Fitzgerald’s employment of blatant diction on page 179 of The Great Gatsby creates a tone of anger intermingled with pity. Discovering how Tom told Mr. Wilson that Gatsby was driving the car that killed his wife, Nick does nothing to inform this heartless man the truth of what happened and decides, “I couldn’t forgive him or like him, but I saw that what he had done was, to him, entirely justified” (179). While declaring with resentment how “I couldn’t forgive him” yet admitting how “what he had done was, to him, entirely justified,” Nick is torn between being angry toward this man and feeling sorry for this man; he is angry because Tom’s actions backhandedly resulted in Gatsby’s death, yet Nick also pities him because in his arrogant, egotistical, unchanging mind, Tom truly believes he has done right. He goes on to rage about Daisy and Tom: “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made…” (149). Clearly, the pity Nick had has been abolished by the fury he feels toward “their vast carelessness” that resulted in disasters such as Gatsby’s death, and how they “let other people clean up the mess they had made.” Yet, soon after this tirade, Nick recognizes that “…for I felt suddenly as though I were talking to a child” (149), which displays the conflicting emotions of anger and sorrow toward these people who don’t seem to feel any sorrow at all…no sense of repentance or grief—just like a child who has made a mistake but doesn’t understand the magnitude of the consequences of his actions. Through carefully chosen words, Fitzgerald exhibits the angry yet pitying emotions Nick feels toward Tom and Daisy.
I really enjoyed the final description of Daisy and Tom as children. However, this is extremely contradicting to the thematic concept of old money vs. new money, Tom being old money. He is usually seen as sophisticated, educated, and cordial, all of these being the exact opposite of most children. Perhaps this was one of Fitzgerald’s “masks” similar to the one Gatsby wears.
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