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I was writing an essay about the great gastby, but I'm having some issues. my thesis is about how gatsby, although he failed in getting daisy, can still be considered great.
one of my ideas is that although he did fail, he tried and was persistent, and never looked away from his goal.
i need other ideas though >.<
please help!
Gatsby is great in his resolve and his ambition.
His ambition is impossible in its scope, but his ultimate goal is to basically recreate the past - albeit the only slight change in that he now possess the money and pastiche to win the girl.
His determination is that he dedicates his life to winning toward this goal, and by force of will comes very close to achieving it - and most likely would have if his "design" was not impossible in the first place.
Ok I've been drinking. But Gatsby was great because he tried to show that he could live beyond the space/time continuum i.e that he could turn back the clock despite the fact that we are all subject to the universal laws of time and space. It is this that makes the novel so fascinating and will continue to do so into the future which, in its own way, demonstrates the relativity of time itself.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sublimesunrise
I dare to answer.
First of all, sorry for my horrible English.
I've read The Great Gatsby many times, without uderstandig it completelly, for i'm only studing English, and my skill with your language doesn't let me arrive further, but I think I can give you one idea.
The narrator gets the reader, by using Nick Carraway, inside of Gatbsy circle, although not inside gatsby's mind. From this position, it's possible to notice that Gatsby is looking forward to get Daisy. Gatsby hasn't suceed.
But if you are out of the circle, you simply walk near Gatsby's mansion, you know nothing at all. You only see the house, the car, the money, the parties, all the famous people surronding him, etc. You can envy Gatsby, and think that, if that man has achieved such possition without inherit a big deal of money, he must be a great man. That Gastby has suceed.
I think that F. Scott Fiztgerald expresses this idea on James Gatz's lips:
He had a big future before him, you know. He was only a young man, but he had a lot of brain power here.”
He touched his head impressively, and I nodded.
“If he’d of lived, he’d of been a great man. A man like James J. Hill. He’d of helped build up the country.”
And besides, the author purposes us this question: How many of who we now consider great men had an obscure past?
If you sotle a dollar your a thief. But if you make a fortune as a bootlegger, and then you shift to a respectable bussines, and also give economic support to you country, perhaps you will be regarded as a great man, despite you origins.
Adding to the previous comment, i think that the name originated from the line 'he'd of been great'. The society he was born in to was weak and he had to build himself up- the Romantic vision of Daisy seems to push any hints of the underworld activity Nick has to one side as Nick himself is a romantic; he dreams of the girls in New York and appears to rue an old romantic encounter. In his society, despite his unattented funeral service, he can be considered great.