A New World This phrase comes up later in the novel, in the final paragraphs. Nick is lying on Gatsby’s beach and thinking about the land: “And
as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until
gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for
Dutch sailors’ eyes – a fresh green breast of the new world.
Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby’s
house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all
human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his
breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic
contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the
last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for
wonder.” This paragraph accentuates the idea that few dreams
or ideals can be matched by the reality.
The discovery of North America was “the last time in history”
that mankind saw “something commensurate to his capacity for
wonder.” So we realize
that Gatsby’s ideal of beauty could never be matched by Daisy.
It is interesting that Nick says that the explorer seeing America
was “compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood
nor desired.” Possibly,
he is suggesting that even if Gatsby had found the beauty he sought, it
would have been too much for him to process, and it would have done him
no good. This passage seems to be linked to the description of
Gatsby on page 6: “…there was something gorgeous about him, some
heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to
one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand
miles away. This
responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby impressionability
which is dignified under the name of the ‘creative temperament’ –
it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I
have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall
ever find again.” There
may be a similarity between the “capacity for wonder” of the Dutch
sailors who first saw the land and the “gift for hope” of the man,
Gatsby, that came to live there. Nick, like the sailors, may have experienced an
“aesthetic contemplation” at the end of chapter 6, when he hears
Gatsby’s story of his kiss with Daisy.
He experiences, at the very least, a religious awe: “I
was reminded of something – an elusive rhythm, a fragment of lost
words, that I had heard somewhere a long time ago.
For a moment a phrase tried to take shape in my mouth an my lips
parted like a dumb man’s, as though there was more struggling upon
them than a wisp of startled air. But
they made no sound and what I had almost remembered was uncommunicable
forever.”
This is one of the few moments in the novel when we feel that
Nick is being genuinely affected by the events he is retelling;
generally he has a sense of detachment and objectivity.
Nick can easily describe the sailors’ or Gatsby’s hopefulness
and awe, but when he experiences it himself he is at a loss for words.
Mattie |