The Great Gatsby Journal Feb. 14

1. Gatsby's story and Jordan's story both are very different even though both of the stories revolve around the same character, Jay Gatsby. These contrasts can be seen in the way that the stories are told. Gatsby rushed his story as if he doesn't want to talk about it or he is ashamed of it. "He [Gatsby] hurried the phrase 'educated at Oxford,' or swallowed it, or choked on it, as though it had bothered him before," (The Great Gatsby 65). Whereas Jordan Baker made Gatsby seem as though he was a hero. "The officer [Gatsby] looked at Daisy while she was speaking, in a way that every young girl wants to be looked at some time, and because it seemed romantic to me I have remembered the incident ever since. His name was Jay Gatsby, and I didn't lay eyes on him again for over four years," (The Great Gatsby 75). I think that the reasons that their two stories vary is because Gatsby is being modest. He doesn't want to make himself seem like he is some great hero for one of two reasons: he doesn't want Nick to feel bad or unaccomplished; or Gatsby knows all the bad things about himself/thinks of all his mistakes he's made and, on the inside, doesn't think he is a great man. Jordan, on the other hand, only knows about the good things that Gatsby has done. For this reason, she tells his life story as though he is a great man.