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Gabriel Hannon

2B-1

Romancing the Stone

Man cannot be understood in a vacuum. To know someone is to know how he connects

with the people in his world. Possibly the most telling of these connections, the lens that will

most clearly reveal a mans character, is that of love. To fully grasp a mans disposition, one

must be able to fathom how the man loves. The bond of love, be a simple crush, an ill-fated but

attempted relationship, or true romance, shows more about a man than any statement of

philosophy or creed of faith. In F. Scott Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby, both the eponymous Jay

Gatsby and the storytelling Nick Carraway have relationships that affect not only the course of

their lives, but reveal more completely two of the most enigmatic characters in American

literature. However, the women with whom Jay and Nick are, to varying degrees, infatuated with

cannot be looked at simply as flat characters who serve only to advance the plot. Daisy Fay and

Jordan Baker, the respective love interests, create new dimensions not only in the two leading

men, but in Gatsbys world. Furthermore, the ill-fated romance between Daisy and Jay, upon

which the entire book revolves, should not be looked at without considering the relationship

between Jordan and Nick, the lens through which the story is seen. Sometimes overlooked, the

character of Jordan, with her wan smile and unique understanding of truth and lies, gives Nick

and, in turn, the reader new insights into the nature of dreams and living in Gatsbys world.

Furthermore their respective breakups show the difference in the convictions of Jay and Nick and

Jordans relationship to Nick provides a counterweight to the story around Jay and Daisy.

Through the secondary romance between Jordan and Nick, Fitzgerald gives the reader a new way

to understand the main romance, Jordan Baker leads Nick to new revelations about his world,
and the respective ends of the two relationships end up defining the outcome of Fitzgeralds

greatest masterpiece.

TS1: Any attempt to analyze Gatsbys near-obsessive love for Daisy must be made through the

words of Nick, who is, in turn, influenced by his experience of love with Jordan, which, having

failed, paints Gatsbys affair in a doomed light.

Too wise to carry long forgotten dreams from age to age

TS2: Upon reflecting over his interactions with Jordan, a woman who has a great capacity to

know everything but is willing to be incredibly untruthful, Nick often relapses into powerful

almost philosophical passages, which shows how love is the tool needed to reveal the inner

character of man, both in his beliefs and dreams.

TS3: The shattering of the love between the two couples in the novel ends up defining not only

the story that Nick and Fitzgerald are telling, but they, in their differences, draw the line that

reveals why Gatsbys character is so powerful, and why Nick is naught but a storyteller.

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