This chapter is the saddest of them all. It shows what was achieved throughout the novel and how it all comes crashing down. Gatsby, in this chapter, still has the hope that Daisy will come and be with him. To the reader, it's quite evident that this will not happen unfortunately. Nick Carraway on the other hand understands what is going on. He tries to feel better by talking with Jordan Baker, but it really does not get him anywhere. Earlier he had visited Gatsby in the hopes of talking with him, in which they did, but the conversation leaned towards how he longed for the days in Louisville in 1917 where Daisy and him had been loving life together. Unusual for Nick, he suggests that Gatsby "move on" from Daisy and live how he wants to live. But Gatsby refuses to do such a thing and tells Nick why, just like a Romeo and Juliet story. The story is moved up to show the literal things that had actually occurred on the day of Myrtle's death. It became apparent that Mr. Wilson had found out about Myrtle's affair. Myrtle actually had ran into the street that night because she had thought that the yellow car driving was actually Tom's. Wilson then infers to himself that whoever was in the vehicle was obviously the person having the affair. Because rumors had spread profusely, he came to the conclusion that Gatsby was that man. And without using fact, Mr. Wilson goes to Gatsby's home while Gatsby is in his pool for the first time, and shoots him to death. Unfathomably, Nick goes to Gatsby's house and sees Gatsby's body in the pool. But instead of screaming or shouting like an actual human being, he keeps cool, calm, and collected with himself thinking about Gatsby's life without Daisy. A very sad plot-end in my personal opinion. All that work built to get the girl he loved, only to have it fall down and bury him underneath it.
Ironically in this chapter, Tom Buchanan begins to suspect that Daisy Buchanan, his wife, is having an affair and he also finds out that his mistress is moving away with her own husband. So it is okay for Tom to have a mistress but gets mad for Daisy having an affair? But it makes more sense now because Tom is losing both sides where as the girls are just losing one. Still pretty stupid. Anyways, scene shifts to Gatsby because Gatsby is apparently no longer hosting his immense parties that everyone in the city went to. In fact, he got rid of a lot of his employees working at the mansion and kept only a few loyal servants. The majority of the time however, is spent with Gatsby and Daisy having their affair in the big mansion. As Tom begins to suspect more and more, he decides to invite Gatsby and Nick for lunch at Tom's large mansion. The point of this is to setup the big confrontation between Tom and Gatsby. Because Tom's mistress is leaving, he needs to at least keep hold of his wife. This was the point. In a plan made by Gatsby, Daisy was supposed to tell Tom that she never loved him and that she wanted to be with Gatsby. This did not work. She was conflicted, because she loved both. The situation does not get better when Gatsby and Tom begin to actually fight figuratively and somewhat literally each other over this girl that they both want. The "lunch" ends, Daisy runs out screaming, and Gatsby drives away in his yellow car. Oddly enough, during the night, Gatsby drives into the industrial wasteland and, without seeing in front of him, runs over Myrtle! Myrtle dies and the problem influxes. Gatsby speeds off without checking on Myrtle. Later on, Tom, Nick, and Jordan drive through this part of town and see a big commotion in the middle of the street, and to Tom's anguish, he finds out it is the body of his mistress. Witnesses tell him that the car that hit her is yellow, and inferring largely, Tom figures it must be Gatsby who ran her over. Back at the house, Nick finds Gatsby and Gatsby tells Nick his truth that Daisy was with him and that she was the one who ran Myrtle over. But because Gatsby cares about Daisy so much, he decides that he will take the blame. Uh oh. To me, the point here is to setup a foreshadowing of the last chapters unfortunately. What comes up, must go down.
