dipelli’s Blog

Seeing as so much happened that I do not know where to begin, I will just go back through the chapter and select sticky notes in order of appearance — not importance.  I’m still in shock, by the way.

” ‘Don’t be morbid,’ Jordan said. ‘Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.’  ‘But it’s so hot,’ insisted Daisy, on the verge of tears, ‘and everything’s so confused.’ ” [Page 118]

Right away, amidst the sweltering heat, I took this quote to mean that some change would be happening soon.  What it would be exactly I was not sure, but I knew that it must mean the end of an era of some sort — whether it was an end of Daisy’s affair with Gatsby, Daisy’s marriage with Tom, etc.  I think this quote is one of the many examples of Fitzgerald’s mastery of writing literature.  Reading Daisy’s response, I actually did a double-take because I first read it in the mindset that she was speaking of her situation overall, not the weather.  Daisy’s response (even without mentioning that she was on the verge of tears) shows that she thinks this change/end of an era so-to-speak is far off and does not want to have to worry about it, and that she does not know what to do.  Quite honestly, I think that this may show that the large change will come to her relationship with Gatsby, for as we later see in the scene in the hotel room, it does not seem as if Daisy had ever really thought about changing things with Gatsby from what they were at that moment.  Right before telling Tom that she never loved him Nick observes, “Her eyes fell on Jordan and me with a sort of appeal, as though she realized at last what she was doing — and as though she had never, all along, intended doing anything at all.” [Page 132]

Another quote that caught my attention as the chapter unravelled came on Page 120: ” ‘Her voice is full of money,’ he said suddenly.”  (Gatsby speaking of Daisy and her charm.)  As we’ve been told to be aware of as we read [besides connections with The Great Gatsby to Moby-Dick or Family Matters] we should be thinking about the novel in terms of the American dream, and also consider what Mr. W. said about how the novel was being taught to immigrant children in New York City.  Connections have been made between Gatsby and Daisy as him trying to chase down the American dream, and thinking for a short period of time that he had grasped it at it’s greatest potential [true or not], and comparing Daisy’s alluring voice to money only strengthens this — also explaining why Fitzgerald would describe Daisy’s voice in previous chapters in her descriptions.

Now I just have to talk about Mrs. Wilson getting hit by a car.  Earlier in the chapter, when stopping by at Wilson’s gast staion while driving into the City, the reader was privileged with the knowledge that Myrtle looked down from her window and saw Tom and Jordan in Gatsby’s car — leaving her to believe that Jordan was Daisy, but more importantly that Gatsby’s car was Tom’s.  So from what I take on the accident, Mrs. Wilson thought that it was Tom driving when she ran into the road, and was probably running out to tell him that Mr. Wilson was trying to make her move.  I do find it interesting that Daisy of all of the characters was really the one that hit Mrs. Wilson, but I know that Daisy did not know what Tom’s mistress looked like.  But could this, perhaps, be symbolic of what is to happen now with her and Tom?

I titled this blog ‘Building Momentum’ instead of a generic ‘Chapter VI’ because we are finally learning something about Gatsby, and besides the fact that we are almost half way through the novel, I think that this definitely shows that something big is about to happen — the mystery that is Gatsby is no longer so unsolvable, so now something big is bound to happen. I can just feel it, I’m really getting into this book!  Anyhow, we now know that Jay Gatsby was born James Gatz, a boy of wonderful imagination to unsuccessful farmers out west.  In a nutshell, Gatsby was influenced by a wealthy man by the name of Dan Cody who was able to bring the Great Gatsby into existence from what had only been previously alive in Gatz’s mind.

“To young Gatz, resting on his oars and looking up at the railed deck, that yacht represented all the beauty and glamour in the world.” [Page 100]

This was the moment that truly began to shape the Gatsby we know today, but was also a moment that made me think of the American dream to keep on moving up in life and in the quality of life to which you have become accustomed, and I think that that was really his catalyst so to speak.  As for my link, this subject made me think back to American History with Ms. Schoenfeld last year where we learned about Horatio Alger, an author who was famous for writing stories about young boys striving to achieve the American Dream and how anyone can achieve it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Alger,_Jr.

Another part of the reading that caught my attention was Nick’s narration of Daisy at Gatsby’s party on Page 107:

” ‘I like her,’ said Daisy, ‘I think she’s lovely.’ But the rest offended her — and inarguably, because it wasn’t a gesture but an emotion.”

