Documentation: Preparing the List of Works Cited : Book Review Activity With Citations : 'The Great Gatsby' Novel By Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald

Introduction : This blog is written as a response to the Thinking Activity assigned by Megha madam with regards to the Documentation of Resources in Researc Project Writing.

In this blog, we are going to do it practically by writing a book review wherein we will cite few resources concerning our book review.

Book Review : The Great Gatsby Novel by Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald

The novel 'The Great Gatsby' is a key to understand the very idea of 'American Dream' in its human relativity in terms of dreams, aspirations, goals, objectives, and pursuits. The novel bears within its plot the modernist elements reflected in its themes through characters and their responses in events of the course of the storyline.

Nick Carraway as Unreliable Narrator :

The novel being written in the early twentieth century has the experimentative touches in it amongst from which the author tried to portray Nick Carraway's character as having dubiousness in his narration of people which also highlights - as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has also said - "the danger of a single story" and the uncertainty that falls on the part of Nick's narration of other characters such as Jay Gastby, Daisy Buchanan, Tom Buchanan, and other minor characters. Nick's description of Tom Buchanan seems to somewhat antagonistic : 

'The front was broken by a line of French windows, glowing now with reflected gold, and wide open to the warm windy afternoon, and Tom Buchanan in riding clothes was standing with his legs apart on the front porch. 

He had changed since his New Haven years. Now he was a sturdy, straw haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner. Two shining, arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward. Not even the effeminate swank of his riding clothes could hide the enormous power of that body—he seemed to fill those glistening boots until he strained the top lacing and you could see a great pack of muscle shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat. It was a body capable of enormous leverage—a cruel body. 

His speaking voice, a gruff husky tenor, added to the impression of fractiousness he conveyed. There was a touch of paternal contempt in it, even toward people he liked—and there were men at New Haven who had hated his guts.' (Fitzgerald) 

This is how we at first get an acquaintance of Tom through the perspective of Nick, now all what he described about Tom may have been affected by his own unstable financial condition and that is why his description of Tom is majorly includes Tom's wealth background. Quite like this unreliablility we find in sir Julian Barnes's novel 'The Only Story' (2019) whose character Paul Roberts also fails - with honest verbal acknowledgement within the novel - to give intention-action relationship when describing Susan's husband Gordon Macleod as cruel and wife-beater. Paul tells to reader : 

'I had never before been in a household in which the male presence was so overbearing and yet so ambiguous. Perhaps this happens when there is only one man around: his understanding of the male role can expand unchallenged. Or perhaps this was just what Gordon Macleod was like....One thing I never swerved from was the certainty that Gordon Macleod’s behaviour was a crime of absolute liability. And his responsibility was also absolute. A man hits a woman; a husband hits a wife; a drunkard hits a sober spouse.' (Barnes) 

This narration of Gordon by Paul depicts Gordon as a villanious - which he really was - without any query of intention behind his behaviour which makes Paul unreliable narrator as Nick Carrraway. 

Here is the interesting video-talk by Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on the Post-Modernist idea of Unreliable Narrator :

The Unheeded Death of Jay Gatsby :

It is ludicrously paradoxical that Jay Gatsby threw lavish parties to the town-dwellers and when he died by gunshot of George B. Wilson, not a single person from the town came to attend his death-ceremony, only few were there amongst from two were Nick Carraway and Jay Gatsby's father Henry C. Gatz. Nick solemnly describes : 

'A little before three the Lutheran minister arrived from Flushing and I began to look involuntarily out the windows for other cars. So did Gatsby’s father. And as the time passed and the servants came in and stood waiting in the hall, his eyes began to blink anxiously and he spoke of the rain in a worried uncertain way. The minister glanced several times at his watch so I took him aside and asked him to wait for half an hour. But it wasn’t any use. Nobody came.' (Fitzgerald) 