This chapter centers around the literal truths of Mr. Gatsby. Everything he has said in the past was essentially a lie to cover up his life and background. Nick founds out more information from Gatsby. It is mentioned that Jay Gatsby was actually born as James Gatsby to a poor, farming family from the mid-west. Once grown up, he traveled to the Great Lakes and met a very wealthy man named Dan Cody who was on his yacht and was headed towards a giant storm that would have killed him were it not for Gatsby to arrive on the scene. Because Dan Cody appreciated Gatsby so very much, Cody allowed Gatsby to become a sort of apprentice to him. He taught Gatsby everything he needed to know such as, "how to talk, how to dress, and how to make money". Again, Gatsby knew that Cody had a large amount of money to his name, and if he was on good terms with Cody, Gatsby might inherit the money. This plan was interrupted when Cody's mistress did not allow Gatsby the inheritance and instead was given $25,000 for compensation. This did not fret Gatsby what so ever, as he made it his life mission to become very wealthy just like Dan Cody. The reader also, by now, knew that Gatsby was indeed in World War II, and beforehand had been together with Daisy. However, Gatsby was so caught up in the war that Daisy never received any notice of him being alive, so she married a wealthy man that the audience already knows as Tom Buchanan. When Gatsby comes back from the war and sees that Daisy has moved on, he sulks into a depression and lonely lifestyle. He essentially stalked Daisy and her husband to New York and bought the house across the lake and hosted these parties in the hopes of getting Daisy to come to just one of them. To me, this is a very deep commitment for Gatsby. He truly does care for Daisy, and wants to be with her again, but he just can't seem to catch a break...until now. Unfortunately for Gatsby, it is said that Daisy wasn't sure if she wanted to go back with Gatsby even now. Gatsby even goes to Nick towards the end of the chapter and tells him that Daisy did not like the party at all. Gatsby is getting more anxious; is he going to just lose his sanity if his dream girl won't commit to him?
In this chapter, the reader discovers the motives behind Jay Gatsby's lavish parties and lonely lifestyle. All of those things were for one person, and one person only: Daisy Buchanan. Jay Gatsby, one day, tells Nick to invite Daisy over to Nick's house for a "cup of tea". Nick, now fully aware of the situation at hand does the moral thing and invites her over. She accepts, unbeknownst to her that Jay Gatsby will be waiting for her at the house. Throughout this entire time, Gatsby is nervous and anxious with everything. He redoes Nick's entire yard and brings tens of bouquets of flowers to Nick's house to spice it up a little and to get Daisy's admiration. When Daisy is almost late at the set time, Gatsby tells Nick he wants to end the invitation, but at the last second Daisy Buchanan arrives. While Jay Gatsby hides in the house, Nick let's Daisy in and tells Nick how she loves what he has done to his own place. Nowhere to be found, Jay Gatsby suddenly appears a few feet in front of Daisy, and both just stop in their tracks and look at each other in reminiscence. Funnily enough, this lasts without them talking for many moments. The author probably added this in in order to show that there was a deep, rich connection between the two that the reader could not humanly comprehend. When they actually start talking, both appear to be completely awkward, adding to the weird ambivalence of the matter. Later on, Gatsby brings Daisy and Nick to his own mansion which was right next to Nick's to Daisy's surprise. Oddly enough, everything that Gatsby has done was for Daisy. He seems to have no care in the world for anyone else, and one could possibly say that he was just using Nick since Nick and Daisy were related. Could his actions be self-motivated? Well, that's for me and everyone else to opinionate on.
At the beginning of this chapter, Nick Carraway begins by listing a large amount of people who have/are at Mr. Gatsby's party. A little later the scene shifts from a indirect situation, to a more subtle and direct manner in which Mr. Gatsby and Nick are in a car together driving to a restaurant to have lunch. In this part, Mr. Gatsby tells Nick the apparent "truth" about himself, in which he tells Nick that he was born into a wealthy family from the mid-west United States, and that he inherited their money after his family had passed away. Noticing the dialogue, it seemed to me that Mr. Gatsby was lying. The general tone of his voice seemed to be hiding something, but anyways Gatsby told Nick that he "changed his lifestyle" after the money was given to him. Gatsby also showed Nick a medal from World War II that was given to him from Montenegro for his war contributions, for proof. Now that Nick and Mr. Gatsby had met and were "kind of friends", Mr. Gatsby would later on try to spend more time with Nick, be friendlier, for current unknown reasons. Once met up at lunch, a new character, Mr. Wolfsheim is introduced as they have lunch. Funny to me is, the place where they have lunch is a secret alcoholic bar. (Prohibition). Anyways the three characters talk and Wolfsheim bring sup the notice of a possible business venture with Nick Carraway, but Gatsby interrupts and tells him that "he's not the guy". It's obvious to me that Mr. Gatsby and Wolfsheim are up to some sneaky business operations, how else would Gatsby still have a flow of money coming to him? He doesn't work for a living, besides the fact that he has millions probably hidden away in the bank. And the rest of the chapter is just a bunch of lovey-dovey plotline for relationship development between Jordan Baker and Nick, as well as Gatsby and possibly Daisy.
This chapter is important to the story, as it begins to show Nick as a person of uniqueness in the plot. The author elaborates on the fact that Nick was the only one who received an actual invitation to the party. Nick describes in scrutinizing detail how the parties at Gatsby's house are formed and implemented, and just the sheer size of it all. In the chapter, he meets up with Jordan Baker and together with a woman named Lucille, they share rumors floating around the mysterious Jay Gatsby such as him possibly being raised in Germany, or being in the American army at the time, or once killing a man, or even being an educated "Oxford Man", (Pg. 44-48). But in this chapter, you finally get to actually meet Mr. Gatsby, which gives the reader a sign of relief as the tensions settle down and a large part of the story is put in place. He is revealed after Nick shows the man an invitation and Gatsby telling him about being a "bad host". However, the biggest question needing to be answered here now, is why DOES Mr. Gatsby throw all of these extravagant parties?
With a discussion in class about Chapter 2, a big theme that was surprisingly talked about by the teacher and students in the class included sexuality and undertones that had to be debated about. For example, on (Pg. 1) you had this sentence: "Occasionally a line of gray cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak, and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-gray men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud, which screens their obscure operations from your sight." In words that will not be expressed here, there was a big debate on whether this part of the book talked about sexuality and Nick in general. Honestly to me, we're looking way too into these parts of the novel but I can see where people are getting to this. It's extremely subjective as it could literally be a literal thing, or some "behind-the-lines" situation that some people believe is true. Some things are more visible than others, and this sentence just doesn't clearly show a distinctiveness of anything, at least to me.
Anyways, this chapter introduces Tom Buchanan's mistress: Myrtle Wilson. Tom Buchanan lets Nick off at a stop and tells Nick, "I want you to meet my girl." (Pg. 24). The two of them arrive at George Wilson's auto shop and clearly see how Myrtle and George are different in every way possible. George seems like a lifeless man with no future, while Myrtle seems like a driven person who has some sort of purpose in life. It is also later found out that Tom and Myrtle have their own apartment that is used pretty much as a double life kind of thing. They invite a bunch of people and it is seen that Myrtle removes her dirty clothes and puts on glitzy and rich clothing that changes her persona and lifestyle. During the party at the apartment when Tom mentions the word Daisy, Myrtle begins to say it in an angry way, "Daisy! Daisy Daisy!" until Tom punches her in the nose and breaks it. More discussion was had with the elevator scene with Nick and Mr. McKee (The tenant below the apartment and where they meet at the party) in an elevator and the lever boy says, "Keep your hands off the lever." speaking to Mr. McKee. Earlier he had said "Com to lunch someday." All on (Pg. 37). It is suggested that they have some sort of growing relationship that could expand over the book. This is essentially confirmed at the end of the chapter (Pg. 38) with "I was standing beside his bed and he was sitting up between the sheets, clad in his underwear, with a great portfolio in his hands." Implying that they slept together. Now this is a better evidence implying that there was some sort of sexuality theme occurring throughout the book rather than the sentence mentioned at the top. The Great Gatsby opens up with the narrator, Nick Carraway, establishing his Ethos in order to give the reader a sense of establishment being present. He does this by talking about his moral compass that was passed onto him by his family, specifically his father. To hold true to the values passed down, the narrator's father tells the audience of a quote that changed his perspective of the world for the better, “Whenever you feel like criticizing any one, just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.” What the narrator also does, is setup the settings for the story (New York City and Long Island). He opens himself up as being a bondsman giving the reader more personal knowledge on himself, and explains how he wants his own life to be more intriguing; the narrator decides to live in a house that sides along the "mysterious Mr. Gatsby or Jay Gatsby" who lives in a ginormous mansion. In a different moment of time, Nick Carraway decides to visit Daisy Buchanan, who is the narrator's cousin. Also met is Tom Buchanan (Daisy's husband) and Jordan Baker (Daisy's childhood friend), both of whom Nick grows closely as the book progresses. Later on, it's opened up that Tom has been having an affair with a mistress when Nick and Jordan find out. Daisy is told of this but disregards it as she does not want the situation to unravel and ruin a great marriage/life. Near the end of the chapter, you see Mr. Gatsby coming outside of his mansion but the narrator is hesitant to call out. I believe that Nick does not want to get in the way of Gatsby and therefore he leaves him be, and as a result Mr. Gatsby simply disappears into the night.
The way I see it, Nick Carraway is essentially intimidated by the people he has met, however he is in awe and fascination with the mysterious Gatsby. There is reason to believe that the narrator wants to be just like Gatsby, but Nick just does not have the money and influence to make it happen. He also feels intimidated because of Tom Buchanan, as he has a lot of money too. The chapter helps to build up the base for the majority of these characters with Tom being a large, provocative person and seemingly mean to others. There is also Jordan Baker who Nick is inferred as being infatuated with, and Daisy who just wants a "perfect" life in some aspect. Actually, to outsiders, Daisy and Tom look like a perfect couple but really they have dark secrets lying inside of them which do not make them perfect. In How Soccer is Ruining America by Stephen H. Webb, the use of heavy irony and opinionated
stances by the author is prevalent within each negative point he has to say about the sport of soccer. He asks the audience this, "What other game, to put it bluntly, is so boring?". He proceeds to answer his own rhetorical questions with, what is thought to be, the hope of pissing off his audience and affirming his stance for the article. A big use of his grammar is eloquent and verbally loved throughout, but contradicted with his supposed viewpoints, but of course that is just an opinion. The large chunk of the article goes along as a list of four points that smack the idea of soccer being any good whatsoever. On the first one, he talks about how humans were given two hands with fingers including opposable thumbs by God and that we should be using them for things such as throwing items and praying all while mentioning that the use of our feet, instead of our hands, is primitive and that the hands are "divine" in the eyes of God which we see as a connection to Christianity which validates the ethos of having religion. His second point contrasts the sport of baseball to soccer and gets the emotions rolling out at an attempt of persuasion to the reader. His reminiscence of baseball and how it was so exciting and thrilling is a big illusionary tactic to get a reader to understate the significance of soccer being enjoyable. The third point has to do with soccer being a "foreign invasion", or an imported product of European sport. "Soccer is a European sport because it is all about death and despair", he says. For infamous circumstances, it's subtlety assumed that he says this because of World War I and World War II and what non-goodness Europe has cranked out in the past. A large ruse to get people upset, which is really what he's trying to get out here and show how terrible a sport it is. Lastly, and apparently, soccer is a girl's sport by his words. His sexist claims such as soccer being as feminine as childbirth and women having no "bloodlust" for practically any other sport goes to show how he thinks soccer really is in general, weak. Before the ending of the article, the author uses hyperbole and political party nonsense to show how soccer even came about which induces the reader to naturally think this man is a nutcase. However, reading further along, he begins to confuse the reader by contradicting everything that he has said in the article up to this point. He reasons with the reader with explanations for why soccer is popular and how it actually is good for parents. "I read books on the sidelines during the game, and this embarrasses my daughter to no end. That is my one way of protesting the rise of this pitiful game", which the author writes and makes the reader really wonder if what he has said above is partly true in its entirety. "Nonetheless, I must say that my kids and I come home from a soccer game a very happy family", as this is the last sentence of the piece, the author somehow gets to ironically experience some sort of satisfaction from a soccer game. Mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio, spoke to hundreds of people the other day at the funeral of Police Officer Wenjian Liu who was shot execution-style in his police car along with another Officer Rafael Ramos. While delivering the speech, around half of the police officers attending said funeral turned their backs to Bill de Blasio in a move of resistance towards de Blasio. These police officers believe that the mayor just doesn't seem to "get it" and how this is affecting the city and its inhabitants. This speech is really dedicated to the American people. The execution of those two cops was a response to the deaths of unarmed citizens in other parts of the country that became gobbled up and inflated by a 24/7 news broadcast, since as we know the major news conglomerates do this to provoke and saturate the public. He said earlier that his biracial son "had to be trained" in the event of ever being confronted in front of cops; because of the statement made, this caused many weary citizens as now everyone could see that even the mayor of New York City couldn't trust his own cops. Back to the speech, ethos and pathos is shown when he almost starts to tear up talking about the events that have occurred. Throughout rest of the speech, he attempts to relate with the public and sympathize with everyone, but as you've probably seen in the news cycle, nobody really is taking his word for the things he's saying in effect essentially creating more tension and distrust. The cops who turned their backs to the mayor during it all just comes to show that there really isn't any cooperation and trust between the local government and the police force which really is a clear problem in this day and age. You need that trust and cooperation and this has now pretty much caused a lot of other cities to look at themselves and see if they have it.
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AuthorJustin Lavergne Archives
May 2015
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