New Criticism [Tim]

Lois Tyson's New Critical interpretation of Gatsby shows me how a deeper understanding of a text can be achieved through a close analysis of the text itself, without consideration of the historical or biographical context. By inspecting the imagery of the text, Tyson is able to come to the conclusion that :"It is the universal theme of unfulfilled longing, so powerfully carried by the novels' magnificent imagery that has made The Great Gatsby the enduring masterpiece that it is." I particularly liked how she observed the tension between the "idyllic..plenitude, fulfillment, pleasure, and harmony" that surrounds the rich, and the "vulgar" way in which they act. The tension, according to Tyson, mirrors the tension between "[L]ife the way we want it to be, ...[and] life he way it isn't". Additionally, I liked how Tyson notes how ambiguity adds to the overall theme of longing, remarking on Nick’s comment on the city as full of “wild promise of all the mystery and beauty in the world”. We don’t really know what about the city is wild, mysterious, and beautiful, but we do know that Nick longs for it. This new way of reading, is by far the hardest for me to wrap my head around. The fact that the text has “one true meaning” that is carried by the “form of the text” baffles me. How can profound meaning be found in the mechanics of literature? How can one text mean only one thing? How can we disregard the reader, author, and context of the text so easily?

New Criticism (Josh)

The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald is a novel I feel can be looked at through a New Criticism lens and still have the authors original intentions be shown. Fitzgerald had such a focus on making each section of the story perfect, revising time after time again to make sure every aspect, whether structural or not, was perfect and flowed just as he intended. The Great Gatsby is a unique example though, it is truly a rare piece of American literature and as we have seen through out our exploration of the novel, viewing the book through different lenses, criticisms can be broadly applied to the text and almost always have some material to work with, which is impressive when the The Great Gatsby's relatively short 180 pages is taken into consideration.

Even when looking at texts that work well with New Criticism I cannot agree with the ideals behind New Criticism, simply ignoring other aspects of a text and suggesting that its main meaning should be determined through its structure and nots its content or context is ridiculous. Other criticisms such as Feminist for Marxist don't simply ignore parts of a text, they try to adapt those aspects of the text into something that can be seen as an argument for their cause. New criticism can be an important lens to use in combination with others to try to understand the complete meaning of a text but when used on its own I feel a complete understanding is impossible to gain.

Late Feminist Post (joey)

After looking at The Great Gatsby through a feminist lens, my view has changed only in small ways. I had noticed lots of the topics discussed in this essay before reading it, and i agree with some statements made by lois tyson like how she points out that the great Gatsby takes place during a time where women's behavior was starting to change and how that is a pivotal point about the book. "Women could now be seen smoking and drinking (despite prohibition,) often in the company of men and with out chaperones." Lois used the term "New women" to describe the change in women's behavior during this time. I think that Jordan is a good example of a new women, because she is the one chasing after Nick and she is always seen smoking and greatly enjoys Gatsby's parties. The fact that there are women going through this change and becoming more outgoing and aceptable adds to the romance aspect of the novel, well actually i think the romance aspect of the novel really shows the changes the women are going through because it describes the struggles with men and women trying to break free and become their own people by taking control of their own lives. I cant really see the example of women becoming "new women" in any other aspect of the book, can you? Other then partying, smoking, drinking and relationships?

Deja Vu? (Milo)

Upon reading the "New Critical" method i just had to think to myself, "Wait...Wha?"
We've already gone over the idea of close reading, and pulling apart texts from Gatsby. Close reading, for me at least, is actually one of the cleaner, purer ways of analyzing readings, why? because we're just reading the words more deeply, as opposed to make accusations about the Author's secret love for proletariat uprisings while they kept their wives in the kitchen. it's really bare-boned, and easy to swallow. The best part of criticizing some parts of Gatsby over again, is that you notice subtle hints about scenes or conversations, (especially repetition of certain weird words) that didn't change the story's meaning, but it did make it deeper than before.

