Environmental Perspective

Growling At Gatsby: Gaining Perspective through the Eyes of Myrtle's Dog

    Below, I have compiled a set of quotes with references to dogs. In doing so, I attempted to re-tell segments of Fitzgerald's novel through the use of these quotes, establishing a first person perspective through the eyes of Myrtle's dog. The details included in my version of the story parallel the actual events that transpired in the novel; therefore, all of the actions, settings, and dialogue found in my story are taken directly from the book. Every quote found below, in one way or another, pertains to Gatsby, whether it be directly or indirectly, and in addition, reveals truths about other characters in the novel.

Eyes on Nick Carraway, Page 3: "I had a dog - at least I had him for a few days until he ran away - and an old Dodge and a Finnish woman, who made my bed and cooked breakfast and muttered Finnish wisdom to herself over the electric stove."

    I am the dog that ran away. Through my eyes, I saw it all- the lavish parties being held next door, the wealthy coming and going through that house, and the mysterious man that came and went through those doors. I felt that I had to run away – the sounds coming from next door were terrifying, and they came at all hours of the day. Following my leave from Nick Carraway’s small bungalow, I did not venture far. From the other side of Nick’s property line, I watched as he received that ominous invitation one fine weekend. I watched as he strode across his lawn and onto the lawn belonging to “him.” As Nick danced and partied amid the crowd, it became apparent that one man was not dancing at all. Later, that same man struck up a conversation with Nick, claiming to know him from the US Army’s Third Infantry Division, identifying himself as THE Jay Gatsby. Though a friendship was stirring among the two, it was evident that Gatsby was a man to be watched. From the far off bushes bordering Gatsby’s monstrosity of a house, all that I could do was growl and wait for the moment to come where I could save the day
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Eyes on Tom Buchanon, Page 28:
     "Is it a boy or a girl?" she asked delicately.
     "That dog? That dog's a boy."
     "It's a bitch," sad Tom decisively. "Here's your money. Go and buy ten more dogs with it."

    After that night when Gatsby and Nick first shook hands, I ventured out of West Egg. About halfway between West Egg and New York, where the motor road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, I was picked up by a “gray old man who bore an absurd resemblance to John D. Rockefeller” (27). For the next few hours, I spent my time cooped up inside of a basket swung from the guy’s neck. There must have been a dozen other puppies with me, though all were of indeterminate breeds. Suddenly, some woman was pointing in my direction screaming, “I want to get one of those dogs!”  When she insisted on having a police dog, the gray old man scooped me up in his arms because, somehow, I bore a resemblance.
    Then I heard, “That’s no police dog,” and though I was relieved that somebody made this observation, the way it was said rubbed me the wrong way. Now, these folks could not even place me as a boy or a girl, and I became infuriated. Then, THEN, that same man who had spoken with such a harsh intonation referred to me as a bitch, and I vowed that in the near future, he would get what was coming to him. I should have guessed that he was associated with Gatsby in one way or another.
                          --------> See 3:53/5:33


Eyes on Myrtle Wilson, Page 34: "I married him because I thought he was a gentleman," she said finally. "I thought he knew something about breeding, but he wasn't fit to lick my shoe."

    Before I knew it, I had been taken to some apartment in the city. From the back-and-forth exchanges on the car ride there, I had discovered that the woman in the passenger’s seat was Myrtle Wilson, and the man behind the wheel was Tom Buchanan. It was not until we arrived at the apartment that I noticed the third person in the car: Nick. Thankfully, I had changed quite a bit since the last time we had seen each other and he did not recognize me. Once in the apartment, the conversation immediately shifted to Gatsby; thus, my attention was triggered.
    Myrtle’s red-headed sister, Catherine, prompted the conversation by falsely suggesting that Gatsby’s wealth came from old money passed down. I heard her say, “Well, they say he’s the nephew or a cousin of Kaiser Wilhelm’s. That’s where all his money came from” (32).  Just by looking at Gatsby, one could tell that this was a fictitious statement. I knew better than that, and I could see that Nick did too. Then the conversation trailed off, and the last words I remember hearing were something regarding how Myrtle thought her husband had been fit for breeding, but now he wasn’t even fit to lick her shoe. These words resonated with me for two reasons in particular: firstly, I am a dog, and secondly, if Tom is her husband, I could not agree more. Who does he think he is calling me a b-----!





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Eyes on Tom and Myrtle, Page 37: "The little dog was sitting on the table looking with blind eyes through the smoke, and from time to time groaning faintly.

    The smoke that had been permeating throughout the air had nearly suffocated everybody that had been in that apartment that night. Nick had been anxious to leave since the night had first begun, and pretty soon, Tom gave him a reason to do so. Myrtle, in an impassioned voice, kept hollering, “Daisy! Daisy! Dai-,” (37) and finally, Tom did what my helpless paws could not: he broke her nose with his open hand. Seeing blood spewed out across the bathroom floor, I fled from the room with the others. Since I knew Nick better than the others who had been in the apartment that night, I decided to follow him. Running all the way to the cold lower level of the Pennsylvania Station was quite a feat, so as soon as Nick fell asleep waiting for the four o’clock train, I dozed off as well.



 
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Page 118: "Our eyes lifted over the rose-beds and the hot lawn and the weedy refuse of the dog-days alongshore. Slowly the white wings of the boat moved against the blue cool limit of the sky. Ahead lay the scalloped ocean and the abounding blessed isles."

    Eventually, I came to. Nick, no longer beside me, had come and gone with the morning rush, leaving me to my own devices. There was no telling how long I had been in the station, so I decided to venture back out onto the streets. As a dog with boundless limitations, I decided to head to town in search of food. While sauntering down the streets in hunger and frustration, I came across the whole lot: Tom, a woman who was incontrovertibly NOT Myrtle [Daisy], Gatsby, a woman who was noticeably athletic [Jordan], and Nick. In Gatsby’s luxurious car were Tom, acting as boisterous as ever, Nick and the sporty woman. In Tom’s less-than-extravagant ride was Gatsby and the daintier woman who held a calming expression and a voice of money.
    “Several times, he [Tom] turned his head and looked back for their [Tom’s] car, and if the traffic delayed them he slowed up until they came into sight” (126). If Gatsby and Daisy were to dart down a side street and out of Tom’s life forever, I would dart too. Thankfully, they all stopped in front of the Plaza Hotel and went in. When the front guards were preoccupied, I subtly snuck in and found my way to their suite. Outside their door, I listened attentively to the conversations, the arguments erupting and the fists being clenched. With my ear pressed to the door, I heard, “Why not let her alone, old sport? You’re the one that wanted to come to town.” Definitely Gatsby, with that contemptuous tone igniting a flame in Tom that only added to the heat of the summer day.  So Tom responded. “All this ‘old sport’ business. Where’d you pick that up?” Then came Daisy’s screeching voice, begging the two to stop bickering. For a while, the conversation floated on the surface level, no awkward silences or harsh tones incurred. Then Tom raised a question concerning Gatsby’s education at Oxford, and the conversation plunged deep below the surface into depths of despair never before reached.
    Though I could not see from behind the closed door, I knew all fists must have come out when I heard Tom inquire, “What kind of row are you trying to cause in my house anyhow?” (129). I could see it then: In one corner stood the racist, feminist pig of Tom Buchanan, and in the other, “Mr. Nobody from Nowhere” Gatsby. After a few more minutes of listening to the conversation shift from topics of love, to marriage, to lies and deceit, they all left in the cars they had come from, every person enraged and red in the face. I hitched the second ride back to West Egg, Daisy’s ride, and hidden in the back seat of the car, I saw who killed Myrtle.



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Eyes on Gatsby, Page 178: "
    "I told him the truth," he said. "He came to the door while we were getting ready to leave, and when I sent down word that we weren't in he tried to force his way upstairs. He was crazy enough to kill me if I hadn't told him who owned the car. His hand was on the revolver in his pocket every minute he was in the house -" He broke off defiantly. "What if I did tell him? That fellow had it coming to him. He threw dust into your eyes just like he did in Daisy's, but he was a tough one.
He ran over Myrtle like you'd run over a dog and never even stopped his car."

    In the end, I returned to Nick. Together, we left West Egg and went back to where we knew was home. With Myrtle dead and Daisy guilty as sin, Tom had no more reason to abandon his wife. In the end, Gatsby got what I had originally said was coming to him, and though I had originally designated him the bad guy, in the end, my perception of him had changed. I went to his funeral, and just as I had done when I ran away from Nick, I remained hidden in the bushes the whole time.
                           -------> See 4:50/7:45


Cleaning Up Gatsby's Mess: Gaining Perspective Through Conservation in the Industrial '20s

    In this piece of the multi-genre project, the focus is on Gatsby’s extravagant parties, primarily, the clean-up process that occurred immediately following them. Gatsby was a man who enjoyed pleasing the East and West Eggers, putting on parties that welcomed anybody of means; however, he neglected to care about the impact his parties had on the environment around him. In the 1920’s, many revolutionary ideas were presented that helped to save the environment that Gatsby was responsible for disturbing, and in this part of the project, it is my aim to present you with these ideas.

"A wafer of moon was shining over Gatsby's house, making the night fine as before, and surviving the laughter and the sound of his still glowing garden. A sudden emptiness seemed to flow now from the windows and the great doors, endowing with complete isolation the figure of the host, who stood on the porch, his hand up in a formal gesture of farewell" (55).

    Nick about Daisy: "They moved with a fast crowd, all of them young and rich and wild,
but she came out with an absolutely perfect reputation. Perhaps because she doesn't drink.
It's a great advantage not to drink among hard-drinking people" (77).


   
Nick about Tom and Daisy: “They weren’t happy, and neither of them had touched the
chicken or the ale—and yet they weren’t unhappy either. There was an unmistakable air
of natural intimacy about the picture, and anybody would have said that they were
conspiring together” (145).


    A Drunken Mess: At Gatsby’s parties, alcohol was served to anybody and everybody. As the New York Times noted, “gin was the national drink and sex the national obsession,” Gatsby’s parties were no exception. During the time in which the book was set, the Volstead Act became effective, deeming the sale of a drink containing as much as one half-ounce of alcohol unlawful. Stands on prohibition and intolerance were beginning to gain momentum on a large scale, though speakeasies, flappers, gangsters and crime were hindering such movements from enveloping the globe. At Gatsby’s parties, alcohol worked through the bodies of the invited, enabling them to spread false truths about his past and present self. Seeing the destructive nature of the drunken guests at his parties, Gatsby had the wits to refrain from drink. From afar, he watched his guests in silence, only showing his presence on the rarest of occasions.

    "There was music from my neighbor's house through those summer nights. In his enchanted gardens, men and girls came and went like moths, among the whispering and the champagne and the stars. I believe that few people were actually invited to these parties. They just went. They got into automobiles that bore them out to Long Island, and somehow they ended up at Gatsby's door. Come for the party with a simplicity of heart that was it's own ticket of admission" (42). 

   An I-MOBILE-izing Mess: After every one of Gatsby’s parties, Gatsby proved his negligence and lack of care for invited guests through enabling them to drive home intoxicated. During the 1920’s, technology grew and the country shrunk. With the increased popularity of automobiles, radios, movies, and other means of communication, transport, and entertainment, the world became more closely connected.

    “I looked around. Most of the remaining women were now having fights with men said to be their husbands....One of the men was talking with curious intensity to a young actress, and his wife, after attempting to laugh at the situation in a dignified and indifferent way, broke down entirely and resorted to flank attacks- at intervals she appeared suddenly at his side like an angry diamond, and hissed: “You promised!” into his ear” (51).

    A Fashion Disaster: After Gatsby’s parties, outfits were torn, necklaces were broken, and women were enraged. Through the eyes of the guests, Gatsby was never to blame; however, in truth, fingers could only be pointed in one direction. By the end of the 1920’s, Americans were overcome by a rise in modern consumer culture. Similarly to the way women became disgruntled over ripped garments at Gatsby’s parties, bitter cultural tensions divided Americans as a whole. With new and exciting opportunities, including the ability to buy stylish, fitted clothing, it only added to the country’s cultural conflicts.

    Cleaning Up The "Ashes": Luckily for Gatsby, Americans of the 1920s were the first to play electric phonographs and use electric vacuum cleaners. Essentially, American life was transformed with the coming of these two products. In urban areas such as Gatsby’s beloved New York City, these novelties brought about immense change in everyday life. In regards to Gatsby’s parties, the electric vacuum cleaner made it possible for them to be held on a weekly basis. Indisputably, Gatsby was not the man who cleaned up the mess in the end.

    The Family Screw-Up: Gatsby was to blame for giving young people too much freedom and privacy. The relationship between parent and child was troubled, as evidenced by the minimal times Daisy’s daughter was presented in the novel. Instead of enjoying calm weekends at home with family, parents invited to Gatsby’s parties indulged themselves with carefree hearts and preoccupied minds. In the 1920s, families spent a declining portion of their income on necessities and an increasing amount on appliances and recreational goods. As a result of this shift, older industries such as textiles, railroads and steel declined, and new industries thrived.