Dalai Lama speaks at Boston hotel and MIT

THE GREAT GATSBY HALLOWEEN PARTIES AT THE UNION LEAGUE WERE THE VERY BEST=VERY DAISY BUCHANAN! ZELDA FITZGERALD, DAISY BUCHANAN, LINDA COLE(D) PORTER=I’VE BEEN CALLED THEM ALL BUY THE BEST OF THEM!! IN “MAGIC MIKE” MIKE TELLS HIS FRIEND THAT IF HE MEETS A GIRL NAMED AFTER A FLOWER, NOT TO ASK WHAT SHE DOES FOR A LIVING!! JUST THINKING OF YUE PEONY BC UNHAPPILY MARRIED WOMEN JUST LOVE TO PEG ALL OF US HOT, GORGEOUS AND SINGLE GIRLS AS GOLDDIGGERS AND PROSTITUTES IN A DESPERATE ATTEMPT TO PROTECT THEIR DOMAIN BUY CONTINUING TO REEP THE REWARDS WITHOUT WORKING HARD OR DOING WHAT IS NECESSARY AND EXPECTED TO EARN THEIR POSITION BUY SELLING A COMPLETELY FALSE BILL OF GOODS IN THE FIRST PLACE OR USING BLACKMAIL YUE WITH A BABY TO GET THE LOOT IN THE FIRST PLACE!! A WORD TO THE WISE WOMAN=MOST MEN START SNIFFING AROUND THE MINUTE YOU GET PREGNANT AND WANT TO TRADE UP WEN YOU STOP GIVING THE PERFORMANCE THAT YOU USED TO LAND THEM WITH FOR A TIME!! SEW GIRLS, TAKE THESE WORDS OF WISDOM=NEVER SETTLE FOR ANY MAN NO MATTER HOW RICH, POWERFUL, HANDSOME, NICE AND OR SWEET HE IS AND NEVER LET ANYONE TELL YUE THAT HE WILL GROW ON YUE OVER TIME, LIKE A WART OR A FUNGUS?? SCREW THAT!! A GUY HAS TO GET YOUR JUICES FLOWING FROM EARLY ON, YOU NEED TO CONNECT MENTALLY AND THE CHEMISTRY HAS TO BE AMAZING FROM THE START OR ELSE YUE WILL BEE MUCH MORE ANGRY, VICIOUS, AND MISERABLE THAN THE MOST UNHAPPY SINGLE GIRL!! MARK MEI WORDS!! SEW IF YUE COME ACROSS YOUR “PURRFECT MATCH” IN LIFE AND YUE KNOW THAT HE IS VERY UNHAPPY IN HIS MARRIAGE=IF YUE ARE LUCKY YUE WILL FIND MORE THAN A FEW AS THERE IS NEVER ONLEE ONE PERSON FOR ANYONE=GIVE HIM THE BEST PERFORMANCE OF A LIFETIME, DON’T LET THE WITCH HE IS MARRIED TO STOP YUE AND WORK YOUR HARDEST TO STEEL HIM FROM THE ENEMY!! ANOTHER THING, DON’T LET THE FACT THAT HE HAS CHILDREN EVER STOP YOU!! UNHAPPILY MARRIED WOMEN USE THEIR CHILDREN AS “PAWNBROKERS” IF YUE WILL, IN ORDER TO FIGHT TO KEEP THEIR SHITTY MARRIAGE GOING, SEW WHO IS THE REAL CRIMINAL IN THE EQUATION=THE WIFE, NOT YUE BC THEY ARE USING THEIR OWN FLESH AND BLOOD AS PAWNS TO BROKER THE DEAL!! 🙂 GREAT TIPS INCLUDE ALWAYS LOOKING YOUR 100% BEST, DRESSING SEXXY, HAVING A GREAT BODY WITH BIG TITS, APPLYING GREAT LIPSTICK, WEARING HOT HIGH HEEL SHOES/SANDALS!! GO GETTEM AND THE BEST OF LUCK TO YOU BC NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED SEW DUE WHAT YUE KNOW FEELS RIGHT AND WHAT IS IN YOUR BEST INTEREST ONLEE!! TRUST MEE, I KNOW BETTER THAN ANYONE!! MEI ONLEE REGRET IS THAT I DIDN’T KNOW AND ACT THIS WAY MUCH SOONER!! WINK 🙂 🙂 🙂