New Critism, Sarah

"The 'Deathless Song' of longing: A New Critical Reading of The Great Gatsby", the aspect that caught my attention was when Tyson analysed the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. Although I agree that it is a symbol of unfulfilled longing, I do not agree with Tyson's analysis of the light and its symbolism. Green throughout the novel is consistently associated with money. I believe that rather than Daisy being Gatsby;s unfulfilled longing, i is what Daisy represents, which is of course old money, that Gatsby truly longs for. The green light at the end of the dock represents old money which Gatsby could only obtain by marrying Daisy; his unfulfilled longing. By the end "[Daisy] came to the window and stood there for a minute and then turned out the light." This shows that Gatsby will never be old money, and will therefore continue longing for Daisy or old money. My question is this theory does not fit into Tyson's other observations, so how does this interpretation fit into her analysis of The Great Gatsby?

Joey.

New criticism is a joke. If there is actually a criticism that my 7 year old neighbor can comment on things in the same way a new critic would, then i dont think it should be worth teaching at a high school level. In regards to hearing about new criticism in The Great Gatsby, how could looking at the words and their "tension" change the way I look at a story? A story is a story and you can read the words and interpret them any way you want, and the story will follow the storyline the way you want it not the way other people want it. Another problem with new criticism is the fact that when you're looking at such a shallow base information such as the text, you can miss the meaning of the novel or become confused in the storyline and in my eyes not enjoy the book you're reading. New criticism might have some potential if combined with other criticisms. In fact it could be combined with just about any other form of criticism and thus create a truly "new" criticism. But what would be the best criticism to combine new criticism with? Would some be better then others? How would a combination take criticizing to a whole new level?

Old Criticism (Willie)

Not to beat a dead horse and echo everyone else's sentiments, but New Criticism has not changed my view on The Great Gatsby at all. I don't even see at as a lens. It is essentially looking at the text without one and taking everything in its own context as opposed to that of its historical period. This is the way I looked at Gatsby upon my initial readings. Nothing has changed. That being said, I like this way of picking apart a text. However, I would get rid of the objectivity of it that its practitioners believe in and acknowledge that we will all see different things and that those different things are simply our way of reflecting ourselves into whatever it is that we are reading. For this reason, I think it is utterly vacuous to attempt to reach some sort of conclusion that is objective. The greatest thing about art is that it is all subjective. John sees things in Jane Eyre that Jill does not, and vice versa. If these seemingly elitist critics would acknowledge it, it might be a bit more fun. Granted they probably do, but whatever; I'm ignorant.

Not too much new. [Phineas Schlossberg]

New criticism, in of itself, isn't so bad. I like it more in many aspects than the other lenses, but, it doesn't really give me a new way of looking at the book. New criticism seems to be just reading the book as we do normally in class. Some interesting literary elements are noticed, such as the use of color throughout the book, but we had mostly addressed those during classtime before. What I like about new criticism is that it seems more reasonable and in context, other interpretations through different lenses can sometimes be a bit of a stretch. However, it seems that New Criticism is a bit close minded, just like all the other lenses. For example, if there was a clearly allegorical book written by a heavily communist writer, new criticism would ignore that, and look purely at the literal elements, ignoring a lot about the book.

One of my favorite book series, The Sword of Truth, by Terry Goodkind, are often allegorical in nature. I first read the series when I was younger, and read it again more recently, and I noticed many more political allusions, which, in my opinion, greatly added to the books, and I feel like they would be nearly completely ignored by new criticism.
Another thing about new criticism I don't necessarily like is the idea that there is one universal human truth about every reading. I prefer a certain level of subjectivity with reading, and I think that I could interpret a novel in the completely opposite, but just as correct, way as someone else.

New Critism (mae)

Gatsby itself didn't change much because the New Critical lens "has been a standard method of high school and college instruction in literary studies." (pg 135) I feel like the New Critical lens is something that everyone thinks about as they read the book, one of the reasons being because it was taught to us in school so it is something that is always in the back of our minds when we read new texts. I agree with the authorial intention saying that we shouldn't take in the authors history, but instead take in the authors words to analyze the written text. During analyzing Gatsby there were some parts that were stretched in order to fit the theory, and make connections. "Nicks youth was more real, more genuine, than the artifical atmosphere he assoiates wht his adult life" (pg 153) this part is saying that nick is unhappy with his adult life, with the phrase "new snow". I think that by seeing the text "new snow," it doesn't make sense that it could conclude to Nick being happier during his childhood rather than his adult years. Does every single line of the text have to mean something? Or can you make analysis about a text based on larger portions?

