Interesting Points... (Willie)

While I did see the novel as a celebration of marxism upon reading it unbiased, many of the thoughts that Tyson points out are things I had not thought of. For example, it never even crossed my mind that Tom had commodified people, which is one of the points she focuses much energy on. I had always considered what he was going more a form of "bribery" in the fact that he seemed desperate and addicted to relationships and would bribe people with as much money as possible for their "love." In retrospect, this is just about exactly the same as Tyson's idea, just without relating it to Marxism, commodification, or any of those theories. The one thing I did think of (I feel so proud that I came up with this all on my own a few weeks ago!) was the idea of Gatsby, the only true "self-made man" in the novel, being corrupt, criminal, and not truly embodying what our perception of the American Dream is. In a way, he represents the downfall of the American Dream.