Looking At Great Gatsby English Literature Essay

In Tom Burnam essay The Eyes of Dr. Eckleburg: A Re-examination The Great Gatsby, he puts forward his interpretation of the text. He believes that though the “Great Gatsby” was a great work of literature it is a flawed one. As it “lacks something”, he believes that the author, F. Scott Fitzgerald made the mistake of placing to much of himself, as the author and of his life into the characters. Tom Burnam, in his essay, also put forward a point about the novel being more about carelessness than “illusion and integrity”. Tom Burnam posits that there is little differentiation between the author and the character as he believes that not even the most skillful novelist could make us, the readers accept Nick Carrarway as fully responsible for “composing the wonderful description in chapter iii”. In his essay “The Eyes of Dr. Eckleburg: A Re-examination “The Great Gatsby”, he believes that lack lies within stems from Fitzgerald placing himself in the novel, however unwittingly, stating that:

“The book, great as it is, still falls short of its possibilities because its energies are spent in two directions. If The Great Gatsby revealed to us only its protagonist, it would be incomparable. Revealing, as it does, perhaps a little too much of the person who created it, it becomes somewhat less sharp, less pointed, more diffused in its effect.”

Tom Burnam stated in his essay that “The Great Gatsby” was also a commentary on the “nature and values, or lack of them, of the reckless ones”, the “reckless ones” being the rich. My own interpretation of the text is in short, a commentary on the generation and society left after the First World War. This interpretation follows from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s other novels and short stories as they all follow a similar theme. As I will show, there are multiple interpretations of the book however some are more logical than others. During the First World War thousands of Americans died, despite joining the conflicting April 1917 and this, quite understandably, created disharmony in society and also lead those returning from war to try to come to terms with their experiences. Although Fitzgerald himself never actually went to war he was called up to fight but the war ended before he was called upon to make the trip to Europe. This is in contrast to Gatsby who we are told “tried very hard to die” during the war and for that earned great honors from “every Allied government…- even Montenegro, little Montenegro down on the Adriatic Sea.” This romanticized expression of Montenegro is one of the things described as enchanted throughout – including Gatsby’s life and Daisy. It is here in chapter IV that we get the first impression that Nick does not wholly trust Gatsby and although it doesn’t last long, it is evidence enough to suggest that there is something not quite right about Gatsby and the way in which Nick reveres him. Fitzgerald intentionally threads doubt into every account of Gatsby’s past and Nick begins to wonder “if there wasn’t something a little sinister about him, after all.” This lack of integrity is a running theme of the novel and although care is given as the reason for Jordan liking Nick earlier in the chapter she is described by Nick as “incurably dishonest” and although this is written in hindsight we, as readers, can’t help but question everything she has said up to this point, until Fitzgerald reassures us by telling us “[Nick is] one of the few honest people [he] has ever known.” This self-justification that the reader is not entirely sure of is similar to that of Stevens in remains of the Day, when we suspect him of eavesdropping; he attempts to reassure us by saying “I could not help but get the gist of what was being said.” As we can see, there is a distinct difference between the author’s voice and intentions and the narrator’s voice. Undoubtedly Fitzgerald intended us to be suspicious of Gatsby throughout the novel until we begin to feel genuinely sorry for him. After the atrocities that happened during the war it is easy to sympathize with those who lost their faith. It has been suggested the eye of Dr T.J Eckleburg were put in after the cover illustration had been finished and Fitzgerald added them in homage to it, however I feel that the symbolism is far too poignant for this to have been a mere after-thought. For me, these eyes are directly representing the eyes of God, a God that has been abandoned and left to decay such as “his eyes, dimmed a little by many painless days, under sun and rain,[brooded] on over the solemn dumping ground.” Burnam uses the examples of careless driving in support for his claim to the central theme of the text being the tragedy that this has brought to all affected by it and only”[Gatsby] and he alone, barring Caraway – survives sound and whole in character.” I cannot accept that Fitzgerald wrote Gatsby in the sole purpose to put across the hazards of bad driving; I can, therefore, only speculate that this is a smaller issue than Burnam makes it out to be and instead would suggest that the references to driving are there simply as pointers or symbols of foreshadowing the accidents that occur later in the novel. The passage with the “amputated wheel” gives those who return to the book a pointer as to the ending, with the line: “You don’t understand…I wasn’t driving.” Afterwards, as a solution to the problem, the “criminal” suggests “[putting] her in reverse” to which the response is “but the wheels off” In a very abstract way this episode is a taste of things to come as Gatsby tries to “beat on…against the current” and reclaim the past which poverty and war robbed him of. While Burnam’s essay simply puts forward his alternative view of “The Great Gatsby” I can’t help but feel he has taken the symbols at too deep-a-level. Burnam says the reason he does this is due to the “confusion of themes and duality of the symbol-structure, of which Fitzgerald seems to have been unaware. The book…falls short of its possibilities because its energies are spent in two directions” revealing both the protagonist and author in great detail making it “somewhat less sharp, less pointed, more diffused in its effect.” By this, Burnam is simply saying he thinks Fitzgerald should have been more careful in allowing himself to come through in his work and stuck to telling the story of Jay Gatsby. Sometimes we must take a text at face value and not look too deep as not all novels have such unfathomable depths