r/TheGreatGatsby

I wasn’t assigned it in high school English like many others so I’m late to the party and wanted to yap about it. Technically listened through audiobook because Jake Gyllenhaal’s voice and voice acting was really good.

I felt so sympathetic to Gatsby and started relating to him and it was so sad that he got screwed over and killed in the end!! It was also a bit disappointing that Nick and Jorden didn’t end up together, though from her reaction following Myrtle’s death I guess it makes sense.

I read someone’s summary on reddit that in the shortest way it’s about a wealthy couple named Tom and Daisy who have affairs and their main affair partners both die at the end due to them and they leave together or something and essentially yeah. I read another interpretation too of Daisy being more opportunistic and calculative than Nicks narration gave her credit for which I felt was an interesting and possibly fitting take.

I liked how in depth they characterised different people eg Tom being racist, abrupt, and essentially seen as immature (like a child by Nick at their last encounter). The scenes with Gatsby’s father at the end seemed a little overdone imo, like something to humanise him a bit more and give more context about him but I wondered why his mother wasn’t mentioned at this time.

Overall pretty sad book. The themes make sense and I can understand why it’s prescribed to high schoolers to analyse but I wondered too if it maybe inspired some impressionable young people to view women as fickle and imo the role of Tom’s wealth and family influence in letting him get away with affairs and covering up his wife’s murder and role in Gatsby’s murder should have been emphasised more, rather than his pushiness.

Yap over.

Re-reading and re-watching The Great Gatsby made me realize that the true victim of the story is not Gatsby—it's Daisy. There's always a thin line that separates ambition and obsession, and Gatsby had crossed it before the story even began. He's obsessed with the idea of Daisy from the past that will complete his dream. He might have loved Daisy once, but he loved his American dream more than her. He isn't pursuing the real Daisy; he wants the idealized perfect version of her that he created. Gatsby's obsession with Daisy tells us how eager he is to belong and be part of the old money class; since Daisy was born in a noble family considered as an old money, Gatsby wanted that identity too. That's why he became so agitated and lost his temper when Tom told him that he'll never be one of them. Moreover, Daisy was treated as a decoration for Gatsby's perfect dream world; she was forced to forget about her present relationship with Tom just for Gatsby to accomplish his desire. Imagine Daisy has a child with Tom, and Gatsby wants her to divorce her husband and make it seem like she never liked Tom in the first place. She was torn between a cheating husband and a man who only likes the idealized version of her. However, Daisy might be the victim of the story, but she's also morally corrupt. Her decision at the end to leave Gatsby and choose Tom was her best choice but not the right answer to her problem. For Daisy, every choice will make her a villain. That's why she chooses to hide; she may be morally corrupt and a participant in her corrupt world, but Tom and Gatsby reduce her to an object of desire. She was cheated on by Tom, used, and viewed as a mere object for Gatsby's ideal life. In the end, Daisy may be a rotten apple, but Tom and Gatsby hasten her decay by treating her as an object of desire rather than seeing her as a person.

What if there was an anime adaptation of Great Gatsby

I think it would be appropriate to say that this book evokes truly complex emotions for me. This is because it is a book I studied during my high school English literature class. I felt a connection to the main character, "Gatsby," as I saw a bit of myself in his inability to let go of the past. Since I too was longing for my high school era I can never return to, no matter how much I might want to.

While it was simply a course material at the time, it would be a lie to say I didn't enjoy it. Immersed in those old memories and the sheer intrigue of the story, I've consistently re-watched the movie adaptation of The Great Gatsby for years. I originally though that it couldn't have been but one of the best selling books of Fitzgerald's times but I was quite shocked to find out that he was only acclaimed for his this masterpiece after the WW2. Maybe the public wanted something that could distract them from their reality, an unrealistic storyline that didn't remind them of their daily lives. Maybe that was the reason for their lukewarm reception towards it.

When I finished reading it, the lingering resonance was so strong that I wished I could go back and read the very first page all over again.

Life wasn't too bad when analyzing this book was one of my goals, just a short rant with some ai help to fully express my devotion and love for this book.

P.S. I kind of feel bad for every character in the book, there isn't one character(not even the poorly portrayed one's like Tom and Daisy) whom I had a dislike for.