The great gatsby

[Cypher]

What are your opinions about it? an what do you think the author is trying to do/say?

[Azygous]

hmm....i read that book last semester of my junior year....it seems to me that every book we read that semester was a special message to me.

i was obsessed with a girl that second semester in my english class....but by the end i wasn't suicidal anymore...

i didn't pay much attention to the social message of the great gatsby, but i know it was there and it criticized the upper class especially. however, i never noticed anything positive about the lower classes....

[Cypher]

im supposed to be doing a paper on it, and wonder what you guys think/thought of it...im reading it for my junior year of highschool also!

[MJM]

We talked about this book in this thread a while back.

http://www.che-lives.com/cgi/community/top...um=21&topic=261 (http://www.che-lives.com/cgi/community/topic.pl?forum=21&topic=261)

Some of the posters aren't here as much now, but I think their comments are worth checking out. My opinion hasn't changed at all.

[vox]

Personal opinion? Overrated. Fitzgerald was a great stylist, one of the best ever, I'd say, but, though the book has gained in prominence over the last few decades, there are some flaws.

Example: Accidents of convenince (in this case "accident" being the operative word.)

We forgive Shakespeare Desdemona's handkerchief because he was a wonerfully poetic writer who laid bare the intricacies of human relations. Scott Fitzgerald, however, though a good writer, does not merit the same forgiveness.

Beyond that, I think the most important thing to remember is that Nick is almost an archetype of the unreliable narrator. The reader cannot trust him (though I think that is something that's lost on many who read the book.) Throughout the narrative a dichotomy should develop between what the reader knows and what Nick, so personally involved in the situation, actually says. There's a huge tip off about this somewhere in there, but it's been a long time since I last read it. Nick writes a letter to his girl, and says something about signing the letter with "love." Or is that one to Jordan? Hmm. I don't think so, but it's in there, and it's a really big clue that Nick is a liar. The author didn't just accidently put that in there, either. We're supposed to understand that Nick isn't to be trusted in the way he presents things, but, of course, he has to tell the reader enough to understand that he's not reliable.

I'd go back and read it again, but I read it something like three times in three years. And I didn't like it any of those times. Personally, I prefer Hemingway.

vox

[man in the red suit]

Quote: from Cypher on 1:36 am on Feb. 14, 2003
im supposed to be doing a paper on it, and wonder what you guys think/thought of it...im reading it for my junior year of highschool also!


dude, me too. I'm on the second chapter. I'm loving it so far and I've only read two chapters.

[man in the red suit]

if you're writing an english paper on it then I heard that you should pay attention to the colors most especially, car accidents or reckless driving, eye sight, and wastelands whether they be a desert or symbolic of something else. well that was what my english teacher told me so there.

[Cypher]

awesome...tell me what you find out, and il tell you what i find out

[man in the red suit]

sounds like a plan. ;)

[Cypher]

i added you to by buddy list! lol

[Rastafari]

If you want some good short stories, read Flannery O' Conner or Shirley Jackson or my favorite of the three, Ernest Hemingway. Some of Fitzgerald's stuff is pretty good, but his friends were better on the whole.

[El Brujo]

Shit, you people are reading it pretty late. I read it at the beginning of my sophomore year. Anyhow, yeah, its damn good, especially when the wannabe-bourgeoisie **** gets hit by a car. :)

[Rastafari]

True. and when the drunk remarks that all of the books are real, which made me think "Is the 'information' they contain real? Or is it a cardboard lie?"

Sorry for that friends

Cypher, whats your buddy icon? I think I know, but its hard for me to see.

[Cypher]

A man wearing a gas mask, i need to resize it but an to lazy! and do you mean that drunk in gatsby's libraby nicks first time around? and what "cardboard lies" tdo you mean..in other words..expand

[praxis1966]

Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap. The Great Gatsby was crap. Pop pulp fiction crap. Most of his work was published as serials in magazines like Harper's Weekly. Crap, all of it. If you want to read some REAL Lost Generation literature you should read The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway.

[man in the red suit]

I know this thread has been getting pretty old but I have finished reading the book and would like to give my interpretation of it.

In the book we are presented with a variety of different colors. each color has a different meaning. Yellow for instance, symbolizes decay. tom's jacket was yellow, Willson's hair was yellow, the outside of gatsby's car was yellow, TJ Eckleberg's glasses were yellow, as was the light in the room near Myrtle's corpse as well as the brick on the corner of the wasteland. green represents Gatsby's dream and is perhaps one of the most important colors of the story. The interior of Gatsby's car is green, as is the light at the end of the dock in which he reaches for near the first few chapters. Daisy even tells Nick to give her a green card because she's giving out green. This shows that she realizes that she represents the physical embodiment of gatsby's dream which is money. Gatsby envisioned a perfect world for himself with daisy in it and as we see, gatsby was never truly able to obtain the American dream for himself.


This sounds like driveling nonsense, I'm sure but the bottom line is that you should really pay attention to the colors in the story.

(Edited by man in the red suit at 12:16 am on Mar. 17, 2003)

[Blindrock]

This happens to be one of the best book i have ever read. It is one of the books that you can't put down. I highly recomend it.

[alexia]

I've written an essay on the presentation of Daisy for my A-levels in the UK.
Its important to notice the colour white which is always associated with her and what it symbolises - purity innocence but also blankness and vacancy.
Notice too the many references to drifting and aimless life and to surface images - often the rich are referred to as glittering etc. but what is beneath?
The ash heaps - the reality of life that Gatsby and the others are hiding away from and Dr Eckelburgs glasses = ofcourse God.
Dont trust Nick, he's always biased and conceals things.
Esp look at the last page or so - read into it closely theres so much there! eg Nick erasing the swear word from the step - again concealment of what he does not like.
And Myrtles death - when her left breast is cut off reflects in the reference to America as something like the "new green breast" (i havent got the book here so im trying to remember!) ;)
Cars = extravagance and also the aimlessness
Ofcourse - the AMERICAN DREAM!! You have to talk about that or u just havent seen the true meaning of the book.
Compare it to TS Eliots "The Wasteland" which was published the yr before n is based on v similar lines.......
I could go on for ever!!!!! Theres so much in it.
I think its an amazing book simply because theres so much in there!
After all this if u dont get an A theres no justice!