Chasing the Green LightThe Tragedy of Jay Gatsby

Gatsby: Tragic Hero• Tragic Hero: a character who makes an error that

leads to his downfallo Almost always a respectable persono Downfall evokes audience’s pityo Tragic flaw (i.e., fatal error) is also hero’s greatest virtue

• JOURNAL 6B: What is Gatsby’s tragic flaw? Defend your opinion.

Gatz vs. Gatsby• Nick Carraway’s paradoxical

judgment of Gatsby:o Gatsby = object of Nick’s

“unaffected scorn” (Ch. 1); epitome of all that is vile about mankind

o However, Gatsby is “exempt” from Nick’s repulsion of mankind; the one man absolved of human depravity

o Gatsby the Creation = repulsiveo Gatz the Man = “gorgeous”o Inventor OK, Invention NOT OK

Gatsby’s Tragic Flaw• Gatsby’s virtues (according to Nick):

o his “extraordinary gift for hope”o his “romantic readiness”o his “heightened sensitivity to the promises of life”

• Gatsby is a dreamero He dreams big – REALLY BIG!!!o Ambition is respectable, but can also lead to disaster

(e.g., Frankenstein monster)• Gatsby supplants reality with fantasy, believes he can

bend the world to his will

Gatsby Goes Wrong• Gatsby’s dream is pure (i.e., love), but the method of acquiring it is

fundamentally flawed (i.e., lying)o Gatsby = avatar for pursuit of happiness (fundamental component of

American ethos)o Hope for happiness is “gorgeous” (i.e., spectacular, beautiful)

• Gatsby’s dream = LOVEo Love is based on the natural, yet delicate chemistry of two soulso Thus, recreating a love based on false identities is unnatural, and therefore

doomed to failureo Happiness for Gatsby in 1922, therefore, is illusory

• James Gatz invents Jay Gatsby to obtain Daisyo New Money (Gatsby) imitating Old Money (Buchanans)

Buchanans:Avatars of Old Money

TOM

• Immoral• Violent• Hedonistic• Domineering• Careless• Insatiable

DAISY

• Immoral• Passive• Lackadaisical • Delicate• Careless• Insatiable

From Gatz to Gatsby• Gatsby = Avatar of New Money• Gatsby (West Egg) imitates the opulent, extravagant

lifestyle of Old Money world (East Egg) to succeed• FATAL ERROR: Old Money world is corrupted by

wealth, where money trumps moralso Material replaces the soulo Emerson: physical property vs. living property

• Gatsby imitates the Buchanans, who are the soulless, careless products of human depravity

Questions to consider• Nick: “Gatsby turned out all right at the end” (Ch. 1)• What does Nick mean by “all right”?

o All right: (adj.) satisfactory, acceptable, unhurt, unscathed• Is Gatsby’s death acceptable?• Does Nick approve of the timeliness/nature of

Gatsby’s death?• Does Nick think Gatsby’s end was justified or

appropriate?• Did Gatsby somehow escape a worse fate?

Open your books to the last pages of Ch. 9

Ch. 9 Nick’s EpilogueSCENE: Nick watches Gatsby’s mansion, ruminating on its former inhabitant• Gatsby’s West Egg mansion = “incoherent failure of a

house”o Symbol of James Gatz’s failed dreamo Gatsby = James Gatz’s “Platonic conception of himself” (Ch. 5)

Plantonic: (adj.) existing as an idea only; nonexistent• Nick erases an “obscene word” from a white step on

Gatsby’s houseo Nick wants to preserve the dream, keep it pureo But the difference between what we want and what is is where

Gatsby failed. Will Nick make the same fatal error?

Nick’s Epilogue (cont.)• SCENE: Nick sprawls out on the sandy beach and

observes Long Island for what it truly is, stripped of its “inessential houses”o Long Island becomes the “fresh, green breast of the new

world” that “flowered once for Dutch sailors’ eyes” Dutch sailors = early European explorers of America

o Nick envisions the forest – whose trees are now “vanished” – that “pandered in whispers” (i.e., subconsciously, but efficaciously) to “the last and greatest of all human dreams”

What does Nick mean by this “last and greatest of all human dreams”?

The Last and Greatest of all Human Dreams

America: The New World• A green untamed wilderness• A place of promise• Grounds for a new beginning

(rebirth)• Realm of opportunity• Region for redemption• Where dreams are born,

take shape, and come true

The Dutch Sailors• Pilgrims• Odyssean

adventurers• Refugees• Dreamers • Old World Gatsbys

Birth of a Dream• Those Dutch sailors, for a “transitory enchanted

moment…must have held their breath” as they stared at this wide open new “continent” (i.e., America)o “transitory” = temporaryo “enchanted” = spellbinding; intoxicatingo “held their breath” = excitement, awe in the presence of

such vast potential

Like Gatsby eyeing Dan Cody for the first time from the shores of Lake Superior.

America: Land of Opportunity

• North America (“the continent”) as a physical entity is geographically, perceptibly equal in grandeur and immensity to the human “capacity to wonder”o “capacity to wonder” = ability to imagine a better, more

palatable reality for oneself• N. America = land of fresh beginnings, second

chances, opportunity, resurrection, redemption, etc…o …a place where dreams are forged and mapped out

But do these dreams ever come true?

The Green Light• Green Light = “the orgastic future that…recedes

before us…”o i.e., A gradually but relentlessly dying dream

• The green light “eluded us then, but that’s no matter” o i.e., It doesn’t matter if the dream is dying or

unobtainable, because…• “…tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms

farther…And one fine morning—”Why does Nick stop himself before the climax of this

sentence?

Death of a Dream• Nick’s unfinished sentence represents an aborted

thought, a syntactical metaphor for the terminated dream

• The reality for Nick (and us) is too awful, too horrifying, too soul-crushing to contemplate, to acknowledge, to admito Reality = The dream is unobtainable (“[Gatsby] did not

know that [his dream] was already behind him”)o There really is no hope, nothing worthy to aspire to –

especially if mimicking the voracious Tom Buchanan or obtaining the soulless Daisy Fay is the object of your dream

But we still dream…• Ignoring the reality that “you can’t repeat the past”

(Ch. 6), we still beat on “against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past”o “against the current” = in opposition to the tide of time

The juggernaut of reality will ALWAYS burst the bubble of fantasy (i.e., our dreams, our hopes)

o “into the past” = The paradise of youthful innocence (e.g., Garden of Eden) A world of possibility and potential The ignorant bliss of hope

Retreat to the West• So Nick Carraway returns to Minnesota (the West), for it is in

the West where dreams exist, where he no longer needs: “privileged glimpses into the human heart” (Ch. 1) encounters with “the abortive sorrows and short-winded

elations of men” (Ch. 1)• Nick returns to the West to avoid the fate of Gatsby

o West = New World = Illusion of a New Beginning = America for the Dutch sailors (Eden)

o East = Europe = Banishment from Eden = the inescapable ghosts of our past (original sin)

• But this globe (Earth) is a finite sphere, and a retreat west – into the “vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic roll on under the night” (Ch. 9) – will eventually bring us back to where we started

The American DreamWe can’t escape the past,

We can’t change where we came from,We can’t change what we are…

…but we can always dream we can.