,
witty and free.”3
Fitzgerald longed for some
truths from which he could be immune to physical or moral suffering. That is
why he attended a university for the children of the rich westerners. He sought
for the aristocracy of wealth. He wrote in The Rich Boy:
“The very rich are
different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early and it does something
to them.”
Although he knew that what
they did was not necessarily good as they owned no norm. Nevertheless,
Fitzgerald was merely fascinated by the magic properties of wealth and by the
immunity it could buy:
- immunity from everybody else who was outsider;
- all doors opened;
- all headwaiters were deferential;
- all boat-trains, liners, limousines, suites and
mansions were available;
- all the minor disasters of life could be
remedied: the lost ticket, the wet holiday, the cramped quarters.
Young men and women are
willingly immature. Fresh from their fashionable schools and colleges, they
have no desire to develop; development means growing old and for them it is
unthinkable to be over thirty. They live their love affairs enthusiastically,
but with no passion and they hate the idea of becoming parents.
Fitzgerald's characters are
projections of himself dreaming extravagantly, but also disappointed. However,
Fitzgerald's work was fluent and carefully constructed. He regarded himself as
a perfectionist.❐
CHAPTER III
AN APPROACH
TO THE GREAT GATSBY
The Great Gatsby is set in America in the twenties. Jay Gatsby lives in
a luxurious house on Long Island overlooking Long Island Sound. They are
commonly named West Egg and East Egg, respectively. A bay separates both
islands and the water separates them from New York, too.
Gatsby is a mysterious figure.
Nobody knows about his past or how he became rich. They guess it has to do with
the organized crime and bootlegging (the illegal manufacture, sale and distribution
of alcohol).
Nick Carraway is the narrator,
but also one of the major characters of the novel and during almost all the
novel Nick has everything to do with Scott Fitzgerald. Nick Carraway, in the
very beginning of the novel rents a small house near Gatsby's and slowly gets
to know his neighbour.
Gatsby, in spite of his huge
house and his lavish parties, where he doesn't appear and doesn't know most of
his guests and doesn't participate, just observes them enjoying themselves from
his study; he dedicates his life to recover an early love affair with Daisy. It
is for this aim he made his fortune; but now Daisy is married to Tom Buchanan,
they are very rich and what it is said about Gatsby's involvement in organised crime and in the
illegal manufacture, sale and distribution of alcohol greatly diminish his
image in the eyes of Daisy.
Though Tom has got a mistress
and Daisy has never forgotten Gatsby, the Buchanans are still living together
and Gatsby is killed by Tom's mistress' husband who thought Gatsby was his
wife's lover. Again the immunity of the moneyed upper-class appointed by Scott
Fitzgerald.❐
CHAPTER IV
“THE VERY RICH”
It starts with the narrator, Nick Carraway, describing himself as someone who likes to reserve all
judgements as
Nick has attended college in
East, despite being from a well-to-do Midwestern family. He has a great
affection for Gatsby. As he used to say
“Gatsby who represented
everything for which I have an affected scorn. Though there was something
gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life. His
responsiveness was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as
I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever
find again.”5
This narrator establishes with
the reader a very special relationship. The reader slowly becomes a Nick's
close friend because, despite he is one of the major characters of the novel,
he gives the reader his biography, his thoughts, his opinions and the reader
quickly starts sharing his opinions and events.
We know Nick was graduated
from New Haven in 1915. He participated in the Great War and returned home.
Then his family influenced him and now he was again in East to study
the bond business for a year, as everybody was in bond business those
days.
In this chapter we also have
the description of three houses:
·
the one of eighty
dollars a month paid by Nick Carraway at West Egg;
·
the one on the
right stands, Gatsby's mansion rented for twelve or fifteen thousand a season. “... it was a factual imitation of some Hotel de Ville in
Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy
and a marble swimming pool and more forty acres of lawn and garden.”6
- the third house belonged to the Buchanans: Tom
and Daisy. It was situated at East Egg which is separated from West Egg by
a bay. They lived in a “... cheerful red-and-white Georgian Colonial
Mansion overlooking the bay. The lawn started at the beach and ran towards
the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over sundials and brick
walls and burning gardens. The front of the house was broken by a line of
french windows.”7
The first house has to do with
the well-to-do; the second one with the rich and the third one with the very
rich who were living apart.
Daisy is Nick's second cousin
and Nick had visited them just after the war, in Chicago. The story of summer
really began when Nick drove over to East Egg to see Daisy and Tom, whom he
scarcely knew at all.
Tom
Buchanan, Daisy's husband
and Nick's cousin by marriage, had been one of the most powerful hands that
ever played football at New Haven. His family was very wealthy and he had come
to East in a glamorous way, bringing with him a string of polo ponies from Lake
Forest. The Buchanans had spent a year in France before coming to East. They
were in permanent move.
