Gatsby

  The Great Gatsby is the first book that ever really affected me. I was ever inclined to read it again today, so that I could revisit what touched me so much to make me want to teach students about good books. At once after finishing chapter one, I remembered why I loved it too much.

" And, after boasting this way of my tolerance, I come to the admission that it has a limit. Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes, but after a certain point I don't care what it's founded on. When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction-- Gatsby, who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away. This responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby impressionability which is dignified under the name of the "creative temperament"--it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again. No-- Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men" (2).

  It's after I read passages like that, I feel the charge to teach young people to love words, and to love writing. With all of my heart I wish I could write as perfectly and descriptive as Fitzgerald, but I do not. However, I love reading his words and that is something I want high school students to learn. I want to teach them to love the written word. When I read something that is so beautiful that leaves me wanting to hear more, I feel the obligation to teach others, and to show others the power of a good writer, and the power that they have to create something worth reading. 

  For so many people who are recognized as "greats" in the history of art and literature, they were not recognized in their time as being wonderful or praiseworthy, but it still affected someone in their time. Sometimes, it doesn't matter if it's a best seller, but that it's affected one person enough that they want to show others something wonderful, breathtaking and almost ,but not quite perfect.

  I want my students to read a passage that makes an impression, or that leaves them with the desire to share it with others or start writing something themselves. The world needs beautiful minds who are educated and bright young people. I hope that I can teach them someday to have a passion for loving and pledging to read the written word and writing those words, paragraphs, pages and books that affect one person. Cheers!

love, Maddie Violet