Hating Walter Lee Younger

I despise, nay, loathe Walter Lee Younger for his sexist, hypocritical, and most unforgivably, selfish manner. Although he seems to have developed some sense of manhood as he decides not to sell his pride, he still foolishly, ignorantly tells his sister, "to marry a man with some loot," shortly thereafter. Walter places his own dreams, or better, his own delusions before those of his family, be it his wife's, who he repeatedly insults and debases with his careless, bitter words, or his mother's, or sister's.  "Brother"  amidst his wallowing misery at his failure at being a "man", discounts his suffering on those who love him, and has the audacity to ask Ruth, "Who cares about you?". Repeatedly,  Walter declares he is too good to be a chauffeur, that he is better than those around him, that, "it's hard to find a man on... the Southside who understands [his] kind of thinking. Despite this, despite his belief that serving others is an unworthy form of employment, in his fantasy, " a gardener  will be clipping away at the hedges". He can't be a servant, he's too noble, but others certainly can. If this isn't the greatest hypocrisy, then, "yuk, yuk, yuk." As if this isn't enough, Walter believes just for being a man, he inherently holds the divine right to be the "head of the family," never mind his irresponsibility. Yet, when his mother trusts him with safekeeping the money, he doesn't do as he promised and utilizes the money his mother deemed for his sister to fulfill her dream of becoming a doctor for his own purposes to get his dear, little liquor store. However, when his mother buys the home of her dreams, he rancorously asserts that she "butchered up a dream of [his]". He harangues his mother for squashing his hopes, then proceeds to annihilate  his sister's hopes.  Not only this, but he keeps pressuring his sister to marry, all because, after all, she is a woman, and a woman shouldn't ever aspire to anything besides marriage. He diminishes her dream of doctoring as worthless, telling her to forget it, it'll never happen, yet when he doesn't get what he wants, he acts like a spoiled three-year old brat. Suddenly when he can't have what he desires, even if the rest of his family can, "everything is sad," and he simply drops his work. The list of all that Walter does which I abhor is virtually endless, yet one irony I find especially appropriate is that the more Walter attempts to be a man, the less of a man he is.

 

My Reaction To Walter

Consciousness: A Great Sin

"His was a great sin who first invented consciousness," states John in "Diamond as Big as the Ritz". God invented consciousness, according to the Bible at least. Ergo, Fitzgerald, through John, accuses God of being a sinner for forcing him to realize the gravity of the situation and leave their, not hyperbolas,  mountain of wealth.  By leaving their wealth and their carefree, luxurious lifestyle, they are leaving paradise. As they leave paradise, paralleling how Adam and Eve left Eden, they come to realize that now they must work for their own happiness, they must endure pain, but more terrifyingly, reality. John doesn't want to admit that his happiness was at the cost of the suffering of the slaves, the imprisonment of the sailors, the death of Kismine's various friends. In fact, John purposefully overlooks these "unfortunate murders" that "stained these happy years of progress and expansion". For the absence of this,  John - our own little sinning, selfish, horribly irritating Adam - curses God, declaring him, too, a sinner. To me at least, this seems incredibly ironic, because a sin, since I was but a babe, my mother praising my heavenly Father at my side, has always been to displease Him, God Himself. So, by this rational, God displeased God when he gave Adam and Eve conscious, including embarrassment at their own nudity. Bad God, Fitzgerald seems to say, for allowing all this corruption to fester in greed and money, how dare you have let us be this way, Daddy dearest.

 

Material Without Being Real

"A new world, material without being real"(Fitzgerald 161) appears in the overcrowded malls, the lines in front of Coach, Apple, and Best Buy on the eve of a day of thankfulness. "Real" happiness cannot be bought from the sale of the year down the street, or even the turkey at a family feast, but instead can be encountered meandering the night sky, hopping from star to star, if only you would stop...and look...up. It can be solicited from a smile at the universe in all its grandeur, without all the marketing fiasco blocking the stars from view. The universe gives no assurances, it is not, "a wish-granting factory," (John Green) but it would like some little appreciation, at least once a year. All this wealth does not equal happiness, much as the Macy's commercials disagree. Money can't buy love after all, as Gatsby's empty funeral more than emphasized. No matter the wealth, the silky shirts shipped from Europe, the booze, or the mansion of mansions, none of this is as crucial to living a fulfilling life as society has ingrained that it is. Thanks should not be given for your new iPhone, but for the health of your mother, the idle days of summer, and the laughter that leaves your liver where you stomach should be and your jaw near broken.