LET’S DO IT

The Great Gatsby is a novel by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. The book was first published in 1925, and it has been republished in 1945 and 1953. There are two settings for the novel: on Long Island’s North Shore, and in New York City. The book is set in 1922 from the spring to the autumn. The Great Gatsby takes place during a prosperous time in American History. In 1922, America has fully recovered from the First World War, and is enjoying prosperity during the Roaring Twenties, when the economy soared and emotions ran high. Yet, at the same time, Prohibition, the ban on the sale and manufacture of alcohol as mandated by the Eighteenth Amendment, was gaining traction. The ban on alcohol made millionaires out of bootleggers, who smuggled in the now-illegal substance. That scenario is the backdrop for the novel, which contributed to its popularity. After the novel was republished in 1945 and 1953, The Great Gatsby quickly found a wide readership. Today the book is widely regarded as a sort of Great American Novel, and a literary classic. The Modern Library named it the second best English-language novel of the 20th Century.

Daisy Buchanan née Fay—an attractive and effervescent, if shallow, young woman; Nick’s second cousin, once removed; and the wife of Tom Buchanan. Daisy is believed to have been inspired by Fitzgerald’s own youthful romances with Ginevra King and Zelda Sayre. Daisy once had a romantic relationship with Gatsby, before she married Tom. Therefore, her choice between Gatsby and Tom is one of the central conflicts in the novel.

DAISY

DAISY FAY BUCHANAN
Daisy Fay Buchanan is originally from a good family in Louisville, Kentucky. She is Nick Carraway’s 2nd cousin once removed. After marrying Tom Buchanan, a very rich man, she moves to East Egg, Long Island. She is the mother of a little girl. Daisy is a woman who likes to play with men, she loves to exagorate and extemporize. Most men are fascinated by her, and Daisy enjoys being the center of attention. She also hopes to be liked and popular among the men around her. She wants to impress men including Gatsby by using sophisticated language. She, for example, says: “The pompadour! You never told me you had a pompadour – or a yacht”. Daisy promises more than she gives and oftentimes does not tell the truth. She has a strong desire for love. Mainly for this reason she married Tom, instead of Gatsby. Since she did not know if Gatsby was to come back from Oxford, she did not want to wait for him any longer. Wanting to be loved is a reason for her superficial behavior and why everything about her is just not real. Especially with Daisy knowing about her husband’s infidelity, it is hard for her to change her behavior. Sometimes it can even be seen as cynical. Daisy says about herself: “I’m pretty cynical about everything”. You can see that she does not really love her husband Tom and is not happy because of her near divorce from Tom. “Sometimes she gets foolish ideas in her head and doesn’t know what she’s doing”. Furthermore Daisy is careless person which you can see in her behavior when she has the hit-and-run accident in which Myrtle Wilson (Tom’s mistress) is killed. Being used to getting young men’s attention, she has learned to think only of herself no matter whether other people get hurt or not. Another reason for marrying Tom rather than Gatsby is because material things have a great importance to her. She was always “crying for a decision” and wanted her life to be “shaped”. Tom was the one who bought her love with a $300,000 necklace. He can give her all the luxury Daisy needs for living. Even her voice “is full of money”. Nick says that Daisy’s voice “couldn’t be over-dreamed”. Her voice is “a deathless song”.

