Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Over-Arching Question 1/25/11

I think that all that Jay Gatsby ever wanted to accomplish was to get Daisy back. He didn’t really care about anything else. Every single action he performed was in order to win her back; all the parties and such were just to one day get her over to his house. All of the money that he made was just so he could return as a rich guy. Although he had an impact on other people, it wasn’t really on purpose. He didn’t really have any wish to impact the world in a certain way.

The Narrator in Invisible Man wanted to become someone who was accepted by the world at large. Throughout the novel he tried to gain the respect of all the people around him, but most of them were just using him and they never saw his inner identity. By the end, when he realized this, he found his true identity and removed himself from the world. When the Narrator was a part of the Brotherhood, he wanted to impact the world by ending oppression towards his fellow African Americans.

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2 comments:

  1. ChristaJanuary 25, 2011 at 11:29 AM

    I said basically the same thing in my post. I think that Gatsby's motives for his actions were completely about Daisy and the Narrator's were due to his grandfather, wanting to please everyone. Unfortunately the Narrator never got to impact the world, because he always had good intentions.

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  2. JohnMJanuary 28, 2011 at 7:23 AM

    I think you nailed it by loosely saying the Narrator had an identity crisis. He finally discovered his true identity after a novel of being told what to do. I also agree with Gatsby only wanted to get Daisy back by any means (even being someone that he's not).

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