“The boy with fair hair lowered himself down the last few feet of rock and began to pick his way toward the lagoon.”
That this story will include a narrative on the loss of innocence and purity is conveyed by the first seven words. A boy with what is initially described as “fair hair” (later in the book described as “yellow” when he fails to stand up to the other boys) lowers himself down (his own actions bringing him from a high place and sinking lower) sets up how these characters will fall from the more pure state of their childhood innocence to a more morally complicit young adult status.
The Great Gatsby:
“In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. ‘Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,’ he told me, ‘just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.’”
“Younger and more vulnerable years” again conveys that some loss of an earlier innocence has occurred that this narrator has now learned from. We are then set up with advice that when we are tempted to be critical of someone, to understand the context of their socioeconomic advantages or lack thereof as having an important place in how we should analyze that person’s actions. The narrator, Nick, comes to learn that Gatsby fabricated his entire identity to try to attain the social status that would, he thought, make him able to be with Daisy. Gatsby didn’t have the socioeconomic status that Tom had, and the reality was that nothing was going to change that. The creation, Jay Gatsby, could never be with Daisy because the creator, James Gatz wasn’t born with money. Should we judge him for his criminal acts to obtain money to spend on lavish parties just to win over some girl he met years ago? Yeah maybe a little, but his naïveté was believing that there was a path toward real socioeconomic mobility, a myth the United States continues to tell itself in its own self-imagining. The narrator, Nick, was vulnerable because he cared for Gatsby. He witnesses when the this image that is Jay Gatsby gets “shattered” but then Gatsby still takes the blame for when Daisy recklessly kills someone. Nick tells Gatsby that Gatsby is “worth the whole damn bunch [of the born rich] put together,” for naïvely believing in a myth he has been shown to be false but hoping for its virtue anyway. The final pain for Nick is realizing that Daisy and Tom were in truth “careless people…they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money,” and thus, Nick is calloused from the pain of seeing what naïve hope suffers in the face of the power of old money.
ThatWasNotAFunFact t1_j5nf410 wrote
Reply to First sentences of novels that sum up their essence? by Bernies_daughter
The Lord of the Flies:
“The boy with fair hair lowered himself down the last few feet of rock and began to pick his way toward the lagoon.”
That this story will include a narrative on the loss of innocence and purity is conveyed by the first seven words. A boy with what is initially described as “fair hair” (later in the book described as “yellow” when he fails to stand up to the other boys) lowers himself down (his own actions bringing him from a high place and sinking lower) sets up how these characters will fall from the more pure state of their childhood innocence to a more morally complicit young adult status.
The Great Gatsby:
“In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. ‘Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,’ he told me, ‘just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.’”
“Younger and more vulnerable years” again conveys that some loss of an earlier innocence has occurred that this narrator has now learned from. We are then set up with advice that when we are tempted to be critical of someone, to understand the context of their socioeconomic advantages or lack thereof as having an important place in how we should analyze that person’s actions. The narrator, Nick, comes to learn that Gatsby fabricated his entire identity to try to attain the social status that would, he thought, make him able to be with Daisy. Gatsby didn’t have the socioeconomic status that Tom had, and the reality was that nothing was going to change that. The creation, Jay Gatsby, could never be with Daisy because the creator, James Gatz wasn’t born with money. Should we judge him for his criminal acts to obtain money to spend on lavish parties just to win over some girl he met years ago? Yeah maybe a little, but his naïveté was believing that there was a path toward real socioeconomic mobility, a myth the United States continues to tell itself in its own self-imagining. The narrator, Nick, was vulnerable because he cared for Gatsby. He witnesses when the this image that is Jay Gatsby gets “shattered” but then Gatsby still takes the blame for when Daisy recklessly kills someone. Nick tells Gatsby that Gatsby is “worth the whole damn bunch [of the born rich] put together,” for naïvely believing in a myth he has been shown to be false but hoping for its virtue anyway. The final pain for Nick is realizing that Daisy and Tom were in truth “careless people…they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money,” and thus, Nick is calloused from the pain of seeing what naïve hope suffers in the face of the power of old money.