Tom says to Nick:
Let's have his opinion about
what is worrying Tom at the moment:
“Civilization's going to
pieces, broke out Tom violently. I've gotten to be a terrible pessimist about
things. Have you read The Rise of the Coloured Empires by
this man Goddard? It's a fine book and everybody ought to read it. The idea is
if we don't look out the white race will be – will be utterly submerged. It's
all scientific stuff; it'd been proved. This fellow has worked out the hole
thing. It's up to us, who are the dominant race to watch out or these other
races will have control of things.”11
So, the reader gets a general
idea of his character through his own words.
Daisy spoke in a low, thrilling voice. Her face was sad and
lovely with bright eyes. Tom and Daisy's relationship was bad. She said to him:
They were parents of a three
years old little girl.
“She was less than an hour
old, she said, and Tom was God knows where. When the nurse told me it was a
girl I turned my head away and wept and said I hope she'll be a little fool.”13
Daisy is not a happy person.
It seems she belonged to that kind of persons to whom happiness is always on
the other border of the river. At dinner, she said:
“Do you always watch for
the longest day of the year and then, miss it? I always watch for the longest
day of the year and then, miss it.”14
She seems not to be interested
in life. She talked because she had guests, she had a child, but she would
prefer not to have got her as she didn't pay any attention to her.
We get aware through Daisy
that her husband had a lover in New York who used to call him at dinner time.
Again we have a reference
about the conflict East – West. When the narrator shows the evidence about the
difference between dinner at East and at West.
“Sometimes Daisy and her
friend talked at once, unobtrusively and with a bantering inconsequence that
was never quite chatter, that was as cool as their white dresses and their
impersonal eyes in the absence of desire. They were here and they accepted Tom
and me making only a polite pleasant effort to entertain or to be entertained.
They knew that presently dinner would be over and a little later the evening
too would be over and casually put away. It was sharply different from West,
where an evening was hurried from phase to phase towards its close, in a
continually disappointed anticipation or else in sheer nervous dread of the
moment itself.”15
This chapter mentions Gatsby as someone very mysterious. He was about to be introduced at Buchanans' dinner
but it didn't happen and Nick was about to introduce himself to Gatsby and it
also didn't happen like a premonition that those were not Gatsby's places or
the people.
Nick distinguished, in the
dark, first a cat then a figure he thought to be Gatsby:
“... standing with his
hands in his pockets regarding the silver peppers of the stars. Then, he
stretched out his arms towards the dark water and ... he was trembling.”16
Suddenly Nick could
distinguish nothing but a single green light and ... Gatsby had vanished.
Perhaps symbolizing that that was not the right time, but remained the hope.❐
CHAPTER V
“THE HANGER'S ON”
This chapter is about
the “hanger's on”: Myrtle and her family and the Mckees and it starts with
a colour – GREY, which
represents dirt, sadness, misery. That is the colour of the valley of ashes somewhere between West Egg and
New York.
Tom Buchanan's mistress, Myrtle Wilson, is the main character to be introduced by Nick
Carraway on this chapter. He wanted everyone to know about her. In New York,
they met regularly in his apartment and he usually “... turned up in popular cafés with her, leaving her
at a table, sauntered about, chatting with whomsoever he knew. We're getting
off, Tom insisted with Nick, I want you to meet my girl.”17
She lived with her husband on
the first floor and below they had a garage where her husband worked as a
mechanic, bought and sold secondhand cars. Tom was as usual George Wilson's
client. They lived on that ash valley. Myrtle Wilson “... was in the middle thirties and carried her flesh
sensuously. Her face contained no gleam of beauty, but there was an immediately
perceptible vitality about her. She smiled slowly and walked through her
husband as if he were a ghost.”18
George
Wilson, her husband, was a
blond, spiritless, blue-eyed man, anaemic and faintly handsome. Tom considered him “... so dumb he doesn't know he's alive.”19
Tom and Myrtle arranged to
meet at the train station to go to the apartment with Nick as Myrtle invited
her sister and the Mckees to the apartment, too.
On the way, she bought a copy
of Town Tattle and a moving-picture magazine, a cold cream, a small
flask of perfume, a dog. She let four taxicabs drive away before she selected a
new one.
