Jay Gatsby, hero or villain?

If any of you are studying F. Scott Fitzgerals's 'The Great Gatsby'  or just reading it for pleasure you may be wondering about the title of the book.  What makes Gatsby so 'great'? He was a compulsive liar making up stories about his past, he grew incredibly wealthy from bootlegging, the illegal sales of alcohol, in today’s terms he would be called a drug lord.

Its supposed to be all okay because he was only doing it so he could win Daisy's love back, but Daisy is married with a child and some people, myself included, think he doesn't even really love her, He just wants her as a status symbol to show off like his new car.  Why should we like this guy again?

It because of how pure he is.  When he was younger he thought he would never achieve success as James Gatz, so he destroyed that identity and became a new man, free from all the vices that halt everyone else.  He became the ideal candidate to achieve the American Dream.

Ever since then he has had one goal in life, to overcome every obstacle that stood between him and his dream. Since he had already created a whole new identity why not go a step further.  If he needed to be educated, cultured and rich to impress Daisy then he would.   Its like watching a pitcher throw a perfect game, its something you could never do yourself, but you really want the guy to succeed because you want to watch something special.  That's why the reader should be cheering him on, this is a once in a generation chance to prove everybody wrong and show the American Dream is attainable.

Looking at some quotes from The Great Gatsby you can see that he starts of with perfect morals and attitude.  It was everyone else that dragged him down.  People's prejudices meant no body would except him is they knew his true background so he had to lie about it.  Daisy was obsessed with money so he had to get it somehow, and fast before they were both too old, so he turned to a life of crime.  He didn't even enjoy having the material possessions, he never even used his own pool.

Something about the naïve way Gatsby believe that if he only works hard enough he can have anything he wants, he trusts completely the idea of the American Dream and when it turns out to be a sham, and he dies miserable and alone the reader feels sorry for him. What he was told was the noblest and purest pursuit he could of made, what he sacrificed everything for, was all a lie.

So maybe it he was a gangster, and maybe he lied about his past, but he only did it because it was the only way to survive in the broken and corrupt world that he lived in.

Nick Carraways Secret

Whether reading it for fun or examining it for English class, if you are reading 'The Great Gatsby' you must have had to think about Nick.  He is the narrator of the book so what you think of him will shape you opinion of the whole novel.  But for someone so central to the plot he doesn't talk about himself much.  If you do look a bit closer things don't quite seem to add up, and it bothered me for a little while until, when discussing the book with a friend, it was suggested Nick was gay.  Do you have a sneaking suspicion too? or are you looking for something unusual to add to an essay to surprise an examiner.  Here is is my attempt to get Nick out of the closet

Great Gatsby quotes speak eloquently on a number of topics, class, the American Dream, the corrupting power of money but all Nick ever seems to talk about is how gergous Gatsby is.  The only time I heard him say soemthing different is when he was calling him handsom.  He follows Gatsby arround like a love sick puppy completly under his spell.  Daisy says if he wants to kiss him he can and he turns he down, but when Gatsby says lets go to lunch he jumps at the oppertunity.

Yes he does have relationships with women, 3 if your counting, but he isn't a cassanova by any standards.  You would hardly notice unless you poured over every page, one of the girls is only justified with 'i even had a short affair.'  Then there is his famously akward break ups and the marginal reasons them.  The first because he was scared he was going to get peer presured into marrying a girl (so scared he moved state), the second because the girls brother was looking at him funny and the 3rd, Jordan, because he needed more time to think about Gatsby.  Maybe he wanted to look up other words for gorgeous in the thesaurus.

And last but not least there is his, well, one night stand? I don't really know how to describe it.  GO and read the end of chapter 2 again and you'll see what I mean.  They leave the party together, they end up semi naked in his bedroom and then the next think we know it's 4 am and Nick is getting the trian home.  All this is described in very little detail i guess thats is one of the perks of being your own narrator.