Aliken harsh reality of selfish people can also be found in Hindi literary author Kamleshwar Prasad Saxena's short story titled as 'दिल्ली में एक मौत' (A Death in Delhi) wherein Deevanchand also familiarizes with Jay Gatsby as in terms of wealth, but Deevanchand, unlike Jay, seems to be kind towards poor as other characters regard him as to be helpful to them when they came in Delhi with lottle savings and how Deevanchand helped them financially. Kamleshwar writes : 

'मुझे धक्का-सा लगता है और मैं ओवरकोट पहनकर, चप्पलें डालकर नीचे उतर आता हूं. मुझे मेरे क़दम अपने आप अर्थी के पास पहुंचा देते हैं, और मैं चुपचाप उसके पीछे-पीछे चलने लगता हूं. चार आदमी कंधा दिए हुए हैं और सात आदमी साथ चल रहे हैं सातवां मैं ही हूं. और मैं सोच रहा हूं कि आदमी के मरते ही कितना फ़र्क पड़ जाता है. पिछले साल ही दीवानचंद ने अपनी लड़की की शादी की थी तो हज़ारों की भीड़ थी. कोठी के बाहर कारों की लाइन लगी हुई थी... मैं अर्थी के साथ-साथ लिंक रोड पर पहुंच चुका हूं. अगले मोड पर ही पंचकुइयां श्मशान भूमि है.' (Saxena) 

(Translation by Me : I felt a jolt and I came downstairs as I put on overcoat and chappals. My feet automatically takes me to the bier, and I queitly followed it. Four men have held the bier on their shoulders and seven men are walking along, I am the seventh. And I am thinking that how everything changes as soon as a man dies. Just a year ago, there was a crowd of thousands of people when Deevanchand had arranged his daughter's wedding. There was a raw of cars outside of the cottage...I have arrived to the Link Road along with the bier. Right at the next turn there is Panchkuiyan cremation ground.') 

This is how the reality of wealth and its superficial glowing sham are artistically described by both the authors. The ancient Indian philosophical giant Shri Adishankaracharya has also highlighted in his 'चर्पटपंजरिकास्तोत्रम्' (Charpatpanjarikastotram) the true nature of wealth and material possession which is fickle and flimsy, in one of the shlokas of the mentioned stotram, it is written : 

'अर्थमनर्थं भावय नित्यं

नास्तिततः सुखलेशः सत्यम् ।' 

(Translation by Me : Wealth brings destruction which is there in its nature, it does not have real values that give happiness and joy.) 

This is how the interconnectedness of diasporic literatures have the ideas in common when it comes to universality of literature. Authors's ideologies are also responsible for the provision of particular kind of writings. 

Conclusion : The ramifications of undue gain has been the subject to write upon for many writers through the ages as it deals with the reification of people and their inherent survival psyche which has time and again been tried to be bound by religious moralities, public behaviour, protocols, decorum, ethical stratagems, and so much "The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori." as Wilfred Owen writes in his famous war poem titled as 'Dulce et Decorum Est.' 

Works Cited : 

Barnes, Julian. The Only Story. J. Cape, 2018. 

“Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: the Danger of a Single Story | TED.” Performance by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, YouTube, TED, 8 Oct. 2009, https://youtu.be/D9Ihs241zeg. Accessed 3 Apr. 2023. 

Fitzgerald, Francis Scott Key. The Great Gatsby. Scribner, 2004. 

Saxena, Kamleshwar Prasad. Dillī meṃ Eka Mauta (kahānī-Sangraha): Kamaleśvara Kī Kathā-Yātrā Ke paṛāva. Hinda Pākkeṭa Puksa, 2013. 

Shankaracharya. “भज गोविन्दम्.” Edited by PSA Easwaran. Translated by M. Giridhar, Sanskritdocuments.org, doc_vishhnu, 1 Mar. 2020, https://sanskritdocuments.org/doc_vishhnu/bhajagovindam.pdf.