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1.
Why Thoreau left Walden?
-Thoreau makes it very clear at the opening of Walden that his stay in the wilderness was not
a lifestyle choice but rather a temporary experiment, and that “At present I am a sojourner in
civilized life again.“
-One widespread misunderstanding of Thoreau is that he was a critic of modernity who failed
in his plan to live a more authentic life on his own. But, in fact, Thoreau insists on telling us
that his Walden project is not a life decision or a commitment to a set of ideals, but an
experiment in alternative living that is unambiguously amateurish. It is more like casual play
than like solemn ideology. This informality explains why, when he leaves Walden Pond in
1847, Thoreau does not admit failure; rather, he says simply that he has other lives to live.
Thoreau was more of an Emersonian transcendentalist than he was a socialist: the soul
mattered more to him than sociology. He was not as interested in being a model farmer as in
showing how the soul could benefit from a change of scenery and occupation. Having
learned the lessons that Walden Pond had to offer him, he turned to other scenes and other
occupations, thus proving rather than undercutting his philosophy of life.
2.
The Character of Nick Carraway
If Gatsby represents one part of Fitzgerald’s personality, the flashy celebrity who pursued
and glorified wealth in order to impress the woman he loved, then
Nick represents
another
part:
the quiet, reflective Midwesterner adrift in the lurid
(jeziv)
East. A young man
(he turns
thirty during the course of the novel)
from Minnesota
, Nick travels to New York in 1922 to
learn the bond business. He lives in the West Egg district of Long Island, next door to Gatsby.
Nick is also
Daisy’s cousin
, which enables him to observe and assist the resurgent
(ponovo
oživljavati)
love affair between Daisy and Gatsby. As a result of his relationship to these two
characters,
Nick is the perfect choice to narrate the novel, which functions as a personal
memoir
(bilješka)
of his experiences with Gatsby in the summer of 1922
.
Nick is also well suited to narrating
The Great Gatsby
because of his temperament
. As he
tells the reader in Chapter 1,
he is tolerant, open-minded, quiet, and a good listener
, and,
as a result,
others tend to talk to him and tell him their secrets
. Gatsby, in particular, comes
to trust him and treat him as a
confidant.
Nick generally assumes a secondary role
throughout the novel,
preferring to describe and comment on events rather than dominate
the action.
Often, however, he functions as Fitzgerald’s voice, as in his extended meditation
on time and the American dream at the end of Chapter 9.
Insofar
(toliko)
as
Nick plays a role inside the narrative
,
he evidences a strongly mixed reaction
to life on the East Coast, one that creates a powerful internal conflict that he does not
resolve until the end of the book.
On the one hand, Nick is
attracted to the fast-paced, fun-
driven lifestyle of New York
. On the other hand, he
finds that lifestyle grotesque and
damaging.
This inner conflict is symbolized throughout the book by Nick’s romantic affair
with Jordan Baker. He is attracted to her vivacity
(živahnost)
and her sophistication just as he is
repelled by her dishonesty and her lack of consideration for other people.
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Nick states that there is a “quality of distortion” to life in New York, and this lifestyle makes
him lose his equilibrium, especially early in the novel, as when he gets drunk at Gatsby’s
party in Chapter 2. After witnessing the unraveling of Gatsby’s dream and presiding over the
appalling spectacle of Gatsby’s funeral, Nick realizes that the fast life of revelry on the East
Coast is a cover for the terrifying moral emptiness that the valley of ashes symbolizes.
Having gained the maturity that this insight demonstrates,
he returns to Minnesota in
search of a quieter life structured by more traditional moral values.
3.
Titles and dates of 3 books of poetry by Robert Frost
North of Boston
(David Nutt, 1914; Holt, 1914) : "
Mending Wall
"
Mountain Interval
(Holt, 1916) : "
The Road Not Taken
"
Selected Poems
(Holt, 1923)
