Why doesn’t Daisy choose Gatsby?

[Anonymous]

I just love Gatsby. He worked so hard to better himself -- the scene at end of book when his father is talking with Nick was so poignant.

There are so many Daisys and Toms in the world.

[Anonymous]

I re-read this book recently (yes, I’m a huge nerd). I had liked both Nick and Gatsby when I read it in high school.

Now, in my 40s, I laughed because I hated EVERYONE. ALL the characters are awful human beings! What did I ever see in Gatsby or Nick? Maybe Jordan is the least objectionable? (She only cheats in golf…?)

[Anonymous]

In my mind Anna Karenina is what would have happened if Daisy had left Tom for Gatsby.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In my mind Anna Karenina is what would have happened if Daisy had left Tom for Gatsby.

Oh man. That's so grim.

[Anonymous]

"Most of the big shore places were closed now and there were hardly any lights except the shadowy, moving glow of a ferryboat across the Sound. And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors’ eyes—a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby’s house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an æsthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.

And as I sat there, brooding on the old unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning——

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

I still get chills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just love Gatsby. He worked so hard to better himself -- the scene at end of book when his father is talking with Nick was so poignant.

There are so many Daisys and Toms in the world.

He didn't really better himself though. He built himself into ehat he tho8ght Diasy wanted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I re-read this book recently (yes, I’m a huge nerd). I had liked both Nick and Gatsby when I read it in high school.

Now, in my 40s, I laughed because I hated EVERYONE. ALL the characters are awful human beings! What did I ever see in Gatsby or Nick? Maybe Jordan is the least objectionable? (She only cheats in golf…?)

Funny, I also re-read it as an adult and felt like I was reading an entirely different book!

[Also, the fact that a Gatsby thread gets to multiple pages is why I love DCUM.}

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I feel like I'm writing someone's 11th grade English essay for them right now lol

There is definitely a "teen-age presence" on DCUM. I don't know if it's just an adult who is childlike, or an actual teenager, but I suspect there are one or more teens on the listserve.

so yes, you probably are informing someone's schoolwork right now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just love Gatsby. He worked so hard to better himself -- the scene at end of book when his father is talking with Nick was so poignant.

There are so many Daisys and Toms in the world.

He didn't really better himself though. He built himself into ehat he tho8ght Diasy wanted.

Yes he did. His Dad reads a paper of his “self improvement” schedule. Not sure if Gatsby wrote that before or after meeting Daisy, but I think it was before meeting her.

[Anonymous]

I there is some slight differing of opinions due to whether the person is basing their opinions on the newer version of the movie, the original movie and/or the book.

I read the book and saw the original movie more than once and there are some references that I am unaware of.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She was merely slumming it with Gatsby back in the day. A proper high caste girl briefly rebelling, nothing more. Low class gangster Gatsby was deluded and desperate for it to be more.

It's like middle class kids who go to an Ivy or even a public U full of rich kids like UVA and party with and even hook up with rich kids. They think they're really "in" with the rich kids. But after graduation those "friendships" almost immediately fade and all the rich kids end up marrying each other.

Ouch. But so true. You might even score an invite to a few of the weddings but you are not in their club, you are merely a hang from college.

[Anonymous]

Daisy and Tom are both sluts. She could not slut around on Gatsby, he would not have it.

Daisy is like all other women having affairs she romanticizes who Gatsby is in her head, but it's not real... he's just a new money gangster.

Not only does she not choose Gatsby, he was never a real option.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She was merely slumming it with Gatsby back in the day. A proper high caste girl briefly rebelling, nothing more. Low class gangster Gatsby was deluded and desperate for it to be more.

It's like middle class kids who go to an Ivy or even a public U full of rich kids like UVA and party with and even hook up with rich kids. They think they're really "in" with the rich kids. But after graduation those "friendships" almost immediately fade and all the rich kids end up marrying each other.

Ouch. But so true. You might even score an invite to a few of the weddings but you are not in their club, you are merely a hang from college.

Unless you marry one of them, which I have seen happen. Its usually a girl who snags a rich boy.

[Anonymous]

I think people exaggerate how profound the book is. It and really all of his novels are just Fitzgerald projecting on how it felt to be an UMC spoiled young man around even wealthier more spoiled upper crust peers at Princeton. Enough already. Blah. Whiny and tiresome.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think people exaggerate how profound the book is. It and really all of his novels are just Fitzgerald projecting on how it felt to be an UMC spoiled young man around even wealthier more spoiled upper crust peers at Princeton. Enough already. Blah. Whiny and tiresome.

But why do you begrudge those of us who enjoy a book discussion. If you had just left off the bolded I would have agreed with you and enjoyed your point.