(Nate) Sure, Why Not

I have always approached Lois Tyson's essays with great skepticism. Whether it be purely coincidence or my own way of lashing out at homework in general I'm not sure, but I digress. For the first time while reading a sample critique from this book I actually found myself agreeing with Tyson's analysis. I agree completely that tension is, as she puts it, "...between the world of corrupt, vulgar materialism portrayed in the novel and the lyric imagery-..." (4)

This lens, looking at just the text itself, very much appeals to me. I've often found myself disagreeing with the other lenses we've dealt with, treating them as simply over thinking th text. After all, with enough thought you can derive far fetched ideas from the most simple of concepts that would never occur to someone unless looking through a specific lens.

I can't help but wonder though, if Fitzgerald really did choose each and every word ever so carefully, is it in fact reasonable to suggest he didn't have some deeper meaning to his words that what was visible on the surface?

New Criticism (Leslie)

While in previous theories and criticisms I had seen things I wasn't aware of before, new criticism just didn't have the same effect. In my opinion, this was rather repetitive because we were asked to do close readings of "The Great Gatsby" while we were reading it the first time, which is basically new criticism. The essay didn't evoke any thoughts that I didn't have before. The overall theme of overall longing was one we had discussed, among others. The symbolism in the reading is also nothing new. For example, we look at the green light, and the ideas Tyson points out are what we had brainstormed before. "And in becoming universal, Gatsby's longing also becomes nonspecific: for the protagonist, the green light represents Daisy;" (159). In the juxtaposition between the past and the present, Tyson points out that the readers see the theme of universal longing yet again. "...the image of young Gatsby revisiting Louisville after Daisy's departure, 'stretch[ing] out his hand desperately as if to snatch only a wisp of air, to save a fragment of the spot that she had made lovely for him' {160}, and of Tom Buchanan, 'drift[ing] on forever seeking a little wistfully for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game' {10}, are hantting and painful because they bespeak an emptiness that can never be filled." (153). Despite the long quote, the message is quite simple: new criticism finds the symbols and themes of the stories through the tension and word choice. And long story short, I was not impressed with this essay. To me, most readings should be done using new criticism, but maybe that might JUST be me. Do other people feel this essay was redundant? Do we use new criticism without ever really noticing?

New Criticism (Lex)

After reading Lois Tyson's 'The "deathless song" of longing: a New Critical reading of 'The Great Gatsby'' I finally understand why I found so much pleasure in reading F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gatsby.' While performing my close reading of the 'great American novel,' I was impressed with the fluidity of the writing, the depth of the descriptions, and the ease of the reading, but I never understood why the novel was so compelling to read. However, in her essay applying New Criticism to ‘The Great Gatsby,’ Lois Tyson proposes that the universal theme portrayed in the novel is that of “unfulfilled longing” (163). Someone reading this story will therefore be surrounded by descriptions of need and desire, such as Gatsby standing in the shadow of his house, reaching for the “green light” (21), and Daisy sitting in the “hot” (126) and “stifling” (126) hotel room, whining for a “cold bath” (126). With every lengthy description and choice word in ‘The Great Gatsby’ relating back to a yearning, the reader experiences that same uncontrollable longing. Unsure how to quell this emotion, the reader hungers to read more, with hopes that by the climax of the book their needs will be fulfilled. The theme of longing that Fitzgerald weaves into every aspect of ‘The Great Gatsby’ is what makes it such an enthralling book to read. New Criticism allows readers to fully understand the reading, regardless of the context. While criticisms that delve into the views of society and its effects on literature have a certain appeal, New Criticism, which looks at only “the text itself” (136), is the most pure and concrete type of literary criticism. When reading a book, it is essential to understand the theme of the writing and the message it is trying to convey. For this reason, I prefer New Criticism to the other types of critical theories. However, to those who do not completely agree with me, I pose this question: If you believe that in order to understand a text you need to set it in context with the society it was created in, why must the world affect literature? Aren’t texts reflections of the author’s own emotions, which, while influenced by society, can occur in any setting?