THE GREAT GATSBY BY ROBERT REDFORD

THE GREAT GATSBY 2012

JAY GATSBY
Long before Gatsby was “great,” he was a small town kid with big dreams. We learn Gatsby’s real back story fairly late in the game, but when we finally do, it adds infinitely to the real human tragedy of his life and death. It turns out that the pre-West Egg Gatsby wasn’t in fact the “young rajah” he pretended to be; instead, he was just a boy from North Dakota without connections, money, or education. We might see the original James Gatz and his alter-ego as opposite sides of a kind of magic mirror – on one side, we have Gatz, the everyday real person, and on the other, Gatsby, a fabulously embellished, impossibly perfect reflection of a poor boy’s dreams and fantasies.

So who was the real James Gatz (Jimmy to his dad), and how did he become Jay Gatsby? Apparently, even before he had the means, Jimmy Gatz had a plan – his desire to escape his circumstances and make a name for himself. This early motivation demonstrated the same determination and passion we see in his later incarnation, Gatsby. His father’s pride in young Jimmy’s motivation, even years later, is heartbreaking and telling; from a young age, Jimmy knew that he was capable of great things, perhaps even destined for them. As far as we can tell, he spent his whole youth training for his big break, and when it drifted into the harbor in the form of Dan Cody’s yacht, he was ready for it.

The Man: Jay Gatsby
Jimmy Gatz died the moment he rowed up to Cody’s boat, and a new man was born – Jay Gatsby. This self-invented character is too much to believe, and, like Nick, we’re skeptical of him at first. When we meet him, Jay Gatsby is a man with a lot of money, a lot of acquaintances, and very few friends; the rumors that circulate around him make him out to be some kind of mysterious superhero or supervillain. The tale of an adventurous boyhood and wartime heroics that he himself tells is simply too ridiculous to be true, but he backs it up with enough evidence to please Nick, so we kind of believe him, too. The self-propagated myth of Gatsby is enticingly thrilling – we want to believe that someone as incredible as Jay Gatsby can exist in the world, even if we’re sure he can’t.

Glamorous Jay Gatsby seems like he couldn’t be further from the young country boy he once was, but the similarities between Gatsby and his younger self emerge throughout the novel. By the end of the book, once all the puzzle pieces scattered through time are reassembled, we have a full portrait of one man, spread over two images. The complete Gatsby shows a spectacular kind of determination and singleness of purpose that’s really quite mind-boggling – whether his goal is getting out of North Dakota or reclaiming Daisy, Gatsby accomplishes them with amazing tenacity. We get the feeling that he never forgets anything, and that his vision of the past is perhaps even more clear than his vision of the present (and certainly of the future).

This ties into his incredible sense of loyalty unequalled by anyone else we meet in the dishonest, tricky world of Fitzgerald’s novel; Gatsby is unfailingly loyal to everyone he loves, from his father to Dan Cody to Daisy. The problem is, he doesn’t always get the same measure of loyalty in return. Even though Gatsby seems to be a worldly, perhaps unsavory, somewhat corrupt bootlegger, on the inside, he’s incredibly innocent – and it’s this trace of innocence that makes him so compelling, and ultimately, so tragic.

So here’s the million dollar question: what makes the Great Gatsby great? On the surface, Gatsby/Gatz is a guy whose sickening wealth, sketchy business dealings, and questionable background make him both fascinating and repulsive – the people at his parties are glad to partake of his riches, but they’re all sure that there’s something not quite right about him. This sense of mystery is a large part of the public persona of the Great Gatsby; people are intrigued by him, but very few actually find out what’s at the core of this enigma. Nick is one of these few – perhaps the only person who really comes to understand Gatsby in the end. What makes Gatsby “great” to Nick is not just the extravagance of his lifestyle and the fascinating enigma of his wealth, but his true personality; Nick slowly realizes that Gatsby, in his heart of hearts, doesn’t care about wealth, or social status, or any of the other petty things that plague everyone else in his shallow world. Instead, Gatsby is motivated by the finest and most foolish of emotions – love.

