As I read chapter 6 of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, I realized that I had
a great deal of confusion and many questions regarding some of the issues and
encounters described in the chapter. To begin with, I was very confused while
Nick described the tale of how James Gatz became the iconic and ever-intriguing
character of Jay Gatsby, and it took me several pages to figure out that James
Gatz was the younger Gatsby himself. While I think that this explanation of
Gatsby’s youth was very insightful and critical to understanding the character
of Gatsby, I have to be honest and say that I’m not entirely sure what
conclusions I was supposed to draw from this story. While I found the tale to
be interesting, I don’t know if it really proved anything to me except for the
fact that Gatsby has always been ambitious and determined to attain glory, so I
am afraid that I might be missing something important in this story.
Furthermore, I was slightly confused by the incredibly awkward encounter
between Gatsby, Nick, Mr. Sloane, Tom Buchanan, and the woman at Gatsby’s house
for tea. If Mr. Sloane had absolutely no desire to join Gatsby for tea, and
Gatsby was incredibly uncomfortable with his lack of acquaintance with Tom,
then why did this visit even occur? Clearly nobody had any desire for the
encounter to take place, and it hardly seemed necessary. Additionally, I am
still dying to know what Gatsby’s current job is. The fact that Gatsby has
confided very deep emotions in Nick and yet has never bothered to tell him something
as impersonal as his current career really bothers me, for it makes me feel as
though Gatsby is purposely hiding something. While Gatsby has danced around the
subject of his career many times, he has never pinpointed his precise job,
which makes me very concerned that this job is something dangerous or shady
that could come into play later on in the story. The fact that Tom tells Daisy
and Nick determinedly that he intends to ascertain Gatsby’s career makes me uneasy
as I imagine how Tom might be able to use this knowledge against Gatsby in the
future if he were to find out that Daisy and Gatsby love each other. With all
of these details of the story confusing me, I am as intrigued with The Great Gatsby as ever, yet I hope
that I’m not missing anything important that will come into play later on!
While
reading chapter 6, one particular conversation between Nick and Gatsby really
arrested my attention and made me stop in the course of my reading to think
about my own opinions on some foggy issues in life. Gatsby confesses to Nick that
he wishes desperately for Daisy to have the courage to leave Tom so that he
could sweep Daisy off her feet and take her to Louisville to be married in the
city where they first fell in love, rekindling a relationship just like the one
they had had in the past. Nick responds to this by saying, “You can’t repeat
the past” (Fitzgerald, 110), and Gatsby retorts, “Can’t repeat the past… why of
course you can” (Fitzgerald, 110)! At this point, I realized that, as much as I
would love to agree with Gatsby, I feel that I have to agree with Nick on this
controversial topic. While a person could spend their entire lives wishing for
things to be like “the good ol’ days,” nobody can force things to happen just
as they took place in the past, or else those dearest moments in life would lose
their uniqueness and their immeasurably special quality. As much as a person
might try to fight change, the fact remains that change is inevitable; however,
if one adopts the right attitude about life, change becomes a weapon not for
destroying the most precious moments, but rather for creating new and even more
beautiful memories (and trust me, this is coming from somebody who hates change). I worry that, as the
novel progresses, Gatsby’s mistaken illusion that he can spend his entire life recreating
the past with Daisy rather than continuing on with the present will be his
ultimate downfall.
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