The Great Gatsby
A poor young officer became the richest person in the east of New York by grasping many chances and struggling. And he did all these only for retrieving a girl who he has been loving since five years ago. However, his dream did not come true because of the girl’s changing of her mind and a deadly accident. It’s a simple story. But we can feel many things in this novel.
The young man is called Gatsby, and the woman, her name is Daisy. It was really impressed me when I read about the scene that Gatsby met Daisy at Nick’s house after the departure for five years. Gatsby is always that decent, elegant and gentle in public, but when it was come the time that he saw Daisy, he just behaved like a panic-stricken young fellow. He prepared all things well except his heart. He hided his torrid and exciting heart and treated her with great care. How lovely and softly the scene was. And Fitzgerald also did a fantastic description.
But it is not a fairy tale that prince and princess lived in happiness ever after. It is a total tragedy. Gatsby was shot by a man mistakenly, and Daisy, the woman he loved deeply just went away with her husband without even sending a bunch of flower as a sympathy. Nevertheless, see deeply in the story and I found that what they truly loved was not each other. Gatsby loves the love itself, and Daisy loves herself most. In that way, everything is understandable: why was Gatsby so eager to ask Daisy to tell her husband the truth that the person she really loved is Gatsby not her husband? Why did Gatsby would rather live with Daisy in his gorgeous big house than run away with her? Why was Gatsby so anger when Daisy could not deny that she loved her husband too? These all because what Gatsby really wanted is not the Daisy the exact person, but love itself. His fantasy about perfect love and the wonderful past he had spent with Daisy. He wanted to go trough these beautiful memories in a exactly the same way. But how can it come to reality? Gatsby is over idealistic. Whereas, to some extent, what a pure person he is. He did all things and payed a high price just for love. While other people purchase money for material comforts, Gatsby purchase money for love. When he held magnificent and extravagant parties night after night, he did not join the crazy people. He just stood in a high position and sought his girl.
But Daisy had changed. She was not the girl who just prepares all her heart only for him. She considers the reality and cares more about her own needs. Gatsby could satisfy her illusion of perfect lover and glitzy life, and also for some other reasons, she accepted him. But after she made a irrevocable mistake--killing a woman accidentally for driving in a high speed and Gatsby chose to undertake her mistake on his own. Daisy shrunk back and thought about leaving the place with her husband to another city. She is such a selfish, cowardly and irresponsible person. As it was written in the novel, “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy-- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made...” It is reminded me a Chinese poet called Bei Dao, and there is a phrase he once wrote, “ Baseness is the secret knock of the base. Integrity is the epitaph of the noble.” And I am really moved when Nick spoke to Gatsby, “They’re a rotten crowd. You are worth the whole damn bunch put together.” Even when Gatsby has known Daisy was no longer the girl who he loved before, he did not blame her. He clearly realized that it was his fantasy that actually attracted him. But even so, even he sensed Daisy’s sound was full of money, he wanted her. Gatsby is a dreamcatcher who chase his incomparable dream no matter what costed. Gatsby is great.
Through this novel, I also gradually figured out what is the American dream that Fitzgerald may want to describe. Perhaps the idea is as long as you work hard, you can lead a better life. There are two paragraph which impressed me most. One is the beginning, “Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.” The other is the end, “ Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that years by years recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter-- tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther... And one fine morning-- So we beat on, Boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” BUT WE NEVER COMPROMISE.
The person in the novel is Gatsby, but when it comes to the reality, he is Fitzgerald. He was also a poor young officer when he met his girl, Zelda. But the difference is that Fitzgerald won her heart when his work became famous. However, his wife’s madness ruined him. Though there was no greater work than The Great Gatsby, I am still fond of most of his works and words which reveal desolate with gentle.
All in all, I love this novel, I love Fitzgerald, I love the great Gatsby.
京公网安备 11010802032529号