Their New York apartment was
described like this:
“It was on the top floor
and has got a small living room, a small dining room, a small bedroom and a
bath. Although until after eight o'clock the apartment was full of cheerful
sun.”20
The apartment was full of
furniture too large for its measures and too many for the space. Myrtle was a
snob, this is, she pretended to seem what she wasn't and hadn't got. Once in
the apartment and with her guests, she changed dress “... and personality had also undergone a change – an
impressive hauteur. Her laughter, her
gestures, her assertions became more violently affected moment by moment. «My
dear, she told her sister in a high, mincing shout; most of these fellas will
cheat you every time. All they think of is money. I had a woman up here last
week to look at my feet and when she gave me the bill you'd of thought she had
my appendicitis out. She is Mrs Eberhadt. She goes looking at people 's feet in
their own homes».”21
She sorrows her marriage
saying “I married him
because I thought he was a gentleman. I thought he knew something about
breeding, but he wasn't fit to lick my shoe.”22
During the visit, Mrs Mckee
shows herself very fond of Myrtle's dress. About nine o'clock “she turned to Mrs Mckee and the room rang full of her
artificial laughter «My dear, she cried, I'm going to give you this dress as
soon as I'm through with it. I've got to get another one tomorrow. I'm going to
make a list of all things I've got to get: a massage and a wave and a collar
for the dog and one of those cute little ashtrays where you touch a spring and
wreath with a black silk bow for mother's grave that'll last all summer.”23
Then, sometime toward midnight
Tom and Myrtle stood face to face discussing in impassioned voices whether she
had any right to mention Daisy's name. She repeated it loudly continuously and
Tom broke her nose with his open hand.
With Myrtle, Tom could always
be himself and could feel superior and be the master.
Through Nick we meet Catherine, Myrtle's sister. “She was a slender worldly
girl of about thirty, with a solid, sticky bob of red hair and complexion
powdered milky white. Her eyebrows had been plucked and then drawn on again ,
but the effort of nature towards the restoration of the old alignment gave a
blurred air to her face. She has got an innumerable pottery bracelets jingling
up and down upon her arms. She explains Nick that is really Daisy who is
keeping Myrtle and Tom apart because she is catholic and catholics don't
believe in divorce. Once Myrtle and Tom get married, she said, they will go to
West to live for a while until it blows over.”24
Catherine has just got back
from Monte Carlo. She went over there with another girl, through Marseille.
They had just been there for two days as they had over twelve hundred dollars
when they started, but they got gipped out of it all in the private rooms. They had an awful
time getting back and she hated Monte Carlo.
About a month ago she had been
at Gatsby's party and people were saying he was a nephew or a cousin of Kaiser
Wilhelm and that was where all his money came from. She was scared of Gatsby.
She would hate to have him get anything on her.
Now, it is the moment to meet the
McKees. They lived just in the flat below. “Mr McKee was a pale, feminine man and he was most
respectful in his greeting to everyone in the room. He was a photographer. His
wife was shrill, languid, handsome and horrible.”25
Mr McKee told Tom he had done
some good photos on Long Island which were downstairs and he could do more work
if he could get the entry. “All I ask is that they should give me a start, said
Mr McKee to Tom and Tom replied, ask Myrtle. She'll give you a letter of
introduction to her husband, so you can do some studies of him. «George Wilson
at the Gasoline Pump» or something like that.”26
About Mrs McKee, besides being fascinated with Myrtle's dress, we can
say she was always trying to get work for her husband.
As for me, Scott Fitzgerald
uses stereotypes. That makes this novel very interesting even nowadays because,
though it has passed about eighty years, people are living similar situations
and, consequently, they respond to them the same way.
It is stimulating to study
these characters and their culture and, consequently, to know better this
country.❐
CHAPTER VI
GATSBY'S PARTIES
Later on we will meet Gatsby,
but before and immediately from the beginning we got aware of Gatsby's parties.
They were the most amazing, splendorous and odd parties people had ever been
at. “On weekends his
Rolls-Royce became an omnibus, bearing parties to and from the city between
nine in the morning and long past midnight, while his station wagon scampered
like a brisk yellow bug to meet all trains.”27
At high tide, in the
afternoon, his guests dove from the tower of his raft or sunbathed on the hot
sand of his beach, while his two motorboats slit the water of the Sound.
At least once a fortnight a
corps of caterers came down with several hundred feet of canvas and lots of coloured lights. On buffet
tables, there were glistening hors-d'œuvres, spiced baked hams, salads of harlequin designs and
pastry pigs and turkeys. In the main hall, there was a bar with a real brass
rail to serve the guests and it was stocked with gins and liquors and very old
cordials that most of the young women couldn't know them.
By seven o'clock, the
orchestra arrived composed by oboes, trombones, saxophones, viols, cornets,
picollos and low and high drums. The cars from New York were parked five deep
in the drive.
This saturday, Nick was
invited to Gatsby's party by the host. He wrote an invitation about having seen
Nick several times as a neighbour and he would be honoured with Nick's presence.
Nick left his house a little
after seven and once at Gatsby's and not seeing him asked around about him, but
people “... stared at him
in such an amazed way and denied so vehemently any knowledge of his movements”28 that Carraway gave up.
