Perhaps the most attractive aspect of Gatsby's character was his reminicent dreaming, something I am convinced he held onto, even unto death. Although Nick speculates on what it would have been like, for Gatsby to lose hold of the dream and wake into reality, I can't believe he ever fully did so.
Continuing on in the "stalkerishly romantic" style of living, that Eric so eloquently described in class, Gatsby sits outside of Daisy's house until four o'clock in the morning, waiting to make sure Tom didn't beat her -- not something a realistically/logically thinking person would do. Even when Nick suggests Gatsby leaving Long Island, he refuses to go without his beloved siren. His final act, too, incriminates -- floating, aimlessly, in a pool, on a blow-up mattress, staring into the sky.
Perhaps towards the end, and especially in the pool scene, reality was starting to settle in, but because there's no real proof of it, in the text, outside of Nick's speculation, I can't be made to believe that he ever came full-circle. He fought so long, and so hard, to keep the dream alive while it came crashing down around him, it doesn't make sense that during his final moments of life he'd accept life as it was.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
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