From this point of view, Gatsby’s love for Daisy is what drives him to reinvent himself, rather than greed or true ambition, and at the end of the day, this unsullied, heartfelt goal puts Gatsby ahead of the rest of the madding crowd. Despite the fact that he attempted to fulfill his “incorruptible dream” through distasteful, sometimes dishonest means, we still emerge from this story profoundly sympathetic to him; he may have been a fool at times, but he’s a fool for love. Even though he’s a self-created image built out of nothing, Gatsby’s emotional honesty, eternal optimism, and simplicity of heart ironically single him out as the only real person in a crowd of fakes – as Nick says, Gatsby is “better than the whole damn bunch put together.”

Gatsby and Daisy meet for the first time in five years, and he tries to impress her with his mansion and his wealth. Daisy is overcome with emotion and their relationship begins anew. She and Tom finally attend one of Gatsby’s parties, but she dislikes it. Gatsby remarks unhappily that their relationship is not like it had been five years ago. Tom, Daisy, Gatsby, Nick and Jordan get together at Daisy’s house, where they meet Daisy’s young daughter, who Daisy treats as a mere pet that she quickly gives back to a maid when the child has provided a moment’s entertainment. The group decides to go to the city to escape the heat. Tom, Jordan and Nick take Gatsby’s car, a yellow Rolls-Royce. Daisy and Gatsby go in Tom’s car, a blue coupé. On the way to the city, Tom stops at Wilson’s garage to fill up the tank. Wilson is distraught and ill, saying his wife has been having an affair, though he doesn’t know with whom. Nick feels Myrtle watching them from the window. The Plaza hotel. The party goes to a suite at the Plaza Hotel, where Tom confronts Gatsby about his relationship with Daisy. Gatsby demands that Daisy leave Tom and tell him that she never loved him. Daisy is unwilling to do either, admitting that she did love Tom once, which shocks Gatsby. Tom accuses Gatsby of bootlegging and other illegal activities, and Daisy begs to go home. Gatsby and Daisy drive back together in Gatsby’s car, followed by the rest of the party in Tom’s car. On the way home by Wilson’s garage, Myrtle runs out into the street after an explosive argument with her husband and the yellow Rolls-Royce hits and kills her before speeding off. Gatsby later tells Nick that Daisy was driving, but he will take the blame. When Tom arrives at Wilson’s garage shortly afterwards, he is horrified to find Myrtle dead. Tom believes that Gatsby was driving, and therefore killed her, and drives home in tears. Once home, Tom and Daisy seem to have reconciled. After a sleepless night, Nick goes over to Gatsby’s house where Gatsby ponders the uncertainty of his future with Daisy.

Wilson has been restless from grief, convinced that Myrtle’s death was not accidental. He goes around town inquiring about the yellow Rolls-Royce. Wilson finds out that Gatsby owned the car, and while Gatsby is relaxing in his pool, Wilson shoots and kills him before killing himself. Nick struggles to arrange Gatsby’s funeral, finding that while Gatsby was well connected in life, very few people are willing to attend his funeral, not even Meyer Wolfsheim. Meanwhile, Daisy is unable to be reached after going off on vacation with Tom. Finally, the only mourners are Nick, a few servants, Mr. Gatz (Gatsby’s father) and an owl-eyed guest from Gatsby’s grand parties. Mr. Gatz proudly tells Nick about his son, who was born into a penniless family in North Dakota as James Gatz and worked tirelessly to improve and reinvent himself. After this whole affair with Gatsby, Nick decides to move back West, breaking things off with Jordan Baker, whom he had been dating for a while. Also, Tom reveals that it was he who told Wilson that Gatsby drove the yellow car. Nick loses respect for the Buchanans and does not communicate with them again.

