Homework for Lesson #18, The Great Gatsby

Sally:

I am really touched by the very last sentence of this novel, which is “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” Current means the movement of water in the sea or river. So from that point of view, the sentence shows us a scene that a boat was going against the current, but was at last pulled back by the water.

At the same time, current can also mean happening now or of the present time. So in that case, it seems like someone was trying their best to stay away from present and wanted to be back to the past. 

In my opinion, this sentence is the best to show Mr.Gatsby’s personality. He likes to imagine unreal things. Full of imagination is not harmful but if some lives in their imaginary world and couldn’t get rid of it, the result might be horrible. Gatsby is the best example. Just like Nike wrote, “he was clutching at some last hope and I couldn’t bear to shake him free”, and that hope is which Daisy could come back to him. At this point, I think Daisy was quite ruthless. The most cruel torture is when a person only has a single hope, although the hope may not come true forever but that person will never let it go. If Daisy told Gatsby her true feelings, no matter whether it may hurt Gatsby or not, at least Gatsby got the answer so he could move on. But in fact she didn’t. Leaving Gatsby wondering and hoping, she vanished into “her rich house, into her rich, full life”. So Gatsby never gives up waiting for her, till his death he was waiting for just a phone call from Daisy. He was imagining till the last that Daisy will turn to him because they used to have a great time together. But he did not know that their happy time was already behind him. So the farther he reach, the longer distance it will be. 

Leo:

    The Great Gatsby:

    In my perspective, the ending of the Great Gatsby is very pathetic, sorrow, and it brings up a lot of deep thoughts. It is a very sad ending, and it also revealed the darkness of society.

    At first, Gatsby tried so hard to get Daisy back and have a wonderful love story ending. However, afterwards, Gatsby carried the guilt of killing someone and got shot by the dead person’s husband. Daisy didn’t cry and mourned for Gatsby. Instead, she left him behind. At last, the only person that went to Gatsby’s funeral was Gatsby’s father and Nick.

    I think the ending was very ironic, and it brought me a lot of thoughts. I wonder why will the society become like this, why everybody looked so indifferent in the story, and why Gatsby had a sad ending at last. Then I found out that Daisy wasn’t thinking about Gatsby the whole time. She was just using Gatsby as a consumable and think about his money. At the very first place, when Gatsby thought her eyes were “full of money”, she was just trying to use Gatsby.

    We could relate this to the early society in the 1920s. At that time, moneymaking seemed so easy that everybody is doing that as a fashion. People can easily make tons of money by investing in cars, water vehicles, and electric equipment. However, when people make so much money, their consciousness of money management and their consciousness of their hearts disappeared. People only look at others with money identification glasses, and that’s why Gatsby finally ends so badly, because although he had money, he was sued for killing someone. Daisy doesn’t want to be a part and have a relationship with a “criminal”, besides she could just find a richer and better person to be with. That’s the true meaning of The Great Gatsby, to reveal the darkness of society in the 1920s, just like the Catcher In The Rye treated 1950s.

James:

As I finally finished the book, I really want to talk about a character that I liked a lot who is the narrator, Nick Carraway.

From the very beginning of the novel, even the first sentence, was said by Nick. It is the truth that the author brought a person who may not engaged in the affairs deeply, but can reveal all the details to readers in a looker’s view. It is hard to say that Nick is the main character of the story, and it is also the reason why this book is so different from the two books we had finished before.

Nick is a friend of many people’s, he came from the Middle West and wanted to fight for good living in the East. After came back from the battlefield, Nick quickly started his way of life and devoted himself in his dream. It is not difficult to be found that Jay Gatsby, Nick’s neighbor and friend, to some degrees had a very similar background with Nick. He was born poor and he joined the army, and then he became a successful man in the East. He even went to a good university as Nick did. Apparently, Nick was designed to observe Gatsby, who was almost the same person as Gatsby. Instead of letting Gatsby to narrate The Great Gatsby, the author put another guy here, a guy can show Gatsby to others in an objective way. Making the narration sounds more real.

Also, Nick acts like a rational judge of morality. He plays his role between some of the wealthiest people in New York, and while he was engaging more and more deeply into those people’s boring lives, he found out the “good”s and “bad”s. He found out the cheating and squandering on that level of the society. Finally, standing in front of Tom Buchanan’s house, Nick refused to get in, or say, to get back to a terrible jungle. In the end of the book, with a great disappointing to the East World, Nick chose to get out, even left his dream behind and with a great sadness and painfulness, merely because of the wicked people and the wicked world where he could not stand any longer.

I like Nick is because he is different from all the other characters in the story. He had his own dream, but he never sought for too much. He made friends and tried to make them happy and treat them with care. When the world was leaving Gatsby alone, he stood by him and accompanied him, for long, long a day. He always had a pair of bright eyes, which helped him look the world great clearly.