Perspectives
When I read The Great Gatsby, by Scott Fitzgerald, I was just focusing on understanding it and looking at it for symbols. Reading the feminist perspective made me rethink every detail in the book. Fitzgerald "was subject to the ideological conflicts that characterized his age". All of the female characters in the novel were portrayed in a negative light. Even though Fitzgerald was married to a modern woman, only the negative side of a modern woman was shown. All of the minor characters look alike and seem to be "shallow, exhibitionist, revolting, and deceitful". The three major characters, Daisy Buchanan, Myrtle Wilson, and Jordan Baker, all have their own flaws, including their aggressiveness. In the last part of the analysis, the author connected the story back to her personal life. She shows that there is still a long way to go for equality. One example she gave is that she got fired just because she didn't go on a date with her married boss.
The African American perspective that the author gave was also very insightful. The fact that the author was able to read the story from this lens is very impressive considering that the author isn't even African American. The story reveals Fitzgerald's racism as he didn't include any African Americans as musicians, even though the Jazz Age in music was dominated by African Americans. In the future, when I read I am going to try to read the books from different perspectives in order to get a better knowledge of the book and the author.
Daisy Buchanan
Hey Sohil. What a beautiful Sohil Story I wanted to say that personally, I feel like it isn't really a viewpoint of the novel to look at from the African American perspective but rather a critique (which I get that these were literary critiques but still) that merely points out a flaw in the book rather than an insight. The African American viewpoint is like the missing theme that Fitzgerald didn't include (because of his possible racism?). Anyway, this blog was very nicely done Sohil, keep this up!
ReplyDeleteThis was very epic sohil, I really admire how you tackled the many perspectives of the Great Gatsby. When I read a novel, I usually only have one mindset while reading, and reading a book through different mindsets is very difficult and involves a lot of careful analysis. I never considered how Fitzgerald's own opinions would be subtly conveyed in his novel, and this really changed how I thought about authors write books.
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