The Great Gatling

Introduction

        It's mentioned in the Great Gatsby that the titular Jay Gatsby fought in the Great War, and that the book's main character, Nick Carraway, fought in the war as well. Despite this similarity between them and their connection with each other in the book, Nick and Gatsby's response to life after the war could not be any more different. 

Nick's Perspective

        Nick is shown to come back to America after the war and seems to act like nothing changed, when he goes back to his normal life in the Midwest, he finds himself that he "enjoyed the counterraid so thoroughly that that I came back restless." (Fitzgerald, 3).

        By some miracle, Nick seemed to enjoy the Great War, almost having it serve as a motivator or inspiration for him that made him more energetic. The use of the word "thoroughly" especially sticks out here. War always has this connotation that it's filled with horrors and tragedies that people have to block out or desensitize themselves to in order to cope and not break under the pressure of witnessing such atrocities. As if the horrors of war are so great that the human mind needs to shut part of itself off to handle it. Yet Nick enjoyed the war "thoroughly", paying attention to the details and investigating the horrors he saw. Instead of the common response to shut the brain off to such horrors, Nick seemed to not only embrace the tragedies he saw, but even open his mind further up to them. The experience leaving him not with restless nights of sweating and shivering but with restless optimism.

        The transformation eventually makes Nick choose to move East because he found the Midwest too boring, starting up the life filled with staggering bonds and massive sales in a bustling and alive city. This positive reaction to a war believed to be "The War to End All Wars" presents an immense contrast to the reaction of Gatsby.

Gatsby's Perspective

        Gatsby, after returning home to America after the war, seems to have become aimless and lost. Unless I have the timeline of events wrong, it seems his next step after arriving in America was to become a struggling fisherman on the shore of Lake Superior. Working in a laborious industry in a poor region with seemingly nobody to support him as he scraped by, Gatsby had a far rougher return to America than Nick did. Gatsby "was still searching for something to do on the day that Dan Cody's yacht dropped anchor in the shallows alongshore." (Fitzgerald, 99).

        Note the use of the phrase "searching for something to do", meaning Gatsby had no dreams or ambitions and lacked any mission in life, lacking any energy or desire to accomplish anything, a vast difference from Nick who was restless and full of energy. 

        Even after moving to New York and embracing the wealthy, bustling, and thrilling life it brought, Gatsby still seemed to be haunted by the war. The ghosts of his past seemed to haunt him, even fueling the rumor that he "killed a man". Considering that Gatsby had to fight in a life-or-death war where 40 million people died, it wouldn't be surprising if he had to choose to take someone else's life to keep his own. Despite being a cheap piece of gossip, Gatsby probably did have to kill a man, a toll he's had to live with long after the war passed.

        Gatsby is influenced by the Great War in both ways of war, not just probably being a murderer himself, but also a murderee if the Jesus metaphor is anything to go by. And considering that we read the ending to the book this weekend, I can safely say he does die. Gatsby was massively impacted by the war in so many ways and it still seems to control him in the book, which is a far cry from the impact the war had on Nick.

Comparing the Two

        Comparing the two, Nick and Gatsby experienced such immensely different responses to the war. While Nick was bored by his life due to wanting to experience a more bold and adventurous lifestyle, Gatsby was bored by his life because he didn't have much of a lifestyle at all. 

        And while Nick got to go home to the Midwest and meet with parents again and even now interacts with his cousin in New York all the time, Gatsby seems to have become antisocial and reclusive because of the war, having people at his parties that he doesn't even know the name of. 

The Real-World

        To draw a real-world comparison, it particularly stands out to me that Gatsby keeps calling people "old sport" like a British businessman. While America did participate in the Great War, the American reaction to the war was far different from every other countries' response to the war. American troops historically headed off to France viewing the war as an adventure, an activity, rather than the brutal fight it was. And because America wasn't part of the battlefield itself, when American troops came home, they had a stable country, thriving economy, and loving people to come back home to, especially when they had only been in the war for 2 years. 

        Compared to the European reaction to the war, where Britain and France and Germany and Austria were totaled, and had lost morale, money, people, and land. When French troops finally stopped fighting and went back home after 5 long years of war, they came back to a destroyed landscape filled with a depressed populace and failing economy and people who hated the soldiers for seemingly dragging on the war for so long.

        As such, is it any wonder that Nick, who seemed to be impacted positively by the war and recovered relatively quickly, went home to the center of America after the war, while Gatsby, who was traumatized and left aimless by the war for years and was still haunted by the ghosts of the war even after becoming rich, speaks like a British person?