Thread by @EveKeneinan

The Real Question is... | Moxie #shorts youtube.com/shorts/nSuSFtx… via @YouTube

It isn't said, but clearly the novel in question is The Great Gatsby.

Let's consider this girl's points, which are seemingly meant to be taken seriously.

They shouldn't be.

"Why are we still reading this book?"

Because it is one of the greatest American novels.

"It's written by some rich white guy ... "

F. Scott Fitzgerald was born into a middle class family, and ended his life in poverty. Although The Great Gatsby was highly acclaimed and made him famous, it didn't bring him any money.

So, no, he was not "some rich white guy."

"... about some rich white guy."

Didn't even read it, did you?

What exactly does it matter that the author or Gatsby are white?

So are Ishmael and Ahab, MacBeth and Hamlet and Ophelia, Elizabeth and Darcy. So what?

Nor is Gatsby rich. He is, socially speaking, punching above his weight class. His moving is social circles to which he doesn't truly belong is central to the novel and to his character.

"And I guess we're supposed to feel bad for him, because he's obsessed with the only girl he can't have?"

Unclear on the "supposed to feel bad for him". "Supposed to" by whom?

But yes, unless you are completely lacking in empathy because of your racism, someone in the position of wanting the one thing he (or she) cannot have is a tragic circumstance that any and all human beings can relate to.

Unless your racism prevents, of course.

"If the point is to learn about the American dream ..."

Great novel don't *have* points in this way. This is the kind of very stupid understanding that comes from high school level readings and the idea that art needs to have "a message."

"... we should be reading about immigrants, or the working class, or black mothers, or at least someone who doesn't already have a mansion."

It isn't just racism, but the understanding of human beings as merely "bundles of identities" that makes this girl so utterly repellent.

The fact that Gatsby isn't poor makes him beyond basic human consideration for her.

I don't suppose I need to say it (but I will) that this is EXACTLY how racist whites used to look at black people: as non-human things impossible to identify with.

Think about how stupid it is to say "If the point of this great novel is X, why don't we just read some political agitprop about X?"

Only a very simple mind could think of literature in such a simpleminded way.

The poster of this is something called LifeEthics.

This is awful ethics and awful aesthetics. It advocates stupidity, parochialism, racism, closed-mindedness, inability to read well, and many other vices.

My only consolation is that the actress probably doesn't believe it.

Makes me want to go re-read The Great Gatsby, since I haven't for many years, and I'm sure on my last reading, I was far too young to fully have appreciated it.

Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man: "It's written by some black guy about some other black guy."

Toni Morrison's Beloved: "It's written by some black woman about some other black woman."

I mean, it's not like we should care about THOSE PEOPLE, right?

Addendum: Carraway, the narrator, IS from a family of immigrants. His great uncle immigrated to the US in 1851 and started a hardware wholesale.

Carraway is fairly well-off, and belongs to the social class that Gatsby does not.

Carraway is New Money. Many of the social elite in the novel are Old Money.

And Gatsby comes very close to being "a self-made man."

The novel could be seen, in part, as a commentary on that idea.

Why Carraway regards Gatsby as "great" is one of the first and also hardest questions one can put to the novel.

Or is it Carraway? Is it the author instead? Is Gatsby great? In what way(s)?