Was Gatsby Great?

– The Great Gatsby (Part 2) #5

Hi, I'm John Green, this is Crash Course Literature, and this is The Great
Gatsby. This novel barely makes it to 200 pages even with rather large print,
and yet it's so magnificently complex and rich that we can't possibly do it
justice in two videos so today we're gonna focus on a specific question: Is
Gatsby great? Mr. Green! Mr. Green! No. Oh, it's so cute when you think
you're entitled to your opinions, Me From The Past, even when they're
entirely uninformed opinions. As penance for being such a little Hemingway
about this stuff, you will one day have to host a show about the glorious
ambiguity of literature. [Theme Music] So a while back we discussed the
Aristotelian tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, in which people of high birth are
brought low by weakness of character. Shakespeare introduced some
ambiguity into that story arc as you'll remember: There was bad luck
involved in their demise, and their mistakes, such as they were, weren't so
grievous as to render Romeo and Juliet unsympathetic. Also, as in many
tragedies, Shakespeare used heightened, poetic language to help us care
about Romeo and Juliet and root for them instead of just holding them up as
examples of what terrible things befall you when you're naughty. Now
obviously, Gatsby isn't a work of poetry, but Fitzgerald found himself with
similar problems. As many a high schooler has pointed out, the characters in
The Great Gatsby aren't terribly likeable, and the story just isn't moving or
compelling if you're reading about a bunch of people you hate, some of
whom get what's coming to them and some of whom don't. Fitzgerald
handles this problem by heightening the language and giving it pace. I mean,
you can basically tap your foot to The Great Gatsby from the very first
sentence: "In my younger and more vulnerable years, my father gave me
some advice I've been turning over in my mind ever since." It's got a beat
and I can dance to it. And the descriptions are jarringly, magnificently
beautiful, too: Daisy's voice sounds full of money; the fading glow on Jordan
Baker's face is "like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk." At the end of
the novel, Nick imagines the first European explorers of New York, writing,
"For a transitory, enchanted moment, man must have held his breath in the
presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he
neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with
something commensurate to his capacity for wonder." Putting aside the fact
that Fitzgerald failed to foresee that humans would one day walk on the
moon, not to mention create fake fake flowers the descriptions here are
lush and beautiful. So the language of the novel elevates Gatsby's triumphs
and tragedies to the stuff of real epics, which gives Gatsby a kind of unironic
greatness. Stan! Can we just decide if these are physical digital flowers or
digital digital flowers? Remember, you don't have to be good to be great.
And as the critic Matthew J. Bruccoli notes, Gatsby "is truly great by virtue of
his capacity to commit himself to his aspirations." I mean we celebrate
achievement born of hard work and clarity of purpose because there's a
greatness in that success that you don't get by, like, lounging around and
using your pool all the time. Remember, there's exactly one person at
Gatsby's parties who doesn't get drunk: Gatsby. I mean, he's a bootlegger
who doesn't drink, a swimming pool owner who doesn't swim, a man of
leisure who never engages in a single leisure activity. But as Bruccoli further
points out, there's plenty of irony in the titular description of Gatsby as
Great. "The adjective indicates the tawdry and exaggerated aspects of his
life: Hurry, hurry, hurry! Step right up and see the Great Gatsby!" I mean,
he's part magician, and- in a world of wealth -- he's part carnival curiosity.
Bruccoli notes that Tom Buchanan describes Gatsby's famous yellow car as
"a circus wagon." Okay let's go to the Thought Bubble. One thing Gatsby has
in common with Romeo and Juliet is that they're all obsessed with
controlling time, which of course continues passing anyway. Like, Juliet tries
to force night to come quickly and dawn to stay away, because only under
cover of darkness can her marriage thrive. Similarly, Gatsby doesn't just
want to marry Daisy: He needs her to say that she never loved Tom
Buchanan at all, as if he can erase the past 5 years. What they'll do about
Daisy's baby is a fascinating question that Gatsby seems wholly uninterested
in, but anyway, Gatsby's dream is that he and Daisy will -- to quote Nick --
"go back to Louisville and be married from her house -- just as if it were five
years ago." Nick's perfectly sensible response to this idea is, "You can't
repeat the past." And then Gatsby utters his most famous line: "Can't repeat
the past? Why of course you can." And then he says, "I'm going to fix
everything just the way it was before." Romeo and Juliet want to extend the
present into forever because they know their future is bleak; Gatsby
believes the key to the beautiful future is a perfect restoration of the
beautiful past. Thanks, Thought Bubble Okay, a brief aside before we return
to Gatsby's questionably greatness: The idea of restoring the past to create
a beautiful future is or course, not unique to Gatsby, which is why no
candidate for President can ever get through a speech without mentioning
some previous President, whose glorious leadership the current campaign
intends to channel so as to make it morning in America again. It's also why
Americans fight so much about what the Founding Fathers would think of
us, when in fact, what they would think is probably "You guys are dressed
funny. Also, how come this room is so bright without any windows?