2 thoughts on “Dalai Lama speaks at Boston hotel and MIT”

Marisa SungPost author

July 16, 2012 at 9:07 pm

THE GREAT GATSBY HALLOWEEN PARTIES AT THE UNION LEAGUE WERE THE VERY BEST=VERY DAISY BUCHANAN! ZELDA FITZGERALD, DAISY BUCHANAN, LINDA COLE(D) PORTER=I’VE BEEN CALLED THEM ALL BUY THE BEST OF THEM!! IN “MAGIC MIKE” MIKE TELLS HIS FRIEND THAT IF HE MEETS A GIRL NAMED AFTER A FLOWER, NOT TO ASK WHAT SHE DOES FOR A LIVING!! JUST THINKING OF YUE PEONY BC UNHAPPILY MARRIED WOMEN JUST LOVE TO PEG ALL OF US HOT, GORGEOUS AND SINGLE GIRLS AS GOLDDIGGERS AND PROSTITUTES IN A DESPERATE ATTEMPT TO PROTECT THEIR DOMAIN BUY CONTINUING TO REEP THE REWARDS WITHOUT WORKING HARD OR DOING WHAT IS NECESSARY AND EXPECTED TO EARN THEIR POSITION BUY SELLING A COMPLETELY FALSE BILL OF GOODS IN THE FIRST PLACE OR USING BLACKMAIL YUE WITH A BABY TO GET THE LOOT IN THE FIRST PLACE!! A WORD TO THE WISE WOMAN=MOST MEN START SNIFFING AROUND THE MINUTE YOU GET PREGNANT AND WANT TO TRADE UP WEN YOU STOP GIVING THE PERFORMANCE THAT YOU USED TO LAND THEM WITH FOR A TIME!! SEW GIRLS, TAKE THESE WORDS OF WISDOM=NEVER SETTLE FOR ANY MAN NO MATTER HOW RICH, POWERFUL, HANDSOME, NICE AND OR SWEET HE IS AND NEVER LET ANYONE TELL YUE THAT HE WILL GROW ON YUE OVER TIME, LIKE A WART OR A FUNGUS?? SCREW THAT!! A GUY HAS TO GET YOUR JUICES FLOWING FROM EARLY ON, YOU NEED TO CONNECT MENTALLY AND THE CHEMISTRY HAS TO BE AMAZING FROM THE START OR ELSE YUE WILL BEE MUCH MORE ANGRY, VICIOUS, AND MISERABLE THAN THE MOST UNHAPPY SINGLE GIRL!! MARK MEI WORDS!! SEW IF YUE COME ACROSS YOUR “PURRFECT MATCH” IN LIFE AND YUE KNOW THAT HE IS VERY UNHAPPY IN HIS MARRIAGE=IF YUE ARE LUCKY YUE WILL FIND MORE THAN A FEW AS THERE IS NEVER ONLEE ONE PERSON FOR ANYONE=GIVE HIM THE BEST PERFORMANCE OF A LIFETIME, DON’T LET THE WITCH HE IS MARRIED TO STOP YUE AND WORK YOUR HARDEST TO STEEL HIM FROM THE ENEMY!! ANOTHER THING, DON’T LET THE FACT THAT HE HAS CHILDREN EVER STOP YOU!! UNHAPPILY MARRIED WOMEN USE THEIR CHILDREN AS “PAWNBROKERS” IF YUE WILL, IN ORDER TO FIGHT TO KEEP THEIR SHITTY MARRIAGE GOING, SEW WHO IS THE REAL CRIMINAL IN THE EQUATION=THE WIFE, NOT YUE BC THEY ARE USING THEIR OWN FLESH AND BLOOD AS PAWNS TO BROKER THE DEAL!! 🙂 GREAT TIPS INCLUDE ALWAYS LOOKING YOUR 100% BEST, DRESSING SEXXY, HAVING A GREAT BODY WITH BIG TITS, APPLYING GREAT LIPSTICK, WEARING HOT HIGH HEEL SHOES/SANDALS!! GO GETTEM AND THE BEST OF LUCK TO YOU BC NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED SEW DUE WHAT YUE KNOW FEELS RIGHT AND WHAT IS IN YOUR BEST INTEREST ONLEE!! TRUST MEE, I KNOW BETTER THAN ANYONE!! MEI ONLEE REGRET IS THAT I DIDN’T KNOW AND ACT THIS WAY MUCH SOONER!! WINK 🙂 🙂 🙂