This made me reflect once again on that elite society of the upper class and how fake it really is, how everybody puts on a show for everyone else, and how the riches and splendor are all a facade for the numerous problems that exist under the surface.  It is gestures, such as the ones put on between members of the upper class, that can be insincere — emotions show the truth.  Perhaps when West Egg and East Egg combine, that is when the truth comes out.  For example, this held true when Gatsby met with daisy at Nick’s house for the first time.  Instead of putting on airs and exemplifying perfect manners as he always had done, Gatsby was a nervous wreck and let that show.

In Chapter V, we got to see even more into the true Gatsby’s character, and even though I am trying to stand firm on my belief that Gatsby is a good guy, I am starting to believe that he is a bit of a sketchy character after all.  For example on Pages 82-83, Gatsby tries to convince Nick to work with him in some obscure, unnamed business:

“…You see, I carry on a little business on the side, a sort of side line, you understand…It wouldn’t take up much of your time and you might pick up a nice bit of money.  It happens to be a rather confidential sort of thing.”

I am now starting to believe that Gatsby did not earn his immense wealth in an earnest fashion, and I’m starting to make predictions such as the possibility that Gatsby, out of his desperate love for Daisy, engaged himself in some sort of corrupt business to make enough money so he could live near Daisy — this would, of course, contradict his previous statements where he claimed to have inherited most of his money.  Perhaps he did not come from money, and that is why Daisy could not marry him — she was restricted by her social obligations to marry someone with money.  I’m starting to run with this idea that Gatsby is not the elite that he associates with that comes from money, and lately I’ve picked up on something that I might not have if not for this thought.  Throughout this chapter, Gatsby is so nervous that he is forgetting his impeccable manners (understandably).  This made me realize that those great manners of his are not natural, and that he is probably doing them to feel as though he is fitting into that society — a society that is filled with fake-ness itself. So I will not be surprised if Gatsby is lying to Nick and others about his past.

I would also like to point out another awkward moment in the novel: most of Chapter V.  Poor Nick was the third wheel while Gatsby showed off his house to Daisy, and I don’t blame him.  This is some advice for Nick in future situations: http://www.wikihow.com/Avoid-Being-a-Third-Wheel

On a separate note, I was definitely struck by a line Nick writes on Page 96 where he is saying that there must have been times during the afternoon where Daisy did not live up to the dreams that Gatsby had had of her.

“No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart.”

This quote (and a few others in the chapter) really hit me for associating The Great Gatsby with the quest for the American dream in my essay.  I found this to be a powerful quote that can expand itself to show that success and prosperity in America is not all as great as those who sought it had dreamed, and if anything, things are worse and more complicated once fulfilling that “American Dream.”

As I read the descriptions of the parties Gatsby threw, I could not help but think back to class when we talked about how the Great Depression would take place only a few years after this novel’s publication.  Every week there were extravagant parties with multitudes of the upper-class, and their whole elite society just seems like one constant party.  These people do not seem to have any troubles or responsibilities — take, for example, the little man in the library who flat-out says to Nick, “I’ve been drunk for about a week now, and I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library.” (P. 46)  I can definitely understand through the lifestyle of the 1920’s that Fitzgerald has exposed how the Great Depression would only be a few years away.  For these young socialites, their only priority is to have a good time and bask in their own wealth and in the wealth surrounding them.

As for Nick, we know that he too has come from money, but their is always a contrast between him and the others.  This has been made apparent in the previous two chapters, but one of the lines from Chapter III that made me think of this again was, “I believe that on the first night I went to Gatsby’s house I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited.” (P. 41)  This made me think about the differences between people who come from money such as Nick and these others — could it be the free-ness and glamor of the “big city” that makes these guests like they are, as compared to Nick who seems much more responsible?  Or could it just be that Nick is an oddity amongst this upper class society, and what we see in the guests is actually the reality of what happens to humans once they finally reach “the American dream”?

Now on to Gatsby.  There is so much to discuss and/or analyze from this chapter, but Gatsby himself interests me much more.  I am definitely curious to see more of him and really find out who he is!  Between the conversations at the dinner table where the guests are gossiping about whether or not Gatsby was a German spy, to the part where the man in the library says how he had thought that Gatsby’s library would have a hidden secret passage or have fake cardboard books, I just thought it was ridiculous how these people knew nothing about him. Then I also thought about the girl’s story where she ripped her dress while probably raving drunk at his house, she probably did not even know Gatsby very much, and yet Gatsby went out and bought her a new, fancy dress to replace the one she had ripped.  So now I ask: Why does Gatsby even surround himself with these people? Who is he trying to impress?  I add in the last question especially because of the way that the description of his smile on Page 48 made me think of how he makes all of his guests feel so wonderful and carefree.  These questions will probably be answered as we actually learn more about Gatsby’s character, but my new question for the plot is if his meeting with Jordan has to do with his love for Daisy (as the back of the book spils for us)?