Suddenly, the orchestra
started playing yellow cocktail music and the opera of voices pitched a key
higher. They were dressed as gypsies and one of the girls began
her solo. The party had started.
While wandering “... I saw immediately struck by the number of young
Englishmen dotted about; all well dressed, all looking a little hungry and all
talking in low, earnest voices to solid and prosperous Americans. I was sure
that they were selling something: bonds of insurance or automobiles. They were,
at least, agonizingly aware of the easy money in the vicinity and convinced
that it would be theirs for a few words in the right key.”29
Now and then, Nick listened
some gossips about Gatsby. One girl said she was told Gatsby killed a man once,
another one replied that it was more; that he was a German spy during the war
and a man nodded in confirmation and added: “... I heard that from a man who knew all about him
who grew up with him in Germany.”30 But a girl denied and assured Gatsby was in the
American Army during the war. Nick stated he would have accepted without
question “... the
information that Gatsby sprang from the swamps of Louisiana or from the lower
East Side of New York. That was comprehensible. But young men didn't drift coolly
out of nowhere and buy a palace on Long Island Sound.”31 Concluding, a girl said: “Anyhow he gives large parties and I like large
parties. They're so intimate. At small parties, there isn't any privacy.”32
Then, the first supper began
to be served as there would be another one after midnight.
By midnight, the hilarity had
increased. A celebrated tenor had sung in Italian. A notorious contralto had
sung in jazz and everybody was happy laughing, drinking, dancing, eating and
talking. Champagne was served in glasses bigger than finger-bowls. Nick drank
two of these glasses and the whole “... scene had changed before his eyes into something
significant, elementar and profound.”33
Suddenly a man looked at Nick
and smiled asking if he hadn't been in the First Division during the war. Nick
agreed and was invited to try a hydroplane in the morning. Then, Nick
complained about having nor seen the host and the other said he was the one.
Nick had a very big surprise!
Gatsby smiled and that was “... one of those rare smiles with a quality of
eternal reassurance in it, that you may become across four or five times in
life. It faced – or seemed to face – the whole eternal world for an instant and
then, concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favour. It understood
you just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would
like to believe in yourself and assured you that it had precisely the
impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey.”34
Gatsby was “... an elegant
young rough-neck, a year or two over thirty whose elaborate formality of speech
just missed being absurd.”35 “His tanned skin was drawn attractively tight on
his face and his short hair looked as though it were trimmed everyday.”36
At that moment, a butler
hurried toward him with the information that Chicago was calling him on the
wire. He excused and assured that he would come later.
After ten o'clock, the party
was over and the last guests were saying goodbye to Gatsby and among them was
Carraway. “Don't forget
we're going up in the hydroplane tomorrow morning at nine o'clock, Gatsby said
and smiled and there seemed to be a pleasant significance in having been among
the last to go.”37 ❐
CHAPTER VII
GATSBY'S LIFE
A – GATSBY'S BIOGRAPHY
One morning at nine o'clock,
late in July, Gatsby arrived at Nick's house entrance saying: “Good morning, old sport. You're having lunch with me
today and I thought we'd ride up together.”38
This urgent invitation came
after the flying in his hydroplane, being in his parties twice and making
frequent use of his beach.
While waiting for Nick, Gatsby
was not quiet still as it usually happened. Nick noticed that there always was
a tapping foot somewhere or the impatient opening and closing of a hand.
Nick had talked to Gatsby
about a dozen times in the past month “... and found, to my disappointment, that he had
little to say. So, my first impression, that he was a person of some undefined
consequence, had gradually faded and he had become simply the proprietor of an
elaborate road-house next door.”39 thought Nick while Gatsby was driving. “Look here, old sport; said Gatsby, what's your
opinion of me, anyhow?
Well, I'm going to
tell you something about my life. I don't want you get a wrong idea of me from
all these stories you hear.”40 “I'm the son of some wealthy people in the
Middle West – all dead, now. I was brought up in America, but educated at
Oxford because all my ancestors have been educated there for many years. It is
a family tradition. (Nick felt he was lying because he hurried the phrase «educated at
Oxford» as it had bothered him.)
All my family died
and I came into a good deal of money. After that I lived like a young rajah in
all the capitals of Europe – Paris, Venice, Rome – collecting jewels, chiefly
rubies, hunting big game, painting a little, things for myself only and trying
to forget something very sad that had happened to me long ago. (Again, Nick Carraway didn't believe him.)
Then, came the
war, old sport. It was a great relief and I tried very hard to die, but I
seemed to bear an enchanted life. I accepted a commission as first lieutenant
when it began. In the Argonne Forest I took the remains of my machine-gun
battalion so far forward that there was a half mile gap on either side of us
where the Infantry couldn't advance. We stayed there for two days and two
nights, a hundred and thirty men with thirteen Lewis guns and when the Infantry
came up at last they found the insignia of three German divisions among the
piles of dead. I was promoted to be a major and every Allied Government gave me
a decoration – even Montenegro, little Montenegro down on the Adriatic Sea!
