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Is there any way to interpret these statements so they would not be in outright contradiction? Posted by snehababy on Mar 3, 2009. |
The Great Gatsby Group
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Blake's quote could be understood as learning from our mistakes. If we live a life of excess, eventually we will fall. Blake was a strong Christian man who used his faith to show how his narrators/characters in his poems would make it to Heaven for their good deeds. Those who did not would suffer or fall. I can see this quote tying into Fitzgerald's themes as well. Those who take advantage of others and take more than they need will eventually get what's coming to them. Aristotle then says something very similar in his quote. If we don't get too greedy, and we moderate everything in our lives, we will be happy and live full lives. We must use moderation, for anything more than that is not only greedy, (which is sinful), but it is also wasteful. So this too applies to the same theme Fitzgerald used. Fitzgerald saw the "crash" coming long before anyone else did. Using such quotes in the Great Gatsby would make sense. Had the destructive East Egg people lived in moderation and not used materialistic items and people in excess, there would not have been any deaths in the end of the novel. Posted by troutmiller on Mar 3, 2009. |