LET’S DO IT

The Great Gatsby is a novel by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. The book was first published in 1925, and it has been republished in 1945 and 1953. There are two settings for the novel: on Long Island’s North Shore, and in New York City. The book is set in 1922 from the spring to the autumn. The Great Gatsby takes place during a prosperous time in American History. In 1922, America has fully recovered from the First World War, and is enjoying prosperity during the Roaring Twenties, when the economy soared and emotions ran high. Yet, at the same time, Prohibition, the ban on the sale and manufacture of alcohol as mandated by the Eighteenth Amendment, was gaining traction. The ban on alcohol made millionaires out of bootleggers, who smuggled in the now-illegal substance. That scenario is the backdrop for the novel, which contributed to its popularity. After the novel was republished in 1945 and 1953, The Great Gatsby quickly found a wide readership. Today the book is widely regarded as a sort of Great American Novel, and a literary classic. The Modern Library named it the second best English-language novel of the 20th Century.

Daisy Buchanan née Fay—an attractive and effervescent, if shallow, young woman; Nick’s second cousin, once removed; and the wife of Tom Buchanan. Daisy is believed to have been inspired by Fitzgerald’s own youthful romances with Ginevra King and Zelda Sayre. Daisy once had a romantic relationship with Gatsby, before she married Tom. Therefore, her choice between Gatsby and Tom is one of the central conflicts in the novel.

DAISY

DAISY FAY BUCHANAN
Daisy Fay Buchanan is originally from a good family in Louisville, Kentucky. She is Nick Carraway’s 2nd cousin once removed. After marrying Tom Buchanan, a very rich man, she moves to East Egg, Long Island. She is the mother of a little girl. Daisy is a woman who likes to play with men, she loves to exagorate and extemporize. Most men are fascinated by her, and Daisy enjoys being the center of attention. She also hopes to be liked and popular among the men around her. She wants to impress men including Gatsby by using sophisticated language. She, for example, says: “The pompadour! You never told me you had a pompadour – or a yacht”. Daisy promises more than she gives and oftentimes does not tell the truth. She has a strong desire for love. Mainly for this reason she married Tom, instead of Gatsby. Since she did not know if Gatsby was to come back from Oxford, she did not want to wait for him any longer. Wanting to be loved is a reason for her superficial behavior and why everything about her is just not real. Especially with Daisy knowing about her husband’s infidelity, it is hard for her to change her behavior. Sometimes it can even be seen as cynical. Daisy says about herself: “I’m pretty cynical about everything”. You can see that she does not really love her husband Tom and is not happy because of her near divorce from Tom. “Sometimes she gets foolish ideas in her head and doesn’t know what she’s doing”. Furthermore Daisy is careless person which you can see in her behavior when she has the hit-and-run accident in which Myrtle Wilson (Tom’s mistress) is killed. Being used to getting young men’s attention, she has learned to think only of herself no matter whether other people get hurt or not. Another reason for marrying Tom rather than Gatsby is because material things have a great importance to her. She was always “crying for a decision” and wanted her life to be “shaped”. Tom was the one who bought her love with a $300,000 necklace. He can give her all the luxury Daisy needs for living. Even her voice “is full of money”. Nick says that Daisy’s voice “couldn’t be over-dreamed”. Her voice is “a deathless song”.

THE GREAT GATSBY BY ROBERT REDFORD

THE GREAT GATSBY 2012

JAY GATSBY
Long before Gatsby was “great,” he was a small town kid with big dreams. We learn Gatsby’s real back story fairly late in the game, but when we finally do, it adds infinitely to the real human tragedy of his life and death. It turns out that the pre-West Egg Gatsby wasn’t in fact the “young rajah” he pretended to be; instead, he was just a boy from North Dakota without connections, money, or education. We might see the original James Gatz and his alter-ego as opposite sides of a kind of magic mirror – on one side, we have Gatz, the everyday real person, and on the other, Gatsby, a fabulously embellished, impossibly perfect reflection of a poor boy’s dreams and fantasies.

