what does gatsby tell nick he wants daisy to do?
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From the mass of gushy Goodreads posts I've read it seems widely held that Jay Gatsby'south beloved for Daisy was so consuming that he earned a fortune in order to win her dorsum from Tom Buchanan.
To me there is petty testify that love was Gatsby's principal motivation. He was only a hyper-ambitious young man, mayhap bi-polar, like today'due south Ted Turner.
Simply allow the states examine the evidence.
Almost halfway through the book we larn through Jordan Bakery that Gatsby wants to run across Daisy. Until then in that location has been only a hint or two (Daisy: "What Gatsby?") at that place may be annihilation betwixt them. Here is the chat between Nick and Jordan later on Gatsby has asked her to accommodate a meeting through Nick:
(p.63) Nick: "It was a foreign coincidence," I said.
"But it wasn't a coincidence at all."
"Why not?"
"Gatsby bought that firm and then that Daisy would exist just across the bay."
Then it had not been only the stars to which he had aspired on that June night. He came alive to me, delivered suddenly from the womb of his purposeless splendor.
"He wants to know," continued Jordan, "if you'll invite Daisy to your house some afternoon and then let him come over."
(Jordan, p.64) "...he says he's read a Chicago paper for years on the chance of catching a glimpse of Daisy's name.
Here is a weakness of the book. These crucial grapheme-revealing bits are delivered not with the force of a assuming declaration from Gatsby the ostensible hero, simply every bit third-hand gossip from Jordan through Nick. Gossip is e'er suspect. Heresay is inadmissible in court, but in a novel? Meh.
We don't know how much of these juicy tidbits were fabricated up or embellished past Jordan, or fifty-fifty Nick. Only it's all we accept to keep so we accept information technology, some of u.s. grudgingly.
Probably based on Fitzgerald himself and Ginevra Male monarch, his first fiancee (and a prima debutante in Atlanta, Georgia,) Gatsby and Daisy see as impulsive, almost hypo-manic personalities. Such people are capable of astonishing feats of energy and are often well-rewarded in the arts and business world.
Just let united states of america non confuse obsession with love. One time the hormones become going, and clearly Gatsby ignited Daisy's and vice-versa, there'southward no fashion to guess the quality of their relationship until the biological juices run their course. But the book ends before the hormonal phase has passed.
Gatsby'due south impulsive drive and hyper-appetite has been well demonstrated outside his relationship with Daisy.
Equally a teenager he changes his name and apprentices himself to a wealthy yachtsman for five years. Before going to war he socializes with fifty-fifty more wealthy people, even posing every bit one at a party where he meets Daisy. He as well distinguishes himself in boxing during WW I, or at least says he did. After Gatsby dies his father testifies that "Jimmy" was always ambitious, confirming this aspect of his personality.
That Jay Gatsby seduces someone's married woman because he feels a prior claim on her only demonstrates an impulsive lack of self control. And using other people to get to her is not very heroic.
But Nick is clearly swept upwards by the thought that Gatsby's passion for Daisy is driven by overwhelming beloved, and considering Nick is narrating the reader gets yanked along with him.
(Nick, p.63) "He had waited five years and bought a mansion where he dispensed starlight to coincidental moths--and so he could 'come over' some afternoon to a stranger's garden."
This is not first-hand information from observing or speaking with Gatsby but Nick's interpretation of his behavior through something Jordan has said.
As for the parties beingness for Daisy'due south benefit, here'due south the just reference I can find:
(p.63) "'I think he one-half expected her to wander into i of his parties, some nighttime,' went on Hashemite kingdom of jordan."
"Half-expected" falls short of the high devotion required of the romantic view that Gatsby threw improvident parties primarily to attract Daisy.
The more than plausible reason for the parties is that they were integral to Gatsby's role as shill for law-breaking boss Woflsheim. These elaborate soirées were a business expense in the dirty business organisation of making connections to pedal junk or counterfeit bonds and other such illicit activities.
It was the Roaring Twenties leading up to the Crash of '29, when Wall Street corruption was at its extant highest. Booze and piece of cake sexual practice were lubricants for the engine of corruption that caused the Bang-up Depression.
