Passage Analysis for Chapters 5&6

"I walked into the back way -just as Gatsby had when he made his nervous circuit of the house half an hour before- and ran for a huge black knotted tree whose massed leaves made a fabric against the rain. Once more it was pouring and my irregular lawn, well-shaved by Gatsby's garderner, abounded in small muddy swamps and prehistroic marshes. There was nothing to look at from under the tree except Gatsby's enormous house so I stared at it, like Kant at his church stteple, for half an hour. A brewer had built it early in the "period" craze, a decade before, and there was a story that he'd agree to pay five years' taxes on all neighboring cottages if the owners would have their roofs thatched with straw. Perhaps their refusal took the heart out of his plan to Found a Family- he went into an immediate decline. His children sold his house with the black wreath still on the door. Americans, while occasionally willing to be serfs, have always been obstinate about being peasantry" (Fitzgerald 93).

What first stands out to me is how Nick once messy lawn was made better by Gatsby's doing. This shows weakness on Nick's part seeing as tehy just recetnly had talked about fixing the lawn and then it was already done, he didn't try to work for his own garderners he just allowed for Gatsby's. It brings to mind that idea that Gatsby uses wealth and status to distract from things he doesn't want to be found out about himself. Which comes up a lot in chapter five where he seems frantic to cover something up. Secondly, Nick's mention of the tree blocking his view of everything but Gatsby's house seems to be about isolation. Gatsby certainly knows a lot of people and is as social as possible but he is alone in that house and as we see he gets nervous and excited when Daisy shows up and he seems eager to please Nick at some points, Gatsby may know many people but he seems to be truely alone. Finally the last line of this passage leads to questioning, seeing as pesants are free and serfs aren't why would Americans be willing to be the later. In the context of this book I take the idea of authority and being told what to do to go alon with how the people act. They all display odd social behavior in their newly found extravengent life style and they all play into the same certain personality not straying away into anything really unique.