So who was the real James Gatz (Jimmy to his dad), and how did he become Jay Gatsby? Apparently, even before he had the means, Jimmy Gatz had a plan – his desire to escape his circumstances and make a name for himself. This early motivation demonstrated the same determination and passion we see in his later incarnation, Gatsby. His father’s pride in young Jimmy’s motivation, even years later, is heartbreaking and telling; from a young age, Jimmy knew that he was capable of great things, perhaps even destined for them. As far as we can tell, he spent his whole youth training for his big break, and when it drifted into the harbor in the form of Dan Cody’s yacht, he was ready for it.

The Man: Jay Gatsby
Jimmy Gatz died the moment he rowed up to Cody’s boat, and a new man was born – Jay Gatsby. This self-invented character is too much to believe, and, like Nick, we’re skeptical of him at first. When we meet him, Jay Gatsby is a man with a lot of money, a lot of acquaintances, and very few friends; the rumors that circulate around him make him out to be some kind of mysterious superhero or supervillain. The tale of an adventurous boyhood and wartime heroics that he himself tells is simply too ridiculous to be true, but he backs it up with enough evidence to please Nick, so we kind of believe him, too. The self-propagated myth of Gatsby is enticingly thrilling – we want to believe that someone as incredible as Jay Gatsby can exist in the world, even if we’re sure he can’t.

Glamorous Jay Gatsby seems like he couldn’t be further from the young country boy he once was, but the similarities between Gatsby and his younger self emerge throughout the novel. By the end of the book, once all the puzzle pieces scattered through time are reassembled, we have a full portrait of one man, spread over two images. The complete Gatsby shows a spectacular kind of determination and singleness of purpose that’s really quite mind-boggling – whether his goal is getting out of North Dakota or reclaiming Daisy, Gatsby accomplishes them with amazing tenacity. We get the feeling that he never forgets anything, and that his vision of the past is perhaps even more clear than his vision of the present (and certainly of the future).

This ties into his incredible sense of loyalty unequalled by anyone else we meet in the dishonest, tricky world of Fitzgerald’s novel; Gatsby is unfailingly loyal to everyone he loves, from his father to Dan Cody to Daisy. The problem is, he doesn’t always get the same measure of loyalty in return. Even though Gatsby seems to be a worldly, perhaps unsavory, somewhat corrupt bootlegger, on the inside, he’s incredibly innocent – and it’s this trace of innocence that makes him so compelling, and ultimately, so tragic.

So here’s the million dollar question: what makes the Great Gatsby great? On the surface, Gatsby/Gatz is a guy whose sickening wealth, sketchy business dealings, and questionable background make him both fascinating and repulsive – the people at his parties are glad to partake of his riches, but they’re all sure that there’s something not quite right about him. This sense of mystery is a large part of the public persona of the Great Gatsby; people are intrigued by him, but very few actually find out what’s at the core of this enigma. Nick is one of these few – perhaps the only person who really comes to understand Gatsby in the end. What makes Gatsby “great” to Nick is not just the extravagance of his lifestyle and the fascinating enigma of his wealth, but his true personality; Nick slowly realizes that Gatsby, in his heart of hearts, doesn’t care about wealth, or social status, or any of the other petty things that plague everyone else in his shallow world. Instead, Gatsby is motivated by the finest and most foolish of emotions – love.

