The term “nemesis” is usually used to describe one’s worst
enemy. In this novel, Tom Buchanan could be considered Jay Gatsby’s nemesis because Tom
married the woman that Gatsby loved. Also Tom is indirectly responsible for Gatsby’s
death. At the end of the novel, when Nick meets Tom on the street one day and asks him
what Tom told George Wilson, Tom replies that Gatsby “had it coming to him anyway” for
“twisting Daisy’s mind like that.”
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“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.”
The term “catharsis”
means purging or unloading oneself. In a sense, the entire novel can be considered
Nick’s catharsis. He writes about Gatsby in retrospect, trying to come to grips with his
own conflicting values. Choose just about anything Nick says in the very last chapter to
illustrate this:
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And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown
world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end
of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have
seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was
already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the
dark fields of the republic rolled on under the
night.
The term “pathos”
means emotional appeal. There are several instances in the novel where Nick shows pathos
towards Gatsby. One is while he is trying to arrange Gatsby’s funeral, calling up
everyone he knows in hopes of finding some people to attend the funeral. He
says:
I wanted
to get somebody for him. I wanted to go into the room where he lay and reassure him:
“I’ll get somebody for you, Gatsby. Don’t worry. Just trust me and I’ll get somebody for
you ——”
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