(He lifted up the words and
nodded them – with his smile. The smile comprehended Montenegro's troubled
history and sympathy with the brave struggles of the Montenegrin people.
He reached in his pocket and a
piece of metal slung on a ribbon, fell into my palm. «Major Jay Gatsby, I read, For Valour
Extraordinary.») Here another thing I always carry. A souvenir of
Oxford days. It was taken in Trinity Quad – the man on my left is now the Earl
of Doncaster. (There was Gatsby
looking a little, not much, younger – with a cricket bat in his hand.)
I'm going to make
a big request of you, today. I thought you ought to know something about me. I
didn't want you think I was just some nobody. You see, I usually find myself
among strangers because I drift here and there trying to forget the sad things
that happened to me.”41
While driving, Gatsby
scattered light through half Astoria and suddenly a motorcycle and a frantic
policeman rode alongside. Gatsby slowed down and taking a white card from his
wallet he waved it before the man's eyes. “Right you are, agreed the policeman tipping his cap,
know you next time, Mr Gatsby. Excuse me!
“What was that? asked
Nick Carraway.
I was able to do
the commissioner a favour once and he sends me a Christmas card every year,
answered Gatsby.”42
“The city (New York) seen from the Queensbury Bridge is always the city seen for the first time in its first wild
promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world.”43
It was noon. In a well-fanned
Forty-Second Street cellar, Nick met Gatsby for lunch.
“Mr Carraway, this is my
friend Mr Wolshiem. A small, flat-nosed Jew raised his large head and looked at
Nick his tiny eyes. «This is a nice restaurant here, but I like across
the street better!...
The old Metropolis. Filled
with faces dead and gone. Filled with friends gone now forever. I can't forget
so long as I live the night they shot Rosy Rosenthal there. It was six of us at
the table. Rosy had eaten and drunk a lot all evening. When it was almost
morning the waiter came up to him with a funny look and says that somebody
wants to speak to him outside. Rosy begins to get up and I pulled him down in
his chair.»
«Let the bastards come in here,
if they want you, but don't you, so help me, move outside this room.»
It was four
o'clock in the morning, then. But he went. He turned around in the door and
said «Don't let that waiter take away my coffee!»
Then, he went out
on the sidewalk and they shot him three times in his full belly and drove
away.”44
When Gatsby left the table to
make a telephone call, Wolfshiem explained he had met Gatsby “... just after the war. He was handsome to look at
and a perfect gentleman. He was the kind of man you'd like to take home and
introduce to your mother and sister. He would never so much as look at a
friend's wife.”45
Gatsby came from the telephone
call and sat at the table. Then, Mr Wolfshiem thanked the lunch and made an
excuse to leave the table saying «You're very polite, but I belong to another
generation. I am fifty years old and I won't impose myself on you any longer.»
«Who is he?» asked
Nick.
«Meyer Wolfshiem?
He's a gambler. He's the man who fixed the World's Series in 1919.»
«Why isn't he in
jail?»
Seeing Tom Buchanan on the
other side of the restaurant, Carraway asked Gatsby to come with him and
introduced Tom to Gatsby. They shook hands briefly and a strain, unfamiliar
look of embarrassment came over Gatsby's face. Nick and Tom changed some words
and when Nick turned toward Gatsby he was no longer there.
A popular Portuguese poet
António Aleixo from Vila Real de Sto. António (1899-1949) once said:
“Sei que pareço um ladrão ...
Mas há muitos que eu conheço
Que, sem parecer o que são,
São aquilo que eu pareço.”47
This is,
I know I'm looking like a thief
Though I know so many ones
Having not my looking at all
They are indeed what I'm not.
B – GATSBY AND DAISY'S ROMANCE
That afternoon, Nick Carraway
met Daisy's friend at the Plaza Hotel in the tea-garden. She told Nick how she
met and became a friend of Daisy, in those days, Daisy Fay. They lived in
Louisville and Daisy, two years older than her, was the most popular of all the
young girls there. All day long, the telephone rang in her house and excited
young officers from Cap Taylor demanded the privilege of monopolizing her that
night.
«Anyway, for an
hour» they said.
Daisy lived in a house with
the largest of the banners and the largest of the lawns.
One day, Daisy was eighteen;
her friend saw her sitting in her little white roadster with a lieutenant she
had never seen before.
“They were so engrossed in
each other that she didn't see her friend till she was five feet close. Daisy
asked her friend to say at the Red Cross she wouldn't be able to come that day.
While Daisy was talking, the officer looked at her in a way that every young
girl wants to be looked at some time.”48
She knew after he was Jay
Gatsby.