**By the way, this is how I pictured the night at Gatsby’s before it got too wild: http://www.photoawesome.com/media/2008/04/country-house-party.jpg**

As I started reading Chapter 2, I was able to affirm thoughts that I had in the previous chapter of how desperately Tom is trying to get Nick ‘on his side’ so to speak — despite the fact that Daisy is Nick’s cousin. When Tom bluntly says to Nick on the train, “We’re getting off. I want you to meet my girl,” (Page 24) I felt incredibly awkward for Nick that he was forced into a situation where he would be meeting his cousin’s husband’s mistress.  As far as the plot line involving Tom’s mistress (Mrs. Wilson) goes, it really got interesting for me on Page 33 where her sister, Catherine, tells Nick that Tom hasn’t yet divorced Daisy because Daisy is a Catholic and does not believe in divorce.  Nick explains, “Daisy was not a Catholic, and I was a little shocked at the elaborateness of the lie.”  (Page 33)  My next question was whether it was catherine who was lying to Nick, or whether Nick was addressing a lie that Tom had told Mrs. Wilson and her sister. I felt that I got the answer to my question just a few pages later when Tom broke Mrs. Wilson’s nose after she continuously said Daisy’s name — a sign of disrespect from Tom’s point of view.  As of right now, I am assuming that Tom is with Mrs. Wilson for the excitement of having two women and for getting from her what he feels he cannot from Daisy, but that he still loves Daisy.  He never mentions the daughter he has with Daisy, so I do not think that she is the only factor which contributes to his staying with Daisy; I also believe that Tom acts abruptly with Daisy (as shown in Chapter I) perhaps out of guilt.  So in a nutshell what I am trying to also get across is that Tom is never satisfied and wants as much as he can get — American character essay topic, perhaps?

Another brief section of the chapter that caught my eye was when Catherine was telling Nick how she had recently been at a party at Gatsby’s house.  Fitzgerald definitely seems to be building up momentum by casually dropping in mentions of Gatsby that only last a few sentences, and I really want to learn more about him.  A thought that I had when I was thinking about Gatsby was how exactly he fits into the elite society that the other characters seem to be involved in.  He seems to be a man with great wealth and great power, yet he (as can be concluded up to this point) is not making a show of it by living in East Egg as others such as Tom and Daisy do, but instead he lives in the less-showy West Egg.  From this I can already see a connection between Gatsby and Nick, as of right now, that they are both black sheeps in this upper class society.

I can definitely already tell that I am going to like this book. The characters and their high-profile lifestyles are certainly intriguing, especially when you come to realize that their wealth and material possessions are only masking problems that cannot be solved with money. For instance, Tom Buchanan was one of the greatest football players ever to play at Yale, and Daisy was one of those beauties that made everyone fall in love with her. Although they were immensely wealthy as Tom made clear to Nick throughout Chapter I, it still was not enough to compensate for the gaping hole in their marriage – as Tom was having an affair with another woman. Especially at the end of the chapter, the reader sees how blunt Tom and Daisy can get about their marriage problems and other issues, both of them opening up to Nick although he was nearly a stranger. This may be a stretch, but since I was trying to keep our American spirit essay in mind while reading, I made the mental connection of Tom and Daisy opening up to Nick as similar to Americans trying to lure in other countries as allies when faced with conflict.

What truly struck me, though, was on Page 17 where Daisy begins to exclaim, “…Everything’s terrible anyhow. Everybody thinks so – the most advanced people. And I know. I’ve been everywhere and seen everything and done everything.” The powerful cliché that “ignorance is bliss” immediately played into my thoughts as I read this part of the passage. Daisy was explaining how cynical she was of the world based off of all of the traveling she had done and experiences she had – her statement being more than just her showing off to Nick that aspects of her life, despite her marriage, were indeed to be envied after all. Anyways, if she had not done all of those things she would never had known that the world was now a terrible place.

