Indifference

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Indifference

• ---the Great Gatsby

---Xu Fang
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What are they concerned about?

• Money/wealth
• Social Status
• Luxurious life
• Feast, material joy (lots of parties)
• Beautiful women (daisys suitors)
• Selfs desire
• ---material life

3
What are they indifferent of?

• Others feelings
• Others life
• Relationships with others
• Laws and rules

4
Historical Background

• Explores life in the early- to mid-1920s.
• Political shortly after World War I, a time of
  growth and prosperity, as well as a time of
  scandal and corruption.
• Economic business targeted as a means of
  rebuilding the country improvements in
  technology stimulated economy prohibition,
  illegal wine selling, but highly lucrative.
• The commercial growth of the 1920s resulted in
  rampant materialism, such as that in The Great
  Gatsby.
• Discrimination against outsiders and immigrants.

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Typical examples Daisy

• A careless person who smashes things up and then
  retreats behind her money.
• In love with money, ease, and material luxury
• Indifferent even to her own infant daughter,
  never discussing her and treating her as an
  afterthought.
• Didnt stop the car after she knocked down
  Myrtle.
• Chooses Tom over Gatsby in Chapter VII, then
  allows Gatsby to take the blame for killing
  Myrtle Wilson even though she herself was driving
  the car.
• Finally, rather than attend Gatsbys funeral,
  Daisy and Tom move away, leaving no forwarding
  address.

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Typical examples Tom

• A insolent and conceited playboy, strongly
  dislikes outsiders.
• Despicable paramour of Mrs. Wilson, terribly
  undermining the family of Wilsons .
• After Mrs. Wilson death, Tom hinted Mr. Wilson
  that the murderer was Gatsby and where Gatsbys
  house was.
• As a result, Mr. Wilson killed Gatsby and then
  committed suicide. Thus Tom was sinful.
• But at last carelessly he and Daisy went out for
  traveling, letting Gatsby clean the mess his wife
  made.

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Other examples

• Wolfshiem refuses to publicly mourn his friends
  death, claiming he made Gatsbys fame, but cant
  get mixed up in it.
• Klipspringer called up to inquire about a pair
  of his tennis shoes, saying he would rather stay
  with some friends in Greenwich than attend the
  funeral.
• Slagle does not know Gatsbys death, saying that
  Young Parke is in trouble and asking Gatsby for
  dropping bond business.
• All those who so eagerly attended his parties,
  drinking his liquor and eating his food, refuse
  to become involved and never appear in his
  funeral.

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Summery

• Lack of mourners in the funeral---the final and
  most blatant acts of immorality.
• A world where people are so busy living for the
  moment that they have lost touch with any sort of
  morality, and end up breaking laws, cheating, and
  even killing.
• Suggesting a lack of order and structure in the
  worlds of East Egg, West Egg, and beyond.
• The supposedly social elite are perhaps a bit out
  of touch with reality. They clearly treat people
  as objects, and are unconcerned with whether
  their actions impede on anyone elses.

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• Different Editions