Sunday, August 2, 2009

In The Great Gatsby, how would the novel be different through Tom or Daisy’s eyes? How do you think their view of America would differ from...

If the novel were told from Tom or Daisy's perspective, it would certainly lack the sense of disillusionment that Nick's narration possesses.  Tom and Daisy are so entitled, so self-centered that they would certainly fail to represent anyone other than themselves as sympathetic.  Nick feels tremendous sympathy for Gatsby and recognizes that Gatsby possessed an innocence that no one else in the novel does.  Further, Nick also sympathizes, to a differing degree, with Myrtle Wilson, the woman who'd been having an affair with Tom before Daisy accidentally killed her with Gatsby's car (and then let Gatsby take the blame for it), as well as George Wilson, a hard-working man who is just trying to make enough money so that he and his wife can go west and be happy.  He ends up dead as well.  If the novel were narrated by either Tom or Daisy, it would present these three people in a much less sympathetic light and focus, instead, on how Daisy and Tom feel victimized.


Gatsby, George, and Myrtle are all, in some ways, victims of the Buchanans' carelessness.  As Nick says,



"They were careless people, Tom and Daisy -- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness [...]." 



Nick recognizes that they are incredibly entitled, even though Daisy and Tom think of themselves as victims.  Tom is worried about the "white race" being "utterly submerged" and Daisy is too busy feeling sorry for herself and her "cynic[ism] about everything" to even think about others' feelings. They lack Gatsby's innocence, George Wilson's determination, and Myrtle Wilson's hope. These are not perfect people, but they do not possess the Buchanans' sense of entitlement and recklessness concerning human life and dreams. 


Tom and Daisy's view of America would be much more positive than Nick's. They would have no sense of how hard some people have to work for so little, no idea that it is possible for hard work not to be linked to prosperity. Nick's disillusionment with post-war America would be lost.

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