(Not to digress, but history is repeating itself. Wall Street fought regulation and nosotros got the Reagan era junk bail-fueled S&L Crisis, the Energy Crisis, and the sub-prime mortgage-fueled Bush Recession. Thanks to the repeal of Glass Steagall, the gnomes of Wall Street still apply our savings accounts equally collateral for their games of roulette. Unconscionable greed is back in full swing, sex and porn are at historic highs and guild is brimful with drugs of all stripes. Nosotros are riding for another difficult fall.)
(p.74) "'Look at this,' said Gatsby apace. 'Here'southward a lot of clippings--well-nigh you.' They stood side by side examining information technology."
And so, out of love or obsessiveness, Gatsby kept a scrapbook of memorabilia near Daisy. Stalkers do this, too.
(P.76) "There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams--not through her own error only because of the colossal vitality of his illusion."
Here Nick alludes to the extraordinarily exaggerated nature of Gatsby's elaborate imagination concerning Daisy.
(P.76) "His hand took hold of hers, and she said something low in his ear as he turned toward her with a rush of emotion. I call up that phonation held him nigh, with its fluctuating, feverish warmth, because it couldn't be overdreamed--that vocalisation was a deathless song."[emphasis added]
Here Nick describes the hormonal spiral, Daisy is responding to Gatsby's courtship display of wealth and Gatsby is further turned on by her response. And Nick the observer is speculating nearly Gatsby'south reaction to Daisy's vocalization, doubtlessly tapping his own euphoric courting experiences.
(p.86) Hither Nick is speculating on what is going through Daisy'due south mind as she glances back toward Gatsby's mansion while getting into her limousine. "What would happen now, in the dim incalculable hours? Perhaps some unbelievable guest would arrive, a person infinitely rare and to exist marveled at, some authentically radiant immature girl who with ane fresh glance at Gatsby, ane moment of magical encounter, would blot out those five years of unwavering devotion."
Nick the omniscient narrator is reading Daisy'due south listen and Gatsby'southward, telling instead of showing via action or dialog. What author gets away with such weak delivery of vital character details?
(p.87) Daisy and Tom have left the political party and Gatsby has asked Nick to hang effectually. Nick: "He was silent, and I guessed at his unutterable low.
'I feel far away from her,' he said. 'It'south difficult to make her empathise.'
'You hateful virtually the dance?'
'The dance?' He dismissed all the dances he had given with a snap of his fingers. 'Erstwhile sport, the trip the light fantastic is unimportant.'
He wanted aught less of Daisy that she should go to Tom and say, 'I never loved yous.' ...they were to go dorsum to Louisville and exist married from her business firm--only as if it were five years ago." [accent added]
It is non clear whether Nick is paraphrasing something Gatsby said or if this is more of his heed reading. This is of import material. Why not have Gatsby speak for himself? Is it considering Fitzgerald tin can't resist using poetic language and it would be out of grapheme for Gatsby? Has Nick earned such credibility that nosotros trust his judgement to this degree?
"'I wouldn't ask too much of her,' I ventured. 'You can't repeat the past.'
'Can't repeat the by?' he cried incredulously. 'Why, of form you tin can!'
He looked around him wildly, as if the past were lurking here in the shadow of his business firm, merely out of reach of his hand.
'I'1000 going to fix everything simply the way it was before,' he said, nodding determindly. 'She'l see.'"
Side by side comes a key moment in the novel during which Nick seems to merge identities with Gatsby and express his thoughts in a nearly poetic fashion. He dos this elsewhere with Daisy, but hither Nick seems to inhabit Gatsby's mind as he interprets his thoughts and memories of Daisy.
(p.87) Nick: "He talked a lot nigh the past, and I gathered that he wanted to recover something, some thought of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy. His life had been confused and disordered since then [when?], simply if he could in one case return to a sure starting identify and go over it all slowly, he could observe out what that thing was...
...I night, five years before, they had been walking down the street when the leaves were falling, and they came to a place where at that place were no trees and the sidewalk was white with moonlight. They stopped there..."