Going back to relating the reading to our essay defining the American character through literature, I was also struck by a quote on Page 20 that related back to my essay point on capitalism and greed in the United States. Nick observes “Mr. Gatsby himself, come out to determine what share was his of our local heavens.” Mr. Gatsby, as described earlier, is Nick’s millionaire next-door neighbor, and having come from such an in-your-face extravagant dinner with the Buchanans you cannot blame Nick to interpret Mr. Gatsby as such.

As I read the last three chapters and the Epilogue, I honestly got chills.  These were the momentous parts of the novel that save the reader’s perception of it!  What I first would like to discuss is the part in Chapter 134 in which Moby Dick sinks Ahab’s boat, snapping Ahab’s leg off in the process.  I found it very symbolic that in the end it was Moby Dick that made Ahab’s leg, constructed out of whale bone, finally snap off [as Ahab had said he needed a new leg soon in previous chapters].  And to give that symbolic event even more power to it, at the end of the chapter the carpenter makes Ahab a new leg, now made out of the remnants of Ahab’s harpoon boat.  Moby Dick had originally taken Ahab’s leg, and now, after essentially taking it again, he proved that Ahab could not outsmart him and was no match.  This reminded me of the wrath of Greek gods from mythology — Moby Dick was a large creature in the vast unknown, the sea being a  place that Ishmael had even said was divine, and when he was angered he certainly proved to the whalers that they basically had to stay in their place.  Also about Ahab’s new leg, I found it interesting that the carpenter constructed it out of Ahab’s capsized harpoon boat.  I could go on for hours about Ahab’s leg.  There’s the fact that his whale bone leg represented his connection to Moby Dick, but his new leg made out of the wood of one of his boats finally connects Ahab with the men in his crew — as in this night’s reading, we see sanity, humanity, and even compassion from Ahab.  Another point could be made that the whale-bone leg represented his inevitable downfall by the White Whale, while his newly-constructed wooden leg represents his immediate downfall from the actual chase itself. Etc etc.

Chapter 135, the last real chapter in the sequence of The Chase, proved to be just as epic.  After Ahab’s touching farewell with Starbuck, previously his greatest critic, sharks start biting at the oars on Ahab’s harpoon boat.  Where else were sharks prominent in the novel?  When the dead whales were strung to the Pequod.  Now it is the turn for the crew to, in a sense, be those dead whales.  Then Ahab sees the first hearse from Fedallah’s prophecy — Fedallah, drowned in Chapter 134, was attached to Moby Dick’s body by a mess of ropes.  Besides the obvious ominous imagery of Fedallah’s body being dragged by Moby Dick, it is only intensified by the fact that Fedallah was Ahab’s main henchman, and also the one that tried to reveal the intentions of the Gods through prophecy, if you want to connect back to the point I made about these last three chapters seeming like a fight in Greek mythology.

Where is Moby Dick?!  I had assumed from all the foreshadowing in the last reading assignment that at least Chapter 130 of tonight’s reading would have somebody spotting Moby Dick, or Fedallah summoning him from Hell or however it is going to play out.  But now, to the serious parts of Chapters 126-130.  Chapter 126 proved to only further intensify the bad omens and foreshadowing from the previous reading, but in a more realistic way.  By this I mean that the superstitious beliefs of the men and one of the crew’s drowning seemed a much more solid foreshadowing then the highly-dramatic scenes involving pagan’s blood, lightning bolts, baptizing harpoons in the name of the Devil, etc.  To me this chapter actually brought the book a little more back to earth [or as close to that as the Pequod of this novel could get.]  Then came an incredible example of irony: because the crewmember had drowned because of an old life buoy, the carpenter was instructed to turn Queequeg’s eventual coffin into the new life buoy.  Although this may be expected for the Pequod, it is still absolutely ridiculous when you think about it as well as even more terrible foreshadowing.

Back to my impatience regarding Moby Dick, in Chapters 128 and 129 more momentum is built so to speak as Ahab’s obsession grows stronger, meaning the White Whale must be growing closer.  First, Ahab refuses to help aide Captain Gardiner of the Rachel in finding his son who was lost in the quest for Moby Dick.  Of course Ahab isn’t the kindest man, but still Captain Gardiner could have provided him with extra assistance in tracking Moby Dick, and even crazy people can emphasize with others — by this I mean that Ahab has a young son and a Pip, and I do not think he would want them to be in Gardiner’s son’s situation.  Also, Ahab tells Pip when walking around the deck one night that he cannot follow, because he wants no distractions at all from possibily sighting Moby Dick.

