“I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”
“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
The mesmerizing mystique of Gatsby is pervasive, and in the years since its publication its extravagant, yearning tone still captivates readers. Many people throw Gatsby-themed parties, restaurants bearing the same name are erected, and people still debate the meaning of the green light.
The Great Gatsby is difficult to review because it leaves the feeling of “what else could be said?” But here are some thoughts I had while reading. The story feels a bit like a dream, giving an aura of glitz and affluence and infatuation that masks the emptiness of the characters, all unfulfilled by what they have and nostalgic for what they want or what they lost. Daisy is the embodiment of the disillusionment many post-war men felt following WWI.
For Gatsby, she’s reminiscent of the before, of a life he thought he would have, of a full-bodied American dream. Now, she’s a hollowed-out version as he realizes that the Daisy he loved is a shadow the women now present—Daisy herself is disillusioned by the trajectory of her own life. She is a smokescreen of ideas and possibilities that never come to fruition and Gatsby keeps reaching out but can’t seem to grasp her. Daisy is shifty, never a solid form, and that is likely because she’s not a person to anyone, not even her husband, she’s an idea. Daisy, for Gatsby, is a cautionary tale of loving an idea you think will bring validation and worth. But Daisy only one of the illusive characters. Gatsby performs wealth, glamour, and alluring mystery. Throwing lavish parties and being surrounded by acquaintances permits Gatsby to recede into the background; he becomes synonymous with extravagance, and the performance is all to impress Daisy. But he doesn’t want Daisy, the person, he wants the life she represents. She can’t undo the loneliness, the disappointment; she can’t satiate the hunger for what was.
Have you read this one? What’re your thoughts? 💛
THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Read It Like Rory 