Perspective

Image result for point of viewThe novel The Great Gatsby is told by Nick Carraway as a first-person narrative. Although this type of narration allows the reader to gain a lot of insight into Nick's mind, for all the other characters, it's very restricted. Personally, I would be really interested in reading this story from a different character's point of view, specifically, Daisy's. Throughout the novel,  Daisy was caught up in a dilemma, forcing her to choose between Gatsby, who she is, and has been in love with but was never allowed to pursue a life with, and Tom, who she has been married to for a couple of years and knew she would have a safe, predictable life with. Especially during the big argument between Tom and Gatsby about who Daisy really loved, I often found myself wondering: what is Daisy thinking right now?
Furthermore, in the second sentence of the entire book, Nick is thinking about a quote his father told him: "Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had." Although this quote is essentially saying to not judge other people without knowing their background, starting from the first chapter, Nick is already judging the other characters. This shows that having Nick as the only person telling this story, the facts may or may not be completely true and we probably aren't getting the full accurate story.
Being a highschooler in 2018, drama is always floating around and people are constantly telling me their versions of stories. Just a week ago, a couple of my friends told me the "same" story asking for my opinion and just with each little twist and additional detail or lack thereof, I had gotten a completely different view on what had happened. This just makes me think about how different this same book would've been if written from a different character's perspective:)

Comments

  1. Catherine H.November 11, 2018 at 9:12 PM

    I also think it would have been interesting to hear things from Daisy's perspective during that scene. When we watched the movie clip in class it seemed like she didn't get a chance to speak her own thoughts. In most novels we only see things from the storytellers perspective but seeing things from a different characters view would be very interesting.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Knowledge of the Past

In the quote we were given by Jim Powell in his book Postmodernism for Beginners, it says "... any art attempting to represent the Holocaust should continue to haunt us with its inability to represent the unrepresentable." This means that since the Holocaust was so extreme and inhumane, no form of writing or art will be able to accurately represent it in its entirety. Simplifying a huge event to just words on a paper causes it to lose meaning. Although I agree with this, I still think it's necessary to write about history because it's the only form of documentation we have. This got me thinking- what would happen if we couldn't rely on written history to look back on past events? If we somehow lost all memory and knowledge on history, would we repeat it because we are unaware of the consequences? Humans have truly come a long way in a relatively short period of time. Take the Holocaust, for example, this genocide in WWII happened only 80 years ago. For some reaso...
Read more

What We Leave Behind

Image
When we were assigned to research facts about modernism this week, it was very apparent that once I started looking online, there were a few specific things modernism was known for. For instance, every website I looked at included that modernism was characterized by industrialization, rapid social change, as well as advances in science and art. Thinking back to my past history classes, it seemed like every time period I had ever learned about could be simplified and summarized with just a few keywords- so in that case, what would be used to describe the time period we are living in at the moment? Up until this point in my life, the biggest events I can think of are presidential elections, school shootings, and natural disasters. In terms of technological advancements, what comes to mind for me are Tesla cars, virtual reality devices, and the development of robots. In another couple thousands of years, are these the things the beginning of the 2000's will be known for? Or will ...
Read more

Mind Over Body

"That is real freedom." In this quote from This is Water ,   I believe that Wallace is referencing one's mental freedom. Throughout his speech, one main message is fighting your brain's "natural, hard-wired, default setting". When you aren't making a conscious effort to think about your thoughts, you'll go into an automatic state of mind where it's nearly impossible to control your thoughts. Other than mental freedom , this idea reminds me of your mental strength.   One of the most important lessons I've learned throughout my sixteen years is that the most limiting factor in life is truly your mind. I first realized this when playing sports. I've done gymnastics and dance and color guard and synchronized swimming and throughout all of these, I found out that no, it wasn't my physical abilities that were holding me back from performing at my greatest potential, it was always my mental ability. My coaches always told me that every ...
Read more