Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
2B-1
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
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
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.