What I am not positive of, though, is the symbolic meaning of the hawk stealing Ahab’s hat.  I know it is a bad omen [as actual parts of the story with plot only happen for a reason], but what exactly I am not sure.  I am thinking that this either represents Ahab’s inevitable doom overall, that his death may be related to the main-mast and the fact that Starbuck is watching the rope, or the end of his authority as captain.  I throw in the last possibility because now Ahab is determined to be the first one to spot Moby Dick, which in turn would mean that he would get the gold doubloon.  And if he gets the doubloon and/or so persistently watches out for Moby Dick, the crew’s motivation for continuing the journey peacefully will be gone.

Many things worth mentioning happened in these chapters, but I first want to go into my “WHAT JUST HAPPENED??” moment that was Chapter 110 in its entirety.  First, my darling Queequeg grows increasingly sick until the point where he has a coffin to be made in advance for him.  When it is made, Queequeg lies inside of it with his idol and harpoon and closes the lid. Meanwhile, crazy Pip starts to dance around it. My first reaction was whether or not Pip had, on this voyage, in a sense become the Seed of Ahab.  Later on, in Chapter 125, my reaction was confirmed –Ahab is touched by Pip’s new-found insanity and says that his cabin is now Pip’s.

I also think that all of the analogies with the ocean in Chapters 111-114 are great analogies for foreshadowing a disaster.  Overall, the Pequod has not been forced to encounter anything perilous on their voyage lately, which definitely relates to how Ishmael first describes the ocean as calm and almost Heaven-like.  But, as Ishmael continues in Chapter 114, this serenity is misleading, presenting danger coming towards the ship quite soon.  In the last few chapters of the reading, foreshadowing of a future disaster is made clear by the fact that Ahab loses all of his navigating devices. Fedallah’s prophecies of Ahab’s death only continue this foreshadowing, as he predicts that Ahab will somehow die by rope.   Ahab, though, is exceedingly arrogant in these chapters and automatically assumes that he will be hung on land, rather than recognize the fact that the Pequod is surrounded with ropes and that the intricate way that the ropes in the harpoon boats are weaved have been stressed earlier on in the book.  Ahab also shows his arrogance by at first refusing to take the time to fix the leaking barrels of hard-earned oil, trampling his quadrant, refusing to put lightning rods on the masts, arguing with Starbuck about the sails, etc.

**In Chapter 113, Ahab is using the blood of the harpooners to make himself a harpoon. 1. Why? and 2. Is Pip laughing as he does this??? He really is like Chucky.

**I had no connection to the Internet until last night, so I’m copying in what I typed in Microsoft Word. Sorry it’s late either way!**

Despite the many chapters that were [as expected] all but too Ishmael, I did find this assigned reading quite interesting.  We learn in Chapter 100 that Ahab, in some respects, is not alone — Captain Boomer of the English whaling ship Samuel Enderby has also survived an attack from Moby Dick, walking away with an ivory peg for an arm.  But Ahab and Boomer are quite different because Ahab let the attack change his outlook on life and become insane in his monomania.  Boomer, on the other hand, does not even give the same amount of attention when telling the Pequod of how he lost his arm as he does the rum he drank whilst recovering!  Also, Ahab, refusing to let it go, is now embarking on a vengeance-based, world-wide voyage to hunt down Moby Dick and dragging an entire crew of men with him; Boomer, upon encountering Moby Dick out of chance for a second time, was wise enough from his previous experience that it was not worth attacking the white whale.  Chapter 102 brought about the side of Ishmael that, as always, makes me laugh — the side of him we see in which we envision him as the slightly nerdy kid trying to push that he can be cool and fit in.  By this I am referring to the tattoo on his arm of the dimensions of a whale that is used as an altar in the Ishmael-produced land of Tranque.  As much as I laughed at this image of Ishmael trying to fit in with a crew that embodies men such as Queequeg, I did find meaning in when the priests of Tranque insisted that Ishmael should not measure the whale-skeleton altar because nobody can measure God.  Perhaps Ishmael trying to make himself appear as so intelligent is him overstepping his God-given [something]? I need to ponder this.

The last thing I want to mention is Chapter 106, in which Ahab asks a new leg of the carpenter on board.  Ishmael mentions that Ahab’s current leg, made of whale bone, is becoming flimsy.  And, because of this leg made out of whale bone, not long before starting the voyage on the Pequod, Ahab was left lying on the ground after slipping.  I definitely view this as foreshadowing about how Moby Dick will bring the inevitable death of Ahab, and also at the time it should have foreshadowed that the way Ahab obtained this leg would be his downfall in a mental and emotional sense.