The Record Keeper

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald was extremely intriguing. I am the type of person who enjoys studying people and their slight mannerisms and this book was the epitome of what i like to call "people watching;" Nick, the narrator, describes and observes the characters within the book almost exactly as i would.

The complex story has so much to offer the over analytical mind, which I possess. The characters are all intertwined and mingle into eachothers lives in ways that one wouldnt really expect. As the story unfolds one can see the way that Fitzgerald wanted to convey the characters, and how every single one of them had a darker more sinister side to them.

I find Gatsby to be the most interesting character out of all of the others, because his motives are all for himself. He is continually fueling himself and others believe he is such a selfless man because he shares his wealth and throws all of these extravagant parties but when it comes down to it they are all to benefit him, no one else. All of the parties are for daisy. Tom is my least favorite. Tom is a controlling man...a man who thinks that he can mold every aspect of the world around him and that bugs me a lot. Also the fact that he doesnt recognize that he has a catch right in front of him in Daisy makes me want to punch him in the face.

Now for the annotating. As i annotated this book it really made me think about what is important in the book. I annotated this book in order to make a trail. I highlighted all of the important events in the book and all of the significant aspects that i recognized in the plot. For example i always highlighted the places where pieces of Gatsby's life were revealed and where aspects of his life were questioned. The reason why i did this was in order to compare the lore of his life to what is supposedly real so i could decide whether something was true or not. Another reason i created a trail was because sometimes the plot and characters got too vast so i could go back and reference places in oder to establish plot direction and what certain character's significance was, such as Mr. Wilson and his wife Myrtle. I had to keep refering back to them because I got confused with how they were related to the story. Then when I realized just how important they are i felt like an idiot. So the annotating really helped a lot in that aspect, and I never really thought that annotating would help all that much but since i was kinda forced to I've realized that it helps quite a bit.

The irony at the end was probably my favorite part of the whole book.... The fact that Gatsby only really lived for himself was shown loud and clear at the end. No one showed for his funeral and the fact that he was killed by mistake also showed some irony. It should have been tom, but because Gatsby tried to steal the life of Daisy in order to make his life better his life, in turn, was stolen.