When Nick questions him as to where in the Middle West he hails from, readers get their first clear indication that Gatsby is recounting an elaborate lie — "San Francisco" is hardly the Middle West, and Nick knows it. Sadly, Gatsby isn't even a good liar and he continues to tell his story, as if telling it will make it so. Fitzgerald later reveals that nearly everything perhaps everything he tells Nick during this ride, the candid self-disclosures he freely offers so that Nick doesn't get "a wrong idea" of him from the stories floating around, are themselves fictions created by Gatsby as part of his plan to reinvent himself.
In fact, the past that Gatsby describes reads like an adventure tale, a romance in which the hero "lived like a young rajah," looking for treasures, dabbling in everything from the fine arts to big game hunting.
Gatsby's past is highly unbelievable — a point not lost on Nick. When Gatsby informs Nick that his "family all died and [he] came into a good deal of money," it is wishful thinking at best, and Chapters 7 and 9 disclose that Gatsby's money came from a very different place. As the two men head to the city, they pass through the valley of ashes, moving from a desolate gray world of dead-end dreams to the city, the place where anything at all can happen.
When Gatsby is stopped for speeding, Gatsby need merely to wave a card before the officer and he is let go with a polite "Know you next time, Mr. Excuse me! Although Gatsby has just fed Nick an elaborate series of lies, this is the first piece that may well be true.
Gatsby, through a business associate whom they are on their way to see, may likely have done a favor for the commissioner — and it is likely to have been something of a questionable nature.
The luncheon with Gatsby is not remarkable, save for the character who is introduced: Meyer Wolfshiem, a notorious gambler who is rumored to have rigged the World Series, an unprecedented scandal that degraded America's Game. Wolfshiem, a business associate of Jay Gatsby, is everything his name suggests: He is a perfect combination of human and animal.
He is wolf-like in his ways, and nowhere do we get better evidence of this than by the human molar cufflinks he sports proudly. Although Nick has begun to like Gatsby and wants to give him the benefit of the doubt, Gatsby's taste in business connections is not at all what a man who comes from the background Gatsby has just recounted would make. Wolfshiem is Gatsby's connection or gonnection , as Wolfshiem would say to the world of organized crime. Wolfshiem, as is later made known, has been instrumental in Gatsby's ability to accumulate wealth.
Theirs is a partnership in which Gatsby feels some sort of indebtedness to Wolfshiem — although they are partners on some levels, they are not at all equals. That same afternoon, after hearing Gatsby's story and meeting his business contact, Nick has tea with Jordan Baker wherein he gets a more accurate reading of Gatsby. Jordan recounts the "amazing" story she learned the night of Gatsby's party. The story recalls Jordan's girlhood in Louisville and one of her memories of Daisy Fay who would later become Daisy Buchanan; notice, too, "Fay" is a synonym for "faerie" — an appropriate name for someone of Daisy's ethereal nature.
On one memorable day, she saw Daisy with a young officer, Jay Gatsby, who looked at Daisy "in a way that every young girl wants to be looked at. Through Jordan's story of Daisy right before her wedding, Fitzgerald gives a much better sense of Daisy. She loved the young officer as Gatsby tells in Chapter 8 , but was forcibly discouraged from entering into a permanent relationship with the young man — Gatsby's lack of money was his primary character deficit.
After breaking off contact with Gatsby, Daisy began to resume her activities as usual. She meets Tom Buchanan and shortly becomes engaged to him.
One the eve of her wedding Daisy has second thoughts, deciding while in a drunken stupor that perhaps marrying for love instead of money is what she should do. As she sobers up she seems to come to terms with herself and what is expected of her. She puts Gatsby behind her and marries Tom.
Before long, however, Tom begins to have affairs. Daisy is aware of this from early on, but fails to do anything about it. One can only speculate why. Clearly Daisy is more dimensional than the initial impression of her suggests. She is aware of Tom's indiscretions, but appears not to care. It's difficult to say with certainty, but one theory holds that she enjoys Tom's money and the status she has as a Buchanan of East Egg.
