The Mediocre Gatsby

We’re in Mrs. Kennedy's class, a few months before her mid-semester sayonara, but our class wasn’t sad at all. For you see, our parting gift was a read through of The Great Gatsby, and what a gift it was! Like hearing ding dong only to find a burning pile of crap on the doorstep. For, dear readers, The Great Gatsby is that burning pile of crap.

I’ve always been amazed with each passing year that such an excuse for literature persists on the roster of teenage academia. Has anyone truly taken the time to read it? I have. I regret it. Immensely. Mr. Fitzgerald is a hack, a disappointment of a man who masquerades in the luxury of the jazz age as if it will cover the stink of his insufficient literary talent. 

At this point I can hear the cries of the doubters and the Fitzgerald fan girls, if such things exist. Why are you being so hard on him? Where’s the proof? To that I simply say, open The Great Gatsby and make the same mistake I did: read it. 

From the very beginning it’s clear: the protagonist is a dunce. He’s a dimwit, a derelict depressing deadbeat. He sucks. Nick Carraway is perhaps the worst literary protagonist before and after the invention of AO3. He is the monotone room temperature Coca Cola which drives forward the ‘plot’ without ever so much as making a single dent. If Carraway did not exist, the events of the novel would have unfolded in the exact same fashion. Which begs the question, why him? He’s got no flavor, no joie de vivre. He’s like a pedestrian, all mundane himbo vibes. He sits and looks pretty like the side-piece he is. That’s Carraway for you, right down to the basic bone.

And don’t get me started on Gatsby! Jay pretty boy Gatsby is an absolute garbage character! If Carraway is a himbo, Gatsby is the king of himbos, for there never was a more obsessive, toxic man child in existence. The man's entire world revolves around a woman he hasn’t seen in five years, but loves neurotically despite it. Her name is Daisy, and she’s married now. She also has a daughter, and a life which has nothing to do with him. So of course he must buy a house across from hers and throw elaborate parties in the hopes of luring her back to his arms. Because that’s what mentally healthy men do. Obviously.

Example of what happens when you bring up The Great Gatsby.

As for the plot, I would speak on it, if there were any. Instead, it’s like watching a bad rom-com where you ask, is this romantic or is he just low-key abusive? to which you answer, definitely the second one. For all those who think The Great Gatsby is a romantic book, I suggest counseling. It’s the little office opposite of the library, you can’t miss it.

As for the overall narrative, It’s boring from beginning to end. All the death and the nose-breaking felt like an immature attempt at making it interesting, an immature attempt that ultimately fails. Just because I add a random vehicular manslaughter out of nowhere does not make me a literary genius, it makes me a child who has no idea how to wrap up my story. I might as well run somebody over in the process, that sounds fun.

As for Daisy Buchanan, the most critical character whose mere existence causes the events of the novel to unfold, what is her role in all this? It was a straightforward answer for me: Daisy was the only reason I didn’t rip that book into a thousand shredded pieces of type-written trash and burn it on my front lawn. The most interesting thing about The Great Gatsby lies within the sordid prose of its female characters, full stop. Whether Fitzgerald actively sought to include this or not, (I believe he was too stupid to have done it on purpose), he did a remarkable job of expressing the societal captivity of women.

You see, the book has a character by the name of Jordan Baker. She rarely gets screen time except for the beginning and end of the novel, but what a splash she makes! Jordan is a self-made woman, a championship golfer who makes her own independence abundantly clear. The novel tries to make her out to be a dishonest woman with a penchant for cynicism, but I see her as a self aware, mature individual who is not willing to take the leftovers. She is not dishonest, rather, she is the most honest woman in the whole story. She puts her emotions on full display, but does not expect emotional handouts in return. She is mature enough to know her own worth, and while she does have certain proclivities towards gossip, it adds to the humanity of her visage. She models what a woman could and should be, independent, resilient, and most of all, realistic. In this regard, she’s a perfect contrast to Daisy.

Daisy Buchanan is brainwashed, plain and simple. She’s grown up in a world where the only choice presented is a rather large wedding and a few little children named Chad or Jason or whatever Polo-shirt white boy names they used in the 1920’s. 

Daisy does not believe in love, instead, she believes in stability. That’s why she’s with her husband in the first place, out of that primal need for stability. When she has children with him, it’s an expectation, not a desire.

In fact, early on in the novel, Daisy utters perhaps the only decent line in the entirety of The Great Gatsby. It’s a quotation surrounding the birth of her child which shakes me to the core of my being.

“She told me it was a girl, and so I turned my head away and wept. ‘All right,’ I said, ‘I’m glad it’s a girl. And I hope she’ll be a fool - that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”

Following this line, Daisy quickly tries to avert the topic and move on from such nonsense. Our protagonist sees it as an insincere trick for attention, but I see it as a broken woman asking, in her own way, to be let go. She has learned to glaze her eyes, cross her legs, and smile more often, sweetheart. She never stood a chance. 

I do also want to discuss something else about her, something more harsh. The book portrays her as a sort of bimbo who believes that a high society status will save her in the end. Yes, Daisy does exhibit the tendencies of an overzealous school girl who suddenly becomes the arm candy of an over jealous rich boyfriend. Indeed, she parrots his ideas and sits on his lap, winking occasionally and laughing at all his jokes as if she finds him funny. It’s all because she wants to play pretend and put on makeup and ‘feel’ loved and let self awareness fly out the window. It’s also the reason she is so vulnerable to Gatsby’s particular brand of desire, because he offers her the idea of choice. That’s a powerful thing to someone who has never had a choice before.

In the end, Daisy and Jordan are the only two characters worth your time in The Great Gatsby. That’s why I suggest a different book entirely. I’ve heard there’s a spin-off novel called Beautiful Little Fools which follows the lives of Daisy and Jordan after the conclusion of The Great Gatsby. I haven’t read it, but it already sounds much better. It’s the kind of book you find in the Walmart reading aisle, but that’s high praise in comparison to its predecessor. For you see, in my humble opinion, the garbage dump is too good an aisle for The Mediocre Gatsby. And you can quote me on that.

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Written by Thomas Repass