I personally found more striking the following moment in the novel:
- Gatsby's death. I felt sorry for Gatsby ,because he died alone. Not even his name or his possession could save him. None of his false friends bothered to show up for his funeral, and Fitzgerald spend some time describing how the house just stood there… empty.
As I read the novel I was thinking that in The Great Gatsby no one is happy with marriage, love, with life in general. And although the characters are always in the company of others, the isolation is an internal one. Gatsby, despite throwing lavish parties with hundreds of people, dies alone.
The text made me think about the tendency we all have to believe that if we have enough money, we can manipulate time, staying perpetually young, and buy our happiness through materialistic spending. Throughout the novel, there are many parties, a hallmark of the rich. But each festivity ends in waste or violence…
I would ask the author:
-Did you write more of yourself into the character of Nick or the character of Gatsby, or are your qualities found in both characters?
Because I would like to know if he felt represented with any of the characters.
Deep reflections! Congrats! Interesting question for the author: everybody usually assumes the correlation with Gatsby.
ReplyDeleteNB: F. spends; represented with vs identified with