Four years passed over. It was
1917. The two friends didn't see each other much. Daisy went with people
slightly older than herself and with anyone at all.
Wild rumours were circulating about her – her mother had found her
packing her bag one winter night to go to New York and saying goodbye to a
soldier who was going overseas. “She was effectually prevented, but she wasn't on
speaking terms with her family for several weeks. After that, she didn't play
around with the soldiers anymore, but only a few flat-footed, short-sighted
young men in town, who couldn't get into the Army at all.”49
By the next Autumn, Daisy was
laughing again as ever. In February, she was engaged to a man from New Orleans.
In June, she married Tom Buchanan of Chicago “... with more pomp and circumstance than Louisville
ever knew before. He came down with a hundred people in four private cars and
hired a whole floor of the Muhlbach Hotel and the day before the wedding he
gave her a string of pearls valued at three hundred and fifty thousand
dollars.”50
She was the bridesmaid. Half
an hour before the bridal dinner she found Daisy drunk and crying. Next day at
five o'clock she married Tom Buchanan. They had a three months trip to the
South Seas and when they came back she was really mad about her husband.
The next April Daisy had her
little girl and they went to France for a year. When Daisy heard Nick
mentioning Gatsby's name at dinner she asked her friend to describe him and
afterwards she said in the strangest voice that he must be the man she used to
know.
Nick and Daisy's friend left
the Plaza and were driving through Central Park. Daisy said Gatsby bought that
house so that she would be just across the bay and Gatsby wanted to know if
Nick would invite Daisy to his house some afternoon and then let him come over.
He wanted Daisy to see his house and Nick's house was right next door.
She said she thought he had
half expected her to wander into one of his parties, some night, but Daisy
never did. Daisy shouldn't know about the aim of Nick's invitation.❐
CHAPTER VIII
DAISY AND GATSBY'S RE-UNION
When Nick Carraway came home
that night Gatsby's house was on fire from tower to cellar. Gatsby was waiting
for Nick and when Nick mentioned the fire, he turned his eyes towards it
absently. Nick said he was going to call up Daisy the next day and invite her
over there to tea.
«Oh, that's all
right, he said carelessly, I don't want to put you to any trouble.»
«How about the day
after tomorrow?» asked Nick. He
considered for a moment. Then, with reluctance «I want to get the grass cut» Gatsby said.
The day agreed upon was
pouring rain. At eleven o'clock a man in a raincoat came over to cut Nick's
grass. At two o'clock a greenhouse arrived with innumerable receptacles to
contain it. An hour later the front door opened nervously and Gatsby, in a
white flannel suit, silver shirt and gold-coloured tie, hurried him. He was pale and there were dark
signs of sleeplessness beneath his eyes.
At two minutes to four Gatsby
got up and informed Nick he was going home as nobody was coming to tea. Nick
pushed him and he sat down miserably and then a sound of a car was heard and
both jumped up and Nick went out into the yard.
When Nick and Daisy went in,
Gatsby wasn't there. Then, they heard knocking at the front door and there was Gatsby,
pale as death, saying no word and disappearing into the living room. Nick and
Daisy followed him and he muttered:
«We've met
before.»
«We haven't met
for many years.» said Daisy.
«Five years next
November.» completed Gatsby.
After half an hour Nick rejoined
them. The sun shone again and it stopped raining. Nick found them sitting at
either end of the couch. Daisy's face was smeared with tears and Gatsby was
simply confounding.
They came out and Gatsby
asked:
«Do you like my
house?»
«I love it, but I don't
see how you live there all alone.» said Daisy.
«It is always full
of interesting people, night and day. Celebrated people.»
And the three went to Gatsby's
house. He showed them the entire house. “He hadn't once ceased looking at Daisy and I think he
revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew
from her well-loved eyes. Sometimes too, he stared around at his possessions in
a dazed way, as though in her actual and astounding presence none of it was any
longer real. His bedroom was the simplest room of all. There Gatsby sat down
and shaded his eyes and began to laugh. «It's the funniest thing, old sport, he said hilariously, I can't – when I
try to -»”51
“He had passed visibly
through two states and was entering upon a third. After his embarrassment and
his unreasoning joy he was consumed with wonder at her presence. He had been
full of the idea so long, dreamed it right through to the end, waited with his
teeth set at an inconceivable pitch of intensity. Now, in the reaction, he was
running down like an over-wound clock.”52
«If it weren't for the mist we
could see your home across the bay.» said Gatsby. «You always
have a green light that burns all night at the end of your clock!» ❐
CHAPTER IX
THE BUCHANANS AT GATSBY'S PARTY
One Sunday afternoon Nick had
just arrived to Gatsby's house when Tom Buchanan arrived with a couple, all on
horse. They were just passing by to have a drink. Gatsby recognized Tom and
after the drinks he said almost aggressively.