Challenging her husband's tomcat-like behavior would jeopardize her status and security — the things her entire life has revolved around. When Jordan finishes telling this story of Daisy, she comes to where Gatsby figures in, and Nick learns a great deal about him through this disclosure. Jordan reveals that it wasn't coincidence that Gatsby's house is across the Sound from Daisy's, as Nick initially believes. Rather, it is all part of Gatsby's calculated plan.
He purposely chose the less fashionable West Egg so that he could be across from Daisy, rather than adjacent to her. Jordan also discloses that the parties he hosts are for no other reason than to try to get Daisy's attention. Gatsby, following his dream of being reunited with Daisy, puts on excessive displays of wealth, entertaining people he doesn't know and who don't know him, all for the sake of a lost love.
He throws the parties initially in the hope Daisy might attend. Later, he begins to ask his guests if they know her. When he finds that Jordan is a friend of Daisy's, he tells her portions of his story. When Jordan suggests a meeting in New York, Gatsby won't hear of it. What he really wants is to have Daisy see his house, his nearly ostentatious display of money. In his mind, if Daisy knows how much he is worth, she will have no reason to reject him a second time.
As the conversation ends, Jordan brings up Gatsby's request: that Nick invite Daisy over for tea so Gatsby can happen by.
The chapter's end raises some interesting questions and complications, again harkening back to the idea of morality that permeates the book. Jordan, confiding in Nick, tells him "Daisy ought to have something in her life," and Nick, by implicitly agreeing to pander for Gatsby, is in accord.
Nick is placing himself in a position in which he will have to come to terms with helping deceive Tom while bringing Gatsby's fantasy to life. Nick, too, is becoming more and more involved with Jordan and this, perhaps, clouds his judgment.
At the end of Chapter 3, he was determined to break off relations with a girl back home so that he could pursue Jordan, again showing his moral nature. Gatsby announces himself and apologizes for being a poor host. Even though she was still in love with Gatsby, Daisy most likely married Tom because she knew he could provide her with more material comforts. In Chapter 4 Jordan recounts how, the day before the wedding, she found Daisy drunk, sobbing, and clutching a letter.
Presumably, the letter is from Gatsby, who most likely has learned of the wedding and is begging Daisy to reconsider. While Tom has just given her an insanely expensive necklace, Gatsby is still a student, living abroad, and has yet to make his fortune. Once Daisy takes a bath and calms down, she consents to marry Tom, and appears, initially at least, happy with her decision. More specifically, Gatsby wants to arrange it so that Daisy will come to West Egg, where she can be reunited with Gatsby and witness his wealth firsthand.
Having Daisy come to West Egg has the advantage of isolating her from Tom, and also makes it possible for Gatsby to stage an apparently accidental encounter with her.
In order for these events to happen, Gatsby needs Nick to invite Daisy over under the pretense of having tea. Instead of asking Nick to do this himself, Gatsby employs Jordan to convince Nick. According to Jordan, Gatsby has kept tabs on Daisy for years and followed her when she and Tom moved from Chicago to the east coast.
Tom finds out about the affair between Gatsby and Daisy in Chapter 7, just before the three of them, along with Nick, take a trip to New York. Although no one explicitly communicates this fact, Tom picks up on suspicious body language. He was astounded. The mistake occurs because, earlier in the day, Tom suggests that he and Gatsby swap cars for the drive to New York. Myrtle sees Tom from the room where her husband has locked her up.
Later that night, Tom and Gatsby drive their own cars back from the city. Although Gatsby himself never explicitly says how he became wealthy, readers could assume his money comes from illegal or nefarious practices, working as either a German spy or a gambler. Before readers are introduced to the more prominent eyes in the novel—those of Doctor T. Owl Eyes is the only character, perhaps besides Nick, who is curious about Gatsby and wants to see him for who he truly is.
Daisy seems unhappy with her marriage to Tom from the outset of the novel. Even the night before their wedding, she got drunk and told Jordan to tell everyone she had changed her mind.
0コメント