Chapter+9

== == =__Q&A__=
 * 1. How is the story an ironic twist of the American Dream? Consider Daisy and Gatsby, Daisy and Tom, Myrtle and George Wilson, Myrtle and Tom, Nick and Jordan.**

Ironic? Haha, yes, quite. The most generic description of the “American Dream” is “the idea (often associated with the Protestant work ethic) held by many in the United States of America that through hard work, courage and determination one could achieve prosperity”, [|Wikipedia]. A Protestant work ethic would also be accompanied by a Protestant morality. With respect to this Protestant ethic, three characters combat this theory of the American dream. As a whole, Daisy, Tom, and Myrtle are the three most corrupt people within the story. Tom and Daisy are married; Myrtle and George Wilson are married; Tom is having an affair with Myrtle; Daisy’s having an affair with Gatsby. Yet, in the end, when the truth comes out, the parties are surprised, shocked, and bewildered at the other’s infidelity – an epitome of hypocrisy. Their //need// to cheat on their loved ones puts them on a standstill on their timeline for their attainment of their dreams – if there is a need to be with the one you love through adultery, then why be married to someone you don’t love? Many define the American dream as “working hard to get money and be successful, with a loving wife by your side,” (Williams, 2006). Gatsby perhaps is the best example of the American Dream – he actually has something to strive for, without restrictions (except for that pesky husband of Daisy’s). He’s worked hard for his money, and, with one part down, he continues onto his next part – to get the girl he loves. He represents the closest one has come to attaining the American Dream. Wilson, too, represents a struggle to get to the American dream, but falls short when his wife no longer loves him. He works in valley of ashes to scrape up a living and support himself as well as a parasite who gives nothing in return. It is in this respect hitherto that //The Great Gatsby// represents an ironic view of the American dream – how can an idea be universal if only a minute percentage appreciates the symbolism their supposed strife counts for? The rest are only the selfish who believe they DESERVE the American dream in return for their presence.

These phrases tie up the story by summing up Gatsby's great dream and the degenerate environment he tried to accomplish it in. Gatsby's grand plan is shown for its pure goals and idealism, and his dream of winning Daisy back has become a major struggle of the book. Nick brings us back to how he tried to fulfill his dream in the morally hollow and fake East. The "corruption" of Gatsby's guests reminds of the glitz and pompador of the upper-classes, but also of their lusty materialism and unclean morality. In such a way Nick contrasts Gatsby's clean dream with the moral wasteland of the East, and demonstrates the impossibility of achieving such a dream in that environment. Gatsby comes from the West, and so his dream to reinvent himself and win Daisy is also born from the West. The mention of Gatsby's "incorruptible dream" symbolizes the American Dream as well. What's more, as Jay's dream ultimately fails in New York, it could be concluded that the idealism that the West and the American Dream embody cannot last in the East. It could even be concluded that the American Dream itself is dead in the East.
 * 2. Nick speaks of the “corruption” of Gatsby’s guests and Gatsby’s “incorruptible dream.” How do these phrases begin to pull all the threads of the story together?**


 * 3. Fitzgerald demonstrates the power of proper names. Prove this statement.**

Ever remember when you did something wrong when you were a kid (or even now)? ...how your parents would call you by your full name in that condescending and overbearing tone? This is the power of the proper name. When we're saying the full and proper name of someone, we are exemplifying their identity - howling at their true self. Using the full name of someone gets at the very core of the human spirit; nothing can do this better than the influence of a full name. Proper names also give a sense of power and social standing. Among friends, you have nicknames, but to the impersonal public, we are regarded by our identity. Letting the public get ahold of this knowledge takes power out of the ones who hold it. The proper name is what people are given when they meet. Proper names show a sense of who's who. Names define who we are socially and how people know us; personal names given by comrades are meant to stay within a given circle of comrades. Proper names define what people have done and what they represent - they are symbols of power, in any way, shape, or form. "Names are an important key to what a society values. Anthropologists recognize naming as 'one of the chief methods for imposing order on perception,'" (David S. Slawson, 1987); "Words have meaning and names have power," (Unknown).

Compared to the beginning of the novel, Gatsby's mindset has profoundly changed. Upon not winning over Daisy, his sole desire, he realizes the folly of "living too long with a single dream". (161) Gatsby has also realized how fake and materialistic the high society he has been associating with is. After struggling so long to fit in with the Eastern elite, the once poor Westerner sees the East as the moral sewer it really is. Nick has overall stayed the same, but his opinion of some things have changed. Even before he moved to the East, Nick saw the East with "a quality of distortion". (176) After Gatsby's death, Nick's view of the East as an unreal place solidifies and jades him. Nick changes in that he generates his own conclusions based on events that happened in the book. He comes to view the very rich like Tom and Daisy as careless people who destroy other people's lives and then retreat back into their wealth and let other's clean up their messes for them. ( 179) Nick also comes to see that humans in general spend much of our lives trying to recreated the past, completely unawares that the past is irretriveable and yet we struggle on anyway.
 * 4. Compare the beginning and the ending of the novel. Has Gatsby changed? Has Nick changed? Explain and justify your responses.**

//Before Gatsby's death Nick speculates what went through his mind after not winning Daisy, his ultimate dream://

"No telephone message arrived...I have an idea that Gatsby himself didn't believe it would come, and perhaps he no longer cared. If that was true he must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream. He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass. A new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about...like that ashen, fantastic figure gliding toward him through the amorphous tress." (161)

=__Main Idea / Thesis__:=

People around the world struggle hard to achieve a dream that they wish could have been their past. What most of them do not realize is that their dream is unobtainable, yet they keep striving for that dream. They try hard to recreate the past, but the past is gone and cannot be reached. Nothing is more evident of this than that of the strife of obtaining the American Dream.

[|Full Text - Chapter 9] Works Cited - Chapter 9

J. Crosson R. Esfahani E. Jureack