«I know your
wife.» and Tom turned to
Nick.
Gatsby got in to get a hat and
a light overcoat after accepting Mrs Sloane invitation for dinner. Meanwhile
Tom said to Mr Sloane «My God, I believe the man's coming. She has a big
dinner party and he won't know a soul there!» Then he
frowned «I wonder where in the devil
he met Daisy. By God, I may be old fashioned in my ideas, but women run around
too much these days to suit me. They meet all kinds of crazy fish.»”53
They mounted their horses and
left. When Gatsby came out, they had gone.
The next Saturday, Tom and
Daisy came to the Gatsby's party. Gatsby asked Tom to look around and see the
faces of many people he had heard about. After doing that Tom said he didn't go
around very much and, in fact, he was just thinking he didn't know a soul
there. Then, Gatsby took the Buchanans ceremoniously from group to group and
introduced them. Then, Daisy exclaimed she had never met so many celebrities.
Daisy and Gatsby danced.
When they were leaving, Tom
demanded suddenly to Nick:
“«Who is this Gatsby,
anyhow? Some big bootlegger?»
«Where did you
hear that?» asked Nick.
«I didn't hear it.
I imagined it. A lot of these newly rich people are just big leggers, you know!» replied Tom.
«Not Gatsby!» answered Carraway.
«I'd like to Know
who he is and what he does, insisted Tom, and
I think I'll make a point of finding out.»”54
Gatsby asked Nick to stay
around until the end of the party. Then, he said to Nick that Daisy was not
happy and she didn't understand him. He asked her to say to Tom «I never loved you.»
When she were free, they would
go back to Louisville and be married from her house – just as if it were five
years ago.
Nick explained he couldn't
repeat the past, but Gatsby cried incredulously
«OF COURSE, WE CAN!»
CHAPTER X
NICK'S BIRTHDAY
After that party, Daisy
visited Gatsby quite often in the afternoon.
One day, it was Nick's
birthday and Daisy organized a lunch at her home for Nick and invited her best
friend and Gatsby, too. It happened to be a very hot day. Daisy introduced her
daughter to Gatsby explaining
Tom showed his house to
Gatsby. After lunch, Tom and Daisy weren't feeling comfortable and Tom's eyes
were always flashing between Gatsby and his wife.
When Nick and Gatsby got
alone, Nick remarked Daisy had got an indiscreet voice and Gatsby finished
adding
“«Her voice is full of
money!
That was it. I'd
never understood before ... HIGH IN A WHITE PALACE THE KING'S DAUGHTER,
THE GOLDEN GIRL ...»”56
After the lunch, they decided
to go to town. Tom decided to take and drive Gatsby's car and Gatsby would
drive Tom's. Nick and Daisy's friend were with Tom in Gatsby's car and Daisy
went with Gatsby in Tom's car following Tom.
Once in the car, Tom said to Nick “«You think I'm pretty dumb,
don't you? Perhaps I am, but I have a – almost a second sight, sometimes, that
tells me what to do. Maybe you don't believe that, but science - »”57
Tom stopped at Wilson's to
have some petrol and Wilson told Tom he wanted to go West with his wife because “«... I just got wised up to something funny the last
two days.»”58
While listening, Nick was
thinking that Wilson had discovered that “Myrtle had some sort of life apart from him in
another world. I stared at him and then at Tom who had made a parallel
discovery less than an hour before – and it occurred to me that there was no
difference between men, in intelligence or race, as profound as the difference
between the sick and the well.”59
At the same time in one of the
windows, Nick realized that Myrtle's eyes, wide with jealous terror, were fixed
not on Tom, but on Daisy's friend whom she took to be his wife.
In New York, as it was too
hot, they got a suite at Plaza Hotel. There, somehow, Tom asked Gatsby
“«What kind of a row are
you trying to cause in my house, anyhow?
I suppose the
latest thing is to sit back and let Mr Nobody from Nowhere make love to your
wife.
If that's the
idea, you can count me out...
Nowadays people
begin by sneering at family life and family institutions and next they'll throw
everything overboard and have intermarriage between black and white.”60
Tom started talking about his
discoveries about Gatsby and his connections with betting and bootlegging.
Daisy who was decided to stay with Gatsby, at the moment, was staring terrified
between Gatsby and her husband.
Gatsby denied everything,
defended his name, but Daisy was drawing further and further to herself, so he
gave up. Her frightened eyes told that whatever intentions, whatever courage
she had had, were definitely gone.
This time Tom took his car and
Gatsby his, but the companion was the same. When Myrtle saw Gatsby's car,
thought Tom was driving and “... rushed out into the dusk waving her hands and
shouting.”61 The car didn't stop and Myrtle died immediately from
the accident.
