The eNotes Blog Sylvia Fitz in Time forGatsby

Sylvia Fitz in Time forGatsby Anyone who has ever marked up a page of The Great Gatsby, youre in good company. Dangerous Minds this week posted a page from Sylvia Plaths own copy, complete with annotations. But of course, as theyre Sylvia Plaths, we inevitably find ourselves reading into them The excerpt comes from the first chapter of the novel. In it, Daisy tells Nick and company her reaction to the birth of her daughter. Heres exactly what Plath found so interesting on the page: She told me it was a girl, and so I turned my head away and wept. ‘All right,’ I said, ‘I’m glad it’s a girl. And I hope she’ll be a fool that’s the best thing a girl can be in the world, a beautiful little fool.’ â€Å"You see I think everything’s terrible anyhow,† she went on in a convinced way. â€Å"Everybody thinks so -nthe most advanced people. And I  know. I’ve been everywhere and seen everything and done everything.† Her eyes flashed around her in a defiant way, rather like Tom’s, and she laughed with thrilling scorn. â€Å"Sophisticated God, I’m sophisticated!† In the margin beside the highlighted second paragraph, Plath wrote the comment lennui. So  whereas Nick felt the basic insincerity of what she had said, Plath herself felt Daisy to be suffering from listlessness. Was she sympathetic to Daisys cynical views of the world? Seemingly, the passage resonated enough with Plath for her to mark it up like that. But should we take meaning from it, or simply chalk it up to active reading? Any thoughts eNoters?