But as I walked down the steps I saw that the evening was not quite over. Fifty feet from the door a dozen headlights illuminated a bizarre and tumultuous scene. In the ditch beside the road, right side up but violently shorn of one wheel, rested a new couple which had left Gatsby's drive not two minutes before.
This deals with the theme of Reality vs. Illusion. The entire party of Gatsby's was this big giant party that just seemed absolutely perfect, but then the second after some of the people leave the party they get into a car accident which brings reality crashing down. It shows how closely entertwined reality and illusion are in the book. In much of the book, you wonder if what is happening is real, you never know which is an illusion and which is reality. When something so awful happens right after a fabulous event, I wonder if the party was actually as great as it seemed. Is Gatsby's house as fabulous as it seems? At sometimes it is extravegent and amazing but at other times in the book it is described as dark and dusty. How does some beautiful party turn into a awful, violent car crash? Another section that this part of the novel points out is the symbolism of cars. Most of the time cars seem to cause bad things to happen or cause reality to come back. This car crash shows how bad things in life do happen and it isn't all just some party. But cars in other parts also cause death, like the death of Myrtle, which a car like this car in this section was also in the section where Myrtle dies. But the Death of Myrtle made her husband realize that not everything between his wife and him was all wonderful as he thought, as his illusion, made it seem. Tom also got into a car accident and in that car accident, a chambermaid was in the same car with him, which made Daisy realize that her life wasn't all perfect and "white" as she thought it was. Cars throughout the story cause the reality of life to come and ruin many illusions of peoples lifes in the story. It could be taken as a good thing, people knowing the truth, but many people in the story seem to prefer ignorance.
Monday, January 25, 2010
the Fabulous Gatsby part 1
A little before three the Lutheran minister arrived from Flushing and I began to look involuntarily out the windows for other cars. SO did Gatsby's father. And as the time passed and the servants came in and stood waiting in the hall his eyes began to blink anxiously and he spoke of the rain in a worried uncertain way. The minister glanced several times at his watch so I took him aside and asked him to wait for half an hour. But it wasn't any use. Nobody came.
This section of writing says a lot about Gatsby as a person. If a person was looking from the outside at Gatsby, they would think he had the life. He had a giant beautiful house and was filthy rich, which is what everyone in this novel strives for, but when you get to know him, it is really an illusion. In the beginning of the novel he seems like the perfect person, but as the novel goes on his illusions start to come crashing down. Parts of his life were true Yes, he does have a bunch of money, money that he got in a questionable way, not by hard work. But he is completely alone, most of his life was just built upon illusion after illusion. Even here, his dad was making an illusion. His father was talking about the weather and reassuring himself that more people would come, but no one did. It is disgusting that people would come to some pointless party of his, but people would just make excuse after excuse not to come to his funeral. Nobody would ever think that a man like Gatsby, unimaginably rich, would ever have a funeral that no one would come to. He has to have it made, but Gatsby really doesn't have anything. He has been obsessed with one thing for the past five years that took over his life, Daisy, he had this giant illusion that they were completely in love and that they were pretty much married, but once he found out about her loving someone else, he eventually realized he was fighting a lost battle, from the moment Gatsby lost Daisy, illusion after illusion came crashing down as well and he realized that. The only time that Gatsby was real, was sadly at his funeral, all illusions dropped, and that was the first time we saw completely what Gatsby was like, a sad and lonely older man.
This section of writing says a lot about Gatsby as a person. If a person was looking from the outside at Gatsby, they would think he had the life. He had a giant beautiful house and was filthy rich, which is what everyone in this novel strives for, but when you get to know him, it is really an illusion. In the beginning of the novel he seems like the perfect person, but as the novel goes on his illusions start to come crashing down. Parts of his life were true Yes, he does have a bunch of money, money that he got in a questionable way, not by hard work. But he is completely alone, most of his life was just built upon illusion after illusion. Even here, his dad was making an illusion. His father was talking about the weather and reassuring himself that more people would come, but no one did. It is disgusting that people would come to some pointless party of his, but people would just make excuse after excuse not to come to his funeral. Nobody would ever think that a man like Gatsby, unimaginably rich, would ever have a funeral that no one would come to. He has to have it made, but Gatsby really doesn't have anything. He has been obsessed with one thing for the past five years that took over his life, Daisy, he had this giant illusion that they were completely in love and that they were pretty much married, but once he found out about her loving someone else, he eventually realized he was fighting a lost battle, from the moment Gatsby lost Daisy, illusion after illusion came crashing down as well and he realized that. The only time that Gatsby was real, was sadly at his funeral, all illusions dropped, and that was the first time we saw completely what Gatsby was like, a sad and lonely older man.
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