When Tom arrived to the accident,
Wilson's eyes fell upon Tom because Wilson identified the car Tom was driving
before, but Tom assured him he had just got a minute ago from New York. “That yellow car I was driving this afternoon wasn't
mine. I haven't seen it all afternoon.”62
When they arrived at Tom's
house, Nick didn't want to come in and meanwhile Gatsby appeared and asked
about the accident. Talking about it Nick asked
“«Was Daisy driving?»
«Yes» he said after a moment «but of course I'll say
I was. You see, when we left New York she was nervous and she asked me to drive
because she thought it would steady her to drive – and this woman rushed out at
us just as we were passing; a car was coming the other way. It all happened in
a minute, but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were
somebody she knew.
Well, first Daisy
turned away from the woman toward the other car and then she lost her nerve and
turned back. The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock.
“«She'll be all right,
tomorrow» he said presently «I'm just going to wait here and
see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness of this afternoon.»”63 Then, Nick offered himself to have a look inside to
see if there were any signs of a commotion.
Nick saw Daisy and Tom sitting
opposite each other, at the kitchen table with a plate of cold fried chicken
between them and two bottles of ale. He was talking intently across the table
at her and in his earnestness his hand had fallen upon and covered her own.
They weren't happy and yet they weren't unhappy either. There was an
unmistakable air of natural intimacy about the picture and nobody would have
said that they were conspiring together. ❐
CHAPTER XI
GATSBY ASSASSINATION
Nick and Gatsby spent the
night together just in case something happened. Gatsby made confidences about
Daisy and their romance. It was morning when Nick Carraway left. Then, he
shouted across the lawn “They're rotten crowd. You're worth the whole damn
bunch put together.”64
--------------------
Wilson became obsessed with
his wife's death. “«He murdered her.»
«It was an
accident, George!» - said a friend.
«I know.» he said definitely «I'm one of these trusting
fellas and I don't think any harm to nobody, but when I get to know a thing I
know it. It was the man in that car. She ran out to speak to him and he
wouldn't stop.»”65
-----------------------
At ten o'clock, Gatsby put his
bathing suit. At nine o'clock that day, the gardener told him “«I'm going to drain the pool today, Mr Gatsby. Leaves
will start falling pretty soon and then there's always trouble with the pipes.»
«Don't do it
today.» - answered Gatsby and then to
Nick «You know, old sport, I've never used that pool all summer?»”66
With the bathing suit, Gatsby
stopped at the garage for a pneumatic mattress. The chauffeur helped
to pump it up and he started for the pool. No-one came to visit him and no
telephone message arrived.
----------------------------
The chauffeur heard the shots.
Nick arrived and he, the chauffeur, the butler and the gardener hurried down to
the pool and took out Gatsby's corpse. Only after, the gardener saw Wilson's
corpse a little way off in the grass.
Nick called up Daisy half an
hour after they had found Gatsby's corpse, but the Buchanans had gone away
early that afternoon and taken baggage with them and had let no address.
At Gatsby's funeral were just
Nick Carraway and Gatsby's father, proud of his son; in spite of all the calls
and visits Nick did informing the occurrence.
“The rich are unhappy
because they have to face death
the poor because
they have to face life.” by BARALBA Fernando
CONCLUSION
I'm content I went through The Great Gatsby again after, perhaps twelve years.
It is a good picture of a
society. It has got a good collection of stereotypes who enlights the novel and
gives it a reality that, like the old popular short-stories we used to listen
to from grandparents, impresses the listeners, the readers and always gives a
thought, an alert.
Before concluding this work I
would like to mention that, as for me, Gatsby personifies The American Dream. Rockefeller
and some others, too. But as a dream, they were not able to live it or to enjoy
it. They spent a long time reaching that American Dream; consequently they
didn't have time to learn how to enjoy it. As old Portuguese people say
«One generation
spends their lives saving and working
for the next
generation to spend it all in one year.»
Gatsby, a middle class boy
from Minnesota, believing in the American Dream, visited Daisy Fay, from the
American upper class, with some army colleagues and got her attention and love.
From that moment, he knew his life would change. He fell in love, too; and the
world was in his hand.
When he lost contact with her,
his life turned up into trouble, but he was sure once with her again, the
happiness would come back. He prepared himself; he fought for it so long to
deserve her. She was heaven he once reached and changed his will and hopes.❐
«Let us forgive
others for the harm that they do to us
even if they don't
forgive us for the harm that we have not done to them.» by BARALBA Fernando
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ALEIXO António, Inéditos, 1ª edição, Loulé, 1978.
Declaration of Independence of USA, Paris, 1776.
Fiction Since World War I, The Literature of the United States
FITZGERALD F. S. The Great Gatsby, Penguin Books, The 40th edition,
USA, 1985. ❐
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