Nick goes on to describe the encounter in more exquisite poetic detail than Gatsby was incapable of.
"Out of the corner of his middle Gatsby saw that the blocks of the sidewalk actually formed a ladder and mounted to a surreptitious identify in a higher place the trees--he could climb to information technology, if he climbed alone, and one time there he could suck on the pap of life, gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder."
Nick goes on to describe the magical buildup to their magical kiss. So the buss itself.
"Then he kissed her. At his lips' touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete."
These are Gatsby's memories expressed in an elaborate language that is strange to him--Nick's language, Fitzgerald'due south.
"Through all he said, even through his appalling sentimentality, I was reminded of something--an elusive rhythm, a fragment of lost words, that I had heard somewhere a long time ago."
Then hither it is, Nick is practically admitting that he is channeling for Fitzgerald himself--that Nick and Gatsby are two sides of his own personality--that all three accept shared the same experience of Daisy (or Genevra or Zelda or whomever,)
Nick has suddenly go more channeler than narrator.
How could Fitzgerald have allowed Gatsby the honor of describing that heavenly experience of his first osculation with Genevra? He couldn't. So he broke character and gave Nick the power of omniscience to depict it in the linguistic communication the event deserved.
And so the question remains: where is the evidence that Gatsby did it all for Daisy?
The evidence lies not in Gatsby'southward deeds nor the words he has spoken; it lies in Nick's channeling narration, his passionate poetic language fired by Fitzgerald'due south retention of Genevra.
The book is a convolution of 3 inseparable personalities. Gatsby represents Fitzgerald's public persona, his unbounded young self, the mode Fitzgerald felt on alcohol, wild and and powerful, and successful, the way Fitzgerald's female parent would like. Nick represents Fitzgerald'south inner* self, and both, you could say all iii, worshiped the idealistic "promises of life" Scott Fitzgerald experienced as a kid in his doting mother personified in Daisy.
Fitzgerald doesn't accept to sell us on the depth of Gatsby's devotion through his deeds and action because Nick the channeling narrator stands betwixt Gatsby and the reader interpreting his thoughts and deeds in a way that suits Fitzgerald's own romantic fantasies. The egg of bias is dripping from Nick'due south narrational jaw forward from page i where he says, "If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, there was something gorgeous virtually him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life... ."
*This idea originated in a word thread on Goodreads.com, where the pace was fast and furious. Information technology's hard to remember who said what first, but a guy named Matthew said something similar.
The page numbers, though non vital, are one curiosity that might be important. Reason being that in that location are so many versions of Gatsby floating around, some that are at best flawed compared to what Fitzgerald originally intended or wanted published.
On the financial note: Didn't you hear, "Greed is skillful for America". ;)
Non sure. Any one is in the Nook version. Information technology's page 63 out of 140, so just short of halfway.
Greed IS good, only unregulated greed has proven fourth dimension and once more to exist destructive.
(1) As you mention, Nick is the narrator so some of the motivation is coming to him second hand. Nick never comes out and asks Gatsby most his feelings for Daisy, which is incredibly Midwestern of him (and Fitzgerald). It's still pretty mutual for "polite" and "proper" Midwesterners to not pry into other people's lives. Nick would accept taken Jordan's words as truth in the moment; so we, the reader, are expected to as well.
(ii) Gatsby thinks he's in honey with Daisy for all of the instances you refer to regarding his transformation. He wants to be an of import human and Daisy -- with her family unit status and wealth -- is an achievement in that journey. He definitely has an infatuation with her; and yous make a very interesting observation that both Gatsby and Daisy seem more than caught up in hormones than actual emotions.
Nowadays I always detect discussions of 'The Great Gatsby' quite interesting considering they tend to testify how simplistic the volume ends upwards being. (And how heavy-handed the similarities are betwixt Fitzgerald and both Nick and Gatsby.)
Start, he needed to network to set up up prospective buyers.
Secondly, it satisfied his yearning for social mobility. He got rub shoulders with the elite of the elite.
And thirdly, the reason he probably chose West Egg as his upper crust cruising domicile was that his sweetie lived there.