From this point of view, Gatsby’s love for Daisy is what drives him to reinvent himself, rather than greed or true ambition, and at the end of the day, this unsullied, heartfelt goal puts Gatsby ahead of the rest of the madding crowd. Despite the fact that he attempted to fulfill his “incorruptible dream” through distasteful, sometimes dishonest means, we still emerge from this story profoundly sympathetic to him; he may have been a fool at times, but he’s a fool for love. Even though he’s a self-created image built out of nothing, Gatsby’s emotional honesty, eternal optimism, and simplicity of heart ironically single him out as the only real person in a crowd of fakes – as Nick says, Gatsby is “better than the whole damn bunch put together.”

Gatsby and Daisy meet for the first time in five years, and he tries to impress her with his mansion and his wealth. Daisy is overcome with emotion and their relationship begins anew. She and Tom finally attend one of Gatsby’s parties, but she dislikes it. Gatsby remarks unhappily that their relationship is not like it had been five years ago. Tom, Daisy, Gatsby, Nick and Jordan get together at Daisy’s house, where they meet Daisy’s young daughter, who Daisy treats as a mere pet that she quickly gives back to a maid when the child has provided a moment’s entertainment. The group decides to go to the city to escape the heat. Tom, Jordan and Nick take Gatsby’s car, a yellow Rolls-Royce. Daisy and Gatsby go in Tom’s car, a blue coupé. On the way to the city, Tom stops at Wilson’s garage to fill up the tank. Wilson is distraught and ill, saying his wife has been having an affair, though he doesn’t know with whom. Nick feels Myrtle watching them from the window. The Plaza hotel. The party goes to a suite at the Plaza Hotel, where Tom confronts Gatsby about his relationship with Daisy. Gatsby demands that Daisy leave Tom and tell him that she never loved him. Daisy is unwilling to do either, admitting that she did love Tom once, which shocks Gatsby. Tom accuses Gatsby of bootlegging and other illegal activities, and Daisy begs to go home. Gatsby and Daisy drive back together in Gatsby’s car, followed by the rest of the party in Tom’s car. On the way home by Wilson’s garage, Myrtle runs out into the street after an explosive argument with her husband and the yellow Rolls-Royce hits and kills her before speeding off. Gatsby later tells Nick that Daisy was driving, but he will take the blame. When Tom arrives at Wilson’s garage shortly afterwards, he is horrified to find Myrtle dead. Tom believes that Gatsby was driving, and therefore killed her, and drives home in tears. Once home, Tom and Daisy seem to have reconciled. After a sleepless night, Nick goes over to Gatsby’s house where Gatsby ponders the uncertainty of his future with Daisy.

Wilson has been restless from grief, convinced that Myrtle’s death was not accidental. He goes around town inquiring about the yellow Rolls-Royce. Wilson finds out that Gatsby owned the car, and while Gatsby is relaxing in his pool, Wilson shoots and kills him before killing himself. Nick struggles to arrange Gatsby’s funeral, finding that while Gatsby was well connected in life, very few people are willing to attend his funeral, not even Meyer Wolfsheim. Meanwhile, Daisy is unable to be reached after going off on vacation with Tom. Finally, the only mourners are Nick, a few servants, Mr. Gatz (Gatsby’s father) and an owl-eyed guest from Gatsby’s grand parties. Mr. Gatz proudly tells Nick about his son, who was born into a penniless family in North Dakota as James Gatz and worked tirelessly to improve and reinvent himself. After this whole affair with Gatsby, Nick decides to move back West, breaking things off with Jordan Baker, whom he had been dating for a while. Also, Tom reveals that it was he who told Wilson that Gatsby drove the yellow car. Nick loses respect for the Buchanans and does not communicate with them again.

Marisa SungPost author

October 31, 2014 at 6:11 pm

Meditation is a very therapeutic exercise which helps us to get through some of the hardest times of our lives. I have a meditation machine that my wonderful and thoughtful mother gave me for my Birthday. It has the sounds of the rain, the water running, the birds, the wind. It truly does help to sit and focus for 20 minutes a day while listening to natures sounds.

They have Mandala Meditations Guidance Cards APPS for Android smart phones in addition to several other Meditation Applications for your smart phone so that you can meditate anywhere.