Monday, April 29, 2013

Colonialism in Gatsby

The way Tyson writes always irks me, but I found this theory and this reading to be one of her better works. the way that she folds the criticism into the story of Jay Gatsby is by far her best or least one of her best attempts at interpreting F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby through a literary lens.Tyson applies the idea of "that in order to subjugate an "alien people", a nation must convince itself those people are different"(Tyson 433). She then uses this post colonial ideology on the relationship between Old Money and New Money in Gatsby, a perfect parallel.She comments mainly on Nick Carraway's continuous subconscious judgment of people, stating that he "continually make judgments about others with no apparent consciousness of doing so"(Tyson 435). This constant judgement represents itself in his sayings "my Finn" (Fitzgerald 88) and "the Finn" (Fitzgerald 89), using the beginning phrases to establish a dominance over "his Finn", the Finnish woman who is Nick's house keeper. The constant portrayal of post colonial theory and mentality lends itself perfectly to this criticism, and is why I believe Tyson did so well at using this lens.

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