How I noticed difference of interpretations in cultures by The Great Gatsby

1. The Great Gatsby

More than the novel itself, The Great Gatsby left me with a huge impact in its wake – it was an after-class discussion which made me stunned the most. When I was in middle-school, I discussed whether Gatsby is great after reading the novel with my peers. However, nine out of ten students evaluated that the word ‘great’ in the title is merely used as a satire – that Gatsby, is closer to ‘obssessive fool’ than a great character. Even my teacher interpreted in this way. Shockingly, some of the famous Korean critics was also in favor of this interpretation. To them, Gatsby was not truly "great" at all. Below are the comments made by famous Korean critics. 

“[Gatsby’s life] is not great …. Greatness is no more than a satire of Gatsby’s foolish act and his death.”

(강준만, 미국은 세계를 어떻게 훔쳤는가(How America Stole the world), translation made by writer)

“This novel is not about how great Gatsby is. The irony of the word ‘great’ is merely a sarcastic remark. Therefore, ‘great Gatsby’ is not ‘great Gatsby,' but rather contains a remark of ‘Gatsby is SUCH a great guy.' I wanted to translate the novel in this way.”  

(김석희, 위대한 개츠비(The Great Gatsby), translation made by writer)

Different from Korean critics and the students I discussed, readers of the book commonly agree that the reason why Gatsby is “great” as the title shows, is that of this ‘passion’ and his ‘strive to reach his ideal.' Gatsby was the only one who wasn’t corrupted by foul dust and materialism. However, Gatsby’s obsessive effort to restore the past and reclaim Daisy also makes Gatsby naïve and foolish. Gatsby’s ultimate goal, Daisy, is not worthy of dedicating one’s entire life. Daisy’s sense of entitlement, her limited empathy, and her inability to make difficult choices leads the reader to doubt Gatsby’s greatness. Also, he uses unscrupulous means to gather wealth. Finally, the result of pursuing his goal is a failure. His pursuit of his dream blinded him to view the reality as it is. By this aloofness, Gatsby collapses – becoming the architect of his own downfall. Because of this reason, the title of the novel The Great Gatsby contains an irony; both of the interpretation of ‘great’ in the title coexist. 

(This video might help you to understand the context and the meaning of the title The Great Gatsby)

The main difference in the understanding happens here: If one strives to reach his goal when the goal is not worthy, is he truly ‘great’? The first interpretation of ‘great’ in the title  - that Gatsby is truly great – is based on the perception that no matter how worthless one’s goal is. If one is passionately working hard to reach a certain goal, he deserves to be called ‘great.' The second interpretation of ‘great’ in the title – that ‘great’ is merely used as a satire – not only judges the process towards the goal, but also the goal itself and the consequence. The goal Gatsby pursue and the consequence of Gatsby’s action was both poor.

2. Perspective and Brain

After discussing with my classmates, I acknowledged that the difference of interpreting "great" in the title is due to one's perspective - and this might be related to one's tendency to rely on one side of the brain than the other. 

As shown in the picture, it is commonly known that our brain has two hemispheres, which do distinctively different work. Roger Sperry, who first identified this difference by Spilt Brain Theory, famously said “The great pleasure and feeling in my right brain is more than any left brain can find the words to tell you” which explains the basic difference between Left and Right brain. While there’s no such concept as ‘right-brained person’ or ‘left-brained person,' each utilizes each hemisphere of the brain in different degree. For example, Leonardo Da Vinci harnesses right brain over the left brain, while Issac Newton utilizes left brain over right brain. Of course, there should be a qualification made – even though particular tasks tend to be handled by different hemispheres of the brain, these two hemispheres constantly interact with each other to do even simple jobs. However, it is a scientifically proven fact that each’s degree of utilizing each hemisphere of the brain.

 As depicted in the diagram, while a person who relies strongly on his left brain perceives information in a serial order, a person who relies strongly on his right brain perceives information holistically. Since right-brains are apt to view the world widely, they also view the goal itself and the consequence when evaluating one’s process. 

3. East and West

Interestingly, this difference of reliance on each hemisphere is also related to the cultural region one is living. If you examine these pictograms made by designer Yang Liu, you might notice that these pictograms don’t need further explanation. While East Asians tend to live in a unit of people, Westerners tend to live individually. When East Asians hide his/her opinion to the public, Westerners says it out loud. While Westerners believe that each has a set of characteristics and is mainly in control of one’s behavior, East Asians believe that it is influenced by a certain group one is incorporated. While East-Asians view the world holistically, Westerners view the world analytically. While Westerners focus on one’s inherent characteristic, Easterners focus on the situation surrounding oneself. While East-Asians value experience, Westerners value logic.

When we examine the differences in perception between East-Asians and Westerners and the differences between Right brain and Left brain, we can glimpse that they are more than similar.

In The Master and His Emissary by Ian Mcgilchrist, Mcgilchrist confesses that there are ‘not much’ evidence yet to prove the exact relationship. However, he deduced from the similarities and made a valid conclusion:

"there are differences between the way in which Westerners and East Asians see the world, and that these have something to do with the balance of the hemispheres. More specifically, …, a greater reliance in the West on the left hemisphere, and there is not even a single difference suggesting a greater reliance on the right.” (The Master and His Emissary, p.458)

This doesn’t mean that East Asian culture relies on the right hemisphere and Western culture on the left. They rely on both hemispheres, as mentioned earlier. However, it is certain that each culture relies on one hemisphere over the other. 

4. Back to The Great Gatsby

Based on the Split Brain theory and the cultural differences between East and West, the reason why so many Koreans often think that ‘great’ in the title conveys only a meaning of irony, is because of their perspective and their reliance on the right brain. They view the world broadly, considering the goal and the consequence one of the measure to evaluate one’s actions.

The reason why the novel The Great Gatsby had such a great impact on me was that it was the first novel that made me realize the difference of interpretation due to culture and region, even though it may be faint. I expected similar answers for the people from different cultures, thinking that no matter what culture one is involved in, they'll all get the ambiguous meaning in the word "Great" in the title. However, according to my experience and Korean critics, it was hard for Koreans to actually absorb and understand the interpretation that Gatsby can be truly great because they also evaluate the goal itself as well as one's process to reach the goal. The word ‘Great’ in the title contains both the literal meaning of greatness, as well as the irony of the word. However, interpreting ‘great’ as its literal meaning is closer to the interpretation of Left-brained way, while interpreting it as an irony is closer to the interpretation of Right-brained way. It would be overgeneralization if one argues that all East-Asians think Gatsby is not great, and all Westerners think Gatsby is great – and that is not even right because there’s no such thing as ‘definite’ interpretation. However, considering the difference in perception of East-Asians and Westerners, an interpretation that ‘great’ in the title is used for an irony is closer to East-Asian style interpretation, while an interpretation that considers ‘great’ as its meaning is closer to Western-style interpretation.