“No telephone message arrived but the butler went without
his sleep and waited for it until four o’clock—until long
after there was any one to give it to if it came. I have an idea
that Gatsby himself didn’t believe it would come and perhaps
he no longer cared. If that was true he must have felt
that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for
living too long with a single dream..” Fitzgerald 169
This passage is Nick’s perception on Gatsby, just before his death. Gatsby is alone, floating on a bed in his pool, waiting for Nick to show up. It is also just before Wilson kills him. Gatsby is reflecting on his life and realizing that he had been wasting it, chasing after one dream.
This passage is important because it portrays a major theme in this book, which is people who live their lives with a distortion of what is really important in it. Gatsby lives his entire life with Daisy as the most important thing in his life. He cuts himself off from his family and never spends anytime making any true friends. This is why only 3 people showed up to his funeral even though he seemed popular when he was alive, because he threw large parties.
It can also be seen that Gatsby is going through a major character change during this time. He is beginning to see the whole world as something new and realize what is important in life. This makes for an ironic and tragic ending because he is murdered just after this.
When Fitzgerald uses the word warm to describe Gatsby’s new view on the world it helps the reader to understand where he is coming from. This is because this word is generally associated with feelings of love joy and happiness.
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You say that Gatsby lives his life with a distortion of what is important in his life. But Gatsby almost had the american dream. All he was missing was his true love, Daisy; isn't that an important enough goal? He would have had it all.
ReplyDeleteAlso, what kind of character change was Gatsby going through?