Across the bay you mean.
And fourthly, bribery. Large improvident parties salted with tempting young actresses and flappers lubricated with complimentary booze were a ways of drawing politicians and other powerful people who could exist coerced into cooperating with Wolfie's nefarious scams.
Wait a minute Feliks, are you like-minded or disagreeing with Monty`south statement? There seems to be a contradiction in what youre maxim.
It is widely held that Jay Gatsby's honey for Daisy was so consuming that he earned a fortune in order to win her back subsequently she married uber-wealthy Tom Buchanan.
I maintain ..."
Again my apology for getting distracted for a few days.
Monty I believe that much of the analysis of Fitzgerald's writing is being taken out of context and thus misses the overall motivation.
Gatsby is about Money. [ the book ]
Gatsby is about Greed. [ the moral ]
Gatsby is most Gatsby. [ the human being ]
This is not a dear story in any conventional sense.
His past actions are in the past. The elevation by Fitzgerald of this tale to that of Greek Tragedy we find early in the mechanism of gossip and rumors about Gatsby. This directly reflect Fitgerald's education. A moral story theme is told via reference to the didactic poets. Specifically Hesiod in
The Theogony as in 'gossip oft repeated becomes divine'. Translation mine, but fairly shut. The Gatsby character rises higher up the rest. He is a darkly glowing god.Fitzgerald makes numerous classic allusions and all only writes in illuminated allegory in places. (see my original comments from the 'overated classics', I will prune and paste that later)
One other key to what we are given equally the Gatz/Gatsby motivations is that he
is Trimalchio. Literally the Thrice or Corking King. The Gatsby personna is lifted straight from Petronius. In some comment recently on this or related topic Gatsby is bracketed as heroic (doesn't mean good remember) from the championship to the finish in this story. And that is what we have to go along to analyze the story.So I'll toss another contraction only for fun:
Is Nick a narrator or a damned chorus? (damned as in blighted or pre-destined, non another connotative utilise)
More than this PM.
Wow! Hadn't thought of that one at all, only information technology makes a lot of sense. It explains Nick's near omniscience in the way he relates Gatsby's and Daisy'south backstories, as well as experiences of pocket-sized characters such as Michaelis, the buffet proprietor, witness to fundamental events while looking subsequently Wilson the morning after Myrtle's decease.
In a way the external reference cheapens the novel, assuasive Fitzgerald to take liberties with the kickoff-person point of view. I found these omniscient excursions distracting. I wonder if a modern author could get away with information technology. How they got past Max Perkins, his editor, is baffling to me.
External referencing also narrow's the novel's audience.
A story should stand on its own two feet instead of using other works for a crutch.
Great post. Thank you.
Practice they make a difference? Not really except that they exist and passages from a few as I recall are curious foreshadows(for-echoes??) of what is to come.
One in detail that stands out as important in the Gatsby 'arc' is Wintertime Dreams which is a story of a boy who aspires to become part of the sometime-coin globe. As a side note the theme of this story while definitely Gatsby under a different name and different outcome, gets expanded tremendously by the author Thomas Wolfe a few years later in his works with some major twists and they are much, much longer.
On the other hand, referencing outside works links Fitzgeralds work to the swell canon of literature. He set out to do something new. He did in Gatsby in ways that wasn't fully understood (virtually likely even now) until other writers tried to utilise like themes and elements and wound up writing a lot more(some like Wolfe,
really a lot more than) to get a like effect.Wow! Hadn't thought of that i at all, just it makes a lot of sense. "
Agreed. I re-visited Gatsby last year (amongst all the fuss), and Nick's passive-yet-extensive view bothered me for a reason I couldn't put my finger on ... until now.
Also:
The Gatsby personna is lifted directly from Petronius.
Quite squeamish, indeed :)
Bothered all the more. A novel shouldn't employ other books as a crutch or as an alibi for parting from skillful authorial standards. Information technology feels as if Fitzgerald is seeking to impress us with the fact that he has read some obscure ancient legend. Large whup.
