The Great Gatsby ch 1-5

The first thing that really stood out to me was the section about Tom and Daisy Buchanan. When Tom was talking about his girl in New York, his wife seemed to barely care. I mean, yes it was apparent that she cared some but she didn't care nearly as much as she should have. He's her husband and she seems slightly okay with him having another woman. Not surprisingly, Tom's mistress's husband doesn't seem to care either! Or otherwise he's just extremely oblivious. If something like that were to really happen, people would care and be angry, unlike these characters in this book.


At the beginning of the book, I was a little confused because they kept mentioning Gatsby, but we hadn't actually seen or talked to him yet. Since the book was named after him, I was expecting him to be apart of the story from the get go, but it all made a little more sense later on when Nick actually met him for the first time.


One thing that is very evident to me, and also pretty annoying, is the snobbish attitudes of almost every character in this book. Everyone that the narrator associates with is a rich snob who is only focused on money, parties, and appearance. I'm not really sure why Nick hangs around these people because he doesn't really seem like their type to me. Hopefully this will make more sense later on. Or maybe he just got stuck with them because he doesn't know anyone else. Not really sure.


On a side note, I really liked the symbolism that the billboard in the valley of ashes might represent. I feel like the large man staring down doing nothing on what society deemed as failures represents God and how he has, In the eyes of the wealthy, abandoned the valley.