Nick > Tom
I take a back seat to no one in my disgust with Tom Sawyer--especially as he is portrayed in Twain's magnum opus The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I grudgingly admit that his idiocy does serve a thematic purpose and highlights the way that freed slaves were treated. Nonetheless, without equivocation, I declare to you that Tom Sawyer is a turd.
Until we get to chapter nine, well, he shows glimpses of it late in chapter seven, but until we get to chapter nine, I would say that Nick is also a turd.
1. Chapter one establishes turdness. He claims to be a fellow who reserves judgment and then judges like crazy.
2. He continues to show his turd nature on page 24--go ahead and take a picture of it, please--when he says this:
The fact that gossip had published the banns was one of the reasons I had come east. You can't stop going with an old friend on account of rumors, and on the other hand I had no intention of being rumored into marriage.
In other words, he doesn't want to marry this woman, whom we are lead to believe might be expecting a proposal. But he isn't man enough to simply end the relationship.
3. In chapter two, he goes along for the ride as Tom takes his mistress Myrtle to town and does "affair things."
4. Chapter three, post party, refers us back to chapter one. He uses his ongoing relationship with the "girl back home" to avoid escalating the relationship with Jordan Baker. This is pages 63 and 64--pause and photograph them. He says,
But I am slow thinking and full of interior rules that act as brakes on my desires, and I knew that first I had to get myself definitely out of that tangle back home. I'd been writing letters once a week and signing them "Love, Nick," and all I could think of was how, when that certain girl played tennis, a faint mustache of perspiration appeared on her upper lip. Nevertheless there was a vague understanding that had to be tactfully broken off before I was free.
Everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this was mine: I am one of the few honest people I have ever known.
I have already written at length about how dishonest Nick is--and it's obvious in his dealings with this poor woman. Here he adds to his turd resume': shallowness and cowardice.
5. Chapters four and five involve him procuring Daisy for Gatsby. He not only goes along for the ride on this affair, he gasses up the car.
6. On page 143, at the end of the party in the blistering heat, right before the death of Myrtle and the subsequent deaths of Gatsby and George Wilson, Nick turns thirty. Thirty is a big deal of a birthday. It, for many marks the end of "fun times" and the beginning of being a truly responsible adult. I want to take you off the beaten path here and into the realm of astrology. The thirtieth birthday is called "the return of Saturn." The planet Saturn takes about thirty years to go around the sun, so, on your thirtieth birthday, it's in the same position it was when you were born. Saturn brings wisdom with it.
It seems it may have brought some to Nick.
7. Later in chapter seven, Nick walks away from Tom, Daisy, and Jordan.
I'd had enough of all of them for one day, and suddenly that included Jordan too.
This is the first time he doesn't just flow along with them. He stands upright for the very first time. And he seems to like the view!
8. In chapters eight and nine, he acts as a true friend to Gatsby, almost selfless.
9. If you have been photographing along with me, you should photograph pages 185 to 189. It is here where he shows the most growth.
First, he actually confronts Jordan (unlike mustache girl back home).
But I wanted to leave things in order and not just trust that obligingly and indifferent sea to sweep my refuse away.
That's right, he's cleaning up his own mess.
Then.
"I'm thirty," I said, "I'm five years too old to lie to myself and call it honor."
That's right, he's admitting that the guy he thought he was in chapter three was a figment of his own imagination. He admits that he was lying to himself.
Finally, he confronts Tom.
"Tom," I inquired, "what did you say to Wilson that afternoon?"
And
I couldn't forgive him or like him but I was that what he had done was, to him, entirely justified. It was all very careless and confused. 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 . . . .
Saturn returns there, and with great vengeance. Saturn brings with him quite a few of the Cardinal Virtues: he bravely confronts Tom, shows restraint in shaking his hand, wisdom in discerning both his own and their character, and justice in honoring the memory of Gatsby and the events surrounding him.
The novel ends on a hopeful note. A turd need not always be a turd. I do hope that Tom Sawyer is listening.
Until we get to chapter nine, well, he shows glimpses of it late in chapter seven, but until we get to chapter nine, I would say that Nick is also a turd.
1. Chapter one establishes turdness. He claims to be a fellow who reserves judgment and then judges like crazy.
2. He continues to show his turd nature on page 24--go ahead and take a picture of it, please--when he says this:
The fact that gossip had published the banns was one of the reasons I had come east. You can't stop going with an old friend on account of rumors, and on the other hand I had no intention of being rumored into marriage.
In other words, he doesn't want to marry this woman, whom we are lead to believe might be expecting a proposal. But he isn't man enough to simply end the relationship.
3. In chapter two, he goes along for the ride as Tom takes his mistress Myrtle to town and does "affair things."
4. Chapter three, post party, refers us back to chapter one. He uses his ongoing relationship with the "girl back home" to avoid escalating the relationship with Jordan Baker. This is pages 63 and 64--pause and photograph them. He says,
But I am slow thinking and full of interior rules that act as brakes on my desires, and I knew that first I had to get myself definitely out of that tangle back home. I'd been writing letters once a week and signing them "Love, Nick," and all I could think of was how, when that certain girl played tennis, a faint mustache of perspiration appeared on her upper lip. Nevertheless there was a vague understanding that had to be tactfully broken off before I was free.
Everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this was mine: I am one of the few honest people I have ever known.
I have already written at length about how dishonest Nick is--and it's obvious in his dealings with this poor woman. Here he adds to his turd resume': shallowness and cowardice.
5. Chapters four and five involve him procuring Daisy for Gatsby. He not only goes along for the ride on this affair, he gasses up the car.
6. On page 143, at the end of the party in the blistering heat, right before the death of Myrtle and the subsequent deaths of Gatsby and George Wilson, Nick turns thirty. Thirty is a big deal of a birthday. It, for many marks the end of "fun times" and the beginning of being a truly responsible adult. I want to take you off the beaten path here and into the realm of astrology. The thirtieth birthday is called "the return of Saturn." The planet Saturn takes about thirty years to go around the sun, so, on your thirtieth birthday, it's in the same position it was when you were born. Saturn brings wisdom with it.
It seems it may have brought some to Nick.
7. Later in chapter seven, Nick walks away from Tom, Daisy, and Jordan.
I'd had enough of all of them for one day, and suddenly that included Jordan too.
This is the first time he doesn't just flow along with them. He stands upright for the very first time. And he seems to like the view!
8. In chapters eight and nine, he acts as a true friend to Gatsby, almost selfless.
9. If you have been photographing along with me, you should photograph pages 185 to 189. It is here where he shows the most growth.
First, he actually confronts Jordan (unlike mustache girl back home).
But I wanted to leave things in order and not just trust that obligingly and indifferent sea to sweep my refuse away.
That's right, he's cleaning up his own mess.
Then.
"I'm thirty," I said, "I'm five years too old to lie to myself and call it honor."
That's right, he's admitting that the guy he thought he was in chapter three was a figment of his own imagination. He admits that he was lying to himself.
Finally, he confronts Tom.
"Tom," I inquired, "what did you say to Wilson that afternoon?"
And
I couldn't forgive him or like him but I was that what he had done was, to him, entirely justified. It was all very careless and confused. 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 . . . .
Saturn returns there, and with great vengeance. Saturn brings with him quite a few of the Cardinal Virtues: he bravely confronts Tom, shows restraint in shaking his hand, wisdom in discerning both his own and their character, and justice in honoring the memory of Gatsby and the events surrounding him.
The novel ends on a hopeful note. A turd need not always be a turd. I do hope that Tom Sawyer is listening.
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