Furthermore, why is this screen talking to me?" Now of course this nostalgia
isn't unique to the United States, but you also have to remember that
Gatsby is the ultimate self-made man, having both literally and figuratively
made a name for himself. And this combination of aspirational impulses and
the urge to restore life to some immaculate past does strike me as very
American. That's what makes the tragedy of Gatsby so much more
interesting and complicated than the Aristotelian model of tragedy. Instead
of being a person of high birth, Gatsby is a person of low birth, albeit one
born into a world that claims not to care about or even believe in such
things. And instead of experiencing a reversal of fortune due to a weakness
of character, Jay Gatsby – well that's were it gets complicated actually. I
mean Daisy Buchanan was driving the car, but Gatsby chose to take the fall
for her. But he is also doomed because he lives in a social order that's happy
to drink illegal alcohol, but condemns a sober bootlegger. Oh, it's time for
the Open Letter? An Open Letter to Prohibition. But first let's see what is the
secret compartment today. Be booze, be booze, be booze. Yes! Touchdown.
It's mystery liquor. Alright the game is simple, I drink the mystery liquor and
try to guess what it is. [coughs]Southern Comfort?... No? What is it? Jack --
that's too easy, Meredith. Jack Daniels. Anybody could get Jack Daniels. Dear
Prohibition, You were crazy. I mean, for the rest of American history, our
Constitution is gonna be this weird document that is perfectly normal until
the 18th Amendment, which suddenly bans alcohol, and then the 21st
Amendment which is suddenly like, "No, no, no. Terrible idea!" It's almost
like legislating morality doesn't actually increase morality. But Prohibition, in
you, Fitzgerald found the perfect metaphor for American hypocrisy and
debauchery. We are not very good at tolerating naughtiness in America, but
we love being naughty. In short Prohibition, you were a terrible idea, but a
fantastic metaphor, so thanks for that. Best Wishes, [coughs] John Green. So
is Gatsby doomed by his romanticization of Daisy, by his refusal to accept
that he just wasn't born to be one of the gold-hatted men of leisure, by his
belief that any means justifies -- if you'll pardon the pun -- Daisy's end? Yes,
yes, and yes. But more than that, the great Gatsby lives in a cold world that
cares nothing for justice, a world that makes claims to fairness but really
only further rewards those who have already been rewarded. I mean, who
even survives this novel? Only the idle rich: Jordan Baker, Daisy and Tom
Buchanan, Nick Carraway. They survive, and they are allowed to go on being
careless. As Nick writes, "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy -- they
smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money
or their vast carelessness." They aren't cruel or malicious, they're just
careless -- they don't care too much about Myrtle or Gatsby or their
daughter or even each other. To live without a care in the world is supposed
to be the dream, right? Everyone wants a care-free life. But Fitzgerald shows
us the horror of this care-free life, how Tom and Daisy's inability to care is in
some ways more monstrous than outright cruelty would be. It's not like
Romeo and Juliet, where the lovers are sacrificed and then Verona is healed.
Nothing is made whole by the tragedy of The Great Gatsby. I think that's
why some readers find the novel depressing and hopeless, even amid all the
lush language and witty turns of phrase. But I don't think it is hopeless.
Remember that line from the first chapter: "Gatsby turned out all right in
the end, it was what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of
his dreams..." As individuals, and as a collective, the tragedy isn't in
dreaming; it's in chasing an unworthy dream. So in the end, is Gatsby great?
I'm interested to read your comments, but here's my takeaway:Jay Gatsby
was a great man. But great people especially must be careful about what
they worship.