Nick's passivity (non Gatsby'south) makes him appear disinterested and fifty-fifty dispassionate. Of course, this is a form marker: the other upperclasstwits are similarly casual, and Nick's half-hearted pursuit of Hashemite kingdom of jordan stands in stark contrast to Gatsby's stalking of Daisy.
As a literary device, a personally-disinterested narrator can be considered objective and therefore reliable. In Nick'southward instance, though, this doesn't work -- he is unabashedly partial to Gatsby.
A chorus, though, tin be (and often is) biased towards a item character.
It is widely held that Jay Gatsby'due south love for Daisy was so consuming that he earned a fortune in order to win her back subsequently she married uber-wealthy Tom Buchanan.
I maintain ..."
Y'all make a good point most the 1920s beingness a mirror for now. When I saw the Wolf of Wall St I was sickened by the "culture of backlog" portrayed in it. I think Martin Scorsese was likewise.
Shelley, http://dustbowlstory.wordpress.com
In the aforementioned vein, what proof is there that Daisy killed Myrtle, and not Gatsby?
Nosotros accept Gatsby confessing to Nick that it was Daisy -- later Nick suggests it to him.
Gatsby was not presented as a man of great moral fiber. Perchance he saw an opportunity to shift the blame. We cannot be certain what his plans were before Wilson shot him.
Not a serious proposition -- just more idle thoughts from an idle fellow, as Jerome M. Jerome would put it.
I don´t incertitude that Jay´s feelings for Daisy were beloved. Love comes in then many unlike flavors, including obsession.
To me this is the underlying, faint horror of the novel, its truthful tragedy; not that Daisy's and Gatsby's was a dearest thwarted, nor fifty-fifty that it wasn't a real feeling they had for each other, only that Jay Gatsby, for his considerable gifts for making coin and cartoon attending and fame to himself, failed to come up with anything improve than squandering it all for some expensive bint. And, I should say, doing so in an immoral mode.
Sure, the volume is joltingly romantic, the way riches and lush lawns are romantic, just this is the central to Nick'southward dismay at the whole situation, and the reason why he says Gatsby is worth the whole lot of them put together. At to the lowest degree Gatsby had the guts to pick a destination (let'south say, a greenish light) and head full steam for it. The rest are simply rich, picayune laggards who either boom and move on, or but insist on being entertained.
If he was such a primary criminal and a gung ho guy, how come he didn´t come up out of the war with bounty? Any enterprising soldier comes out of the war with the enemy´s dead´s effects. Didn´t he take the initiative to collect annihilation off the war fields? Didn´t he come abroad with a pot of poker winnings? Wake up Scott, the volume is full of holes.
"
Bravo. Well said.
From the mass of gushy Goodreads posts I've read it seems widely held that Jay Gatsby's love for Daisy was then consuming that he earned a fortune in order to win her back from T..."
Mayhap a more than revealing glimpse into Gatsby's heart comes at the volume's conclusion, with the daily schedule (and listing of "resolves") he'd written as a boy. This is the list Henry Gatz shows to Nick Carraway afterwards Gatsby's death. This shows that Gatsby was driven long before he even knew Daisy existed. Given these clues from Gatsby's past, it's likely he would accept achieved some fame, notoriety, or wealth whether or non he'd met Daisy.
The point Fitzgerald is trying to brand, I think, is how Daisy derailed Gatsby'south glorious dream. His dream, in its original conception, is what makes Gatsby great. When he is lured from his vision because of his obsession with Daisy, the purity of Gatsby's vision is tainted. And as almost everyone knows, the Gatsby-Daisy story is really an allegory for the corruption of the American Dream.
This is what I consider the fatal flaw of the novel in that SF`southward moral code itself was warped, just it was mawkish enough to garner fame. Despite his luminescence, do we need to question why Ezra Pound never got the Nobel? Artists are morally accountable for their visions,and if twisted, you get in the dung heap. That`s why PERFUME will not fifty-fifty stay in the trash bin of garbage literature-it will sink to the furthest depths.
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Source: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1746528-where-s-the-proof-that-gatsby-did-it-all-for-daisy
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