Was Jay Gatsby the bad guy???
Was Jay Gatsby the bad guy???
Just finished up a fourth read of the book, second viewing of the newer movie, and third play-through of the NES game.
It's really starting to seem like "Jay Gatsby" wasn't actually such a great guy after all. This would honestly be weird because none of F. Scott Fitzgerald's other books are sarcastically named, he isn't like Charles Dickens that way. Even in Tales of the Jazz Age, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" is pretty curious, even if there isn't a lot of jazz in that one.
Anyway Gatsby stalked his ex and probably shouldn't have encouraged drunk driving.
What do you think, sarcastic book title? Was he actually bad and not so great?
I love how every comment is taking this question dead seriously.
But you might be onto something, old sport
i'm preparing myself to believe each person here is a sock puppet account for the genuine David Belasco
“Great” meaning “very large”, not “very good”.
Gatsby turned himself into a larger than life character.
That is what I think the title is trying to get at.
'Great' doesn't always mean good. It can just mean notable or remarkableness. (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/great). Gatsby the man was so known on so many levels it is actual theme/commentary within the book.
You are great man, but this does not mean you are great guy.
Thanks, Satan.
Isn't the tension between Gatsby's great image and his complex, problematic actuality kind of the point of the story?
(My bonus interpretation: it's also about how America looks like Gatsby's lavish party spot from afar with its green pier light beckoning, yet once you get close it's more like the valley of ashes, its people downtrodden and consumed by jealousy to the point of violence)
I think it's pretty much accepted that Gatsby is not a good person.
Emblem of the Gilded Age etc
'Woo!' - the US government.
Remember when he was side piecin' and that chick that was driving his car hit someone and they just left them there? Yeah
doesn't that seem like something someone bad would do
Wait until you realize that Nick was a piece of shit himself.
I think we are supposed to think about Gatsby the same way the narrator, Nick, thinks about Gatsby.
A great man, a true romantic, but not one suited to this corrupt, fallible world. His relationship to Daisy was a bit more complex than just stalking, she did love him, she just wasn't capable of leaving Tom.
"No— Gatsby turned out all right at the end. It is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men"
Wait what, NES game?