"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 steeple, for half an hour."
I never really got to express my ideas on this quote to anyone besides Mr. McCarthy and not like anyone reads this but here I go. Now the irony in my analysis is I am agnostic, yet I always seem to interpret literature through religious allusions I see fit. As we have discussed in class, the quote is positioned in such a way that one could easily brush over it with little thought as it seems to be Nick daydreaming outside. However, this all changes when Kant is alluded. When Kant stared at the steeple, he was thinking very deeply about morality and realty. This means that Nick too is not just looking at the mansion, but he is so enraptured in his thoughts he can't look away as the mansion invokes a symbolic representation. The representation is ambiguous of course. Basically, The mansion relates to that of a steeple where Gatsby is God, often rumored over and sought to find the truth laying behind the man. However, the advocate for god or Gatsby is Gatsby himself, lowering his credibility that much of the author, Nick. Getting back to Nick. This quote is an important development of the character as he is questioning something like Kant has. What that is exactly, not quite sure maybe industry and capitalism during that time period or whether he should do something in the situation of the love triangle between Gatsby, Daisy and Tom. And finally once again, the quote is placed in an odd position in the story as we are more intrigued about Gatsby and Daisy getting together. However, adultery is a sin and while the reader is very tempted to continue reading about the lovers, we are taken to Nick and sort of brush over this quote. While this quote is pure, to an extent, as it alludes to a God like figure. So the author used a clever mind game that most of us probably fell for. #TemptationGotMeLike
That's basically it. Hope you had your mind blown or something along the lines of that.
