Discuss the appeal of Good Character in The Great Gatsby.
After Jay Gatsby loses the love of his life, he sets out on a rhetorical mission to win her back. He needs to find a way to persuade Daisy that she loves him more than the man she married instead of him. In fact, he feels the need to persuade her that she has only ever loved him, and that the two of them are destined to be together. So for the next several years, Gatsby will begin crafting a strategy to make himself more appealing to his audience (Daisy). How does he try to garner this appeal? He concentrates on enhancing the appeal of his character (ie, ethos).Like many boys from the wrong side of the tracks, Gatsby is sensitive about his lack of means and his low social standing. His humble beginnings have shaped his character – for better and for worse – and he imagines that this lack of polish and sophistication ultimately led Daisy to reject him and accept the proposal of that dashing polo player from Yale University, Tom Buchanan.Tom’s character, unlike Gatsby’s, has been shaped by the money, the values, and the prejudices of the extremely well-off. And, as Gatsby sees it, that’s the character of the man Daisy prefers. So Gatsby sets out to re-write his character, to out-Tom Tom. Everything he does after returning home from WWI is part of his effort or self-reinvention. Step by step, he constructs a newcharacter for himself, a sort of mask or role he will wear in order to woo Daisy away from Tom.This rhetorical effort of persuasion is what I want you to analyze here. What traits of character does Gatsby imagine Daisy prefers? How does he set out to embody those traits? How successfully does he embody them? How well does he read Daisy’s own character and the kind of man she desires? And ultimately, SPOILER ALERT, what are the fatal flaws in Gatsby’s rhetorical strategy that cause him to lose Daisy forever?You’ll want to keep the Lecture Note on Ethos handy while you write this and to refer directly to Aristotle’s two theories of the ethical appeal – both of which are brought to bear in Gatsby’s illfated courtship. And you’ll want to read and re-read Chapter 7 of the novel – the climax of the rhetorical duel between Gatsby and Tom.
