Monday, April 30, 2012

The Great Gatsby (6) - Secrecy

"When I asked him what his business was he answered 'That's my affair'..." (pg. 95)

Secrecy is central to this book.  Almost everyone has secrets.  Tom is having an affair with Myrtle. Daisy loves Gatsby.  But the character with the most secrets is Gatsby.  No one really knows what he does for a living and he does his best to keep it a mystery.  In the quote above, Nick askes Gatsby what his job is and he becomes defensive, basically telling Nick to mind his own business.  There were a bunch of wild rumors about Gatsby, but no one knew if the rumors were true or not and Gatsby did not say anything to disprove them.  Each character